Posted on 06/21/2005 6:24:10 PM PDT by Loyalist
Despite the symposiums and commemorative events celebrating his life, philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre appears to be fading as a French cultural icon.
France celebrated the 100th anniversary of Sartre's birth Tuesday with a number of activities, including a National Library exhibit featuring letters, photos, interviews and manuscripts that belonged to the famed father of existentialism, who died in 1980.
However, organizers say the exhibit, which runs until Aug. 21, has drawn a disappointing number of visitors.
Sartre is often credited with bringing philosophy to street level and praised for his open criticism of the state, his rejection of the bourgeois society from which he came and for taking unpopular opinions on political issues.
However, Sartre enthusiasts bemoan the fact that the general public today knows little about him or his philosophies, including his belief – published in his famous treatise Being and Nothingness – that people are born without meaning in their lives and are free to determine their own "essence."
"I have no recollection," 22-year-old Jean-Francois Vergnoux admitted to the Associated Press. "It's terrible – it's total emptiness when I think about him."
His fans complain that the Café de Flore in the Left Bank area of Paris, where the prolific Sartre and partner Simone de Beauvoir wrote and held court with other left-wing intellectuals, is now filled with tourists. They also decry the fact that few of his plays, which include No Exit, are regularly performed in French theatres or taught to students.
"France hated him when he was alive and shuns him in death," said philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, author of Sartre: The Philosopher of the Twentieth Century. "He is treated like a pornographer."
Sartre was born in Paris in 1905 to naval officer Jean-Baptiste Sartre and Anne-Marie Schweitzer, a cousin of medical missionary Albert Schweitzer. His father died while he was a toddler and he was raised by his mother and grandfather, who introduced him to classical literature.
He went on to study at the elite École Normale Supérieure, where he met fellow student de Beauvoir. The two graduated at the top of their class in 1929 and would became life-long companions.
Sartre became a university lecturer and writer, spending a brief stint in the French Army during the Second World War. Later, he became involved in the French Resistance and developed into a political activist, eventually co-founding the left-leaning Liberation newspaper.
His philosophy of existentialism was in vogue from the 1940s through the 1960s, during which time he continued to rebel and make headlines worldwide. In 1964, for example, he rejected the Nobel Prize for Literature, spurning the prestigious and lucrative literary award as a bourgeois honour.
His prolific writing continued right up until his death in April 1980, when about 80,000 mourners attended his funeral.
"Sartre can be used to decode the sickness that France is living today," said Annie Cohen-Solal, author of a best-selling Sartre biography, referring to the atmosphere since the country voted to reject the European Union constitution last month.
"He plays the role of revealing the identity crisis," she said.
What better way to honour the philosopher of nothingness than to think nothing of him?
Sartre's philosophy builds nothing, inspires no one, but leaves a vacuum wherever it goes. It has left one in France's intellectual and cultural life, which radical Islam is now filling.
Men will not believe in nothing forever.
Another dead frog. Pity.
We had this quack rammed down our throats in college. He is the reason I lost interest in philosophy. What a boor.
Sounds very, very French.
"Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have."
Jean-Paul Sartre
Yep. I was there last week. All was fine until a bunch a middle aged Californians in shorts started snapping pictures and talking loud.
C'est absurd!
Didn't they all? That's why the Heinies had such a difficult time controlling the country between June 1940 until it was finally liberated by the 2d French Armored division in August 1944. Oh, and I forgot the Red Army - they helped too. /s
"We had this quack rammed down our throats in college. He is the reason I lost interest in philosophy. What a boor."
Yeah - Thank God we had Nietszche in the same course, too - tho he really is'nt a nihilist like Sartre.
FYI - Nihilist is the name the commies had before they were commies.
Darn. Old-style pornographs are so hard to bring along to parties, too.
Sartre was born in Paris in 1905 to naval officer Jean-Baptiste Sartre and Anne-Marie Schweitzer, a cousin of medical missionary Albert Schweitzer. His father died while he was a toddler and he was raised by his mother and grandfather, who introduced him to classical literature.[emphasis added]
The French are sexually precocious, fathering children even while they are toddlers. It also explains why the French navy has not done much, with toddlers comprising most of the officer corps.
I'm still trying to figure out the closing remarks of the article: "Sartre can be used to decode the sickness that France is living today," said Annie Cohen-Solal, author of a best-selling Sartre biography, referring to the atmosphere since the country voted to reject the European Union constitution last month. "He plays the role of revealing the identity crisis," she said.
I suppose this refers to the discovery of the essential NON of French existence by the average citizens, or perhaps the rejection of the elite existential NON that is the EuroConstitution?
OTOH, Roman Polanski is treated like a human being. How strange.
My mother made me read Sarte and Simone De Beauvoir when I was a teenager. She thought it would make me "intellectual" but the only message that I got was, what miserable, angry, bitter, depressed stupid turds these atheist liberals are.
"To do is to be."<-- Nietzsche "To be is to do."<-- Sartre "Do be do be do."<-- Sinatra
Another tired old socialist ninny fades into oblivion. The man who talked about the worth of nothing becomes worth ... nothing.
"I think philosopher in general is an all encompassing word for commie"
Well Nietszche talking about herd mentality is not very communal.
"He is treated like a pornographer."
Yeah but open a book of pornography by Sartre, and you will see...nothing! Rien!
"Life has no meaning the moment you loose the illusion of being eternal." --Jean-Paul Sartre
Huh?
ah, nothingness, the essence of french thought incarnate...
He no longer thinks, therefore he ain't.
Every now and then, there is a little shred of justice in this world. The decline of Sartre's reputation is a case in point.
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