Michael Dirda also argues against being too condemnatory: "So the verdict is clear: Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were . . . human. They behaved badly sometimes, made mistakes and inadvertently harmed those they claimed to love. And yet I find it hard to judge them as harshly as I suspect some other readers will. A Frenchman who liked pretty girls, an intellectual woman who was lonely for physical love -- Just appalling! Utter depravity! Those existentialists always were in league with the devil. Sometimes even philosophers and moralists fail to live up to their own highest ideals. But does that negate the importance of their public example or the value of their writing? ... Fundamentally, Sartre pursued as pure an intellectual life as one could ask -- he worked like a demon, gave away his money faster than he earned it, helped and supported those he loved, and tirelessly contributed to, or contested with, the literature, politics and philosophy of his time. For 50 years, he and Beauvoir campaigned on every front to free the human spirit from its mind-forged manacles. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101301640.html
Michael Dirda also argues against being too condemnatory:
"So the verdict is clear: Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were . . . human. They behaved badly sometimes, made mistakes and inadvertently harmed those they claimed to love. And yet I find it hard to judge them as harshly as I suspect some other readers will. A Frenchman who liked pretty girls, an intellectual woman who was lonely for physical love -- Just appalling! Utter depravity! Those existentialists always were in league with the devil. Sometimes even philosophers and moralists fail to live up to their own highest ideals. But does that negate the importance of their public example or the value of their writing? ... Fundamentally, Sartre pursued as pure an intellectual life as one could ask -- he worked like a demon, gave away his money faster than he earned it, helped and supported those he loved, and tirelessly contributed to, or contested with, the literature, politics and philosophy of his time. For 50 years, he and Beauvoir campaigned on every front to free the human spirit from its mind-forged manacles.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101301640.html
Underground newspapers are notoriously under-read, under-circulated and over-persecuted. But the case of La Cause du Peuple, the organ of France's outlawed Maoist proletarian movement, is extreme. It is not printed to be read, but to be seized by the authorities. Since it began two years ago, the bimonthly paper has had three editors. The first two are in jail for inciting public disorder. Their conviction last May touched off clashes reminiscent of the 1968 student uprisings in Paris. The third editor is Jean-Paul Sartre, 65. The father of existentialism and refuser of the Nobel Prize explains that he did not accept the editorship so much "to defend La Cause du Peuple as to defend the liberty of the press." He does not align himself with the rabid left-wing advice blazed in La Cause's headlines to "Enlist everybody in the Guerrillas." <...> Then the police arrest everyone giving away, selling or reading the paper. Everyone, that is, except prominent people and, of course, Sartre and De Beauvoir, who stay on to deliver diatribes about the rape of press freedom. The government's decision not to arrest him galls Sartre. "I am not convicted, nor am I interrogated," he says. "But the printer of the paper is apprehended." It was De Gaulle who once expressed the absurdity of arresting Sartre for his writings and actions. "One doesn't arrest Voltaire." "Print, and Be Seized" - Time (Monday, Nov. 16, 1970)
Since it began two years ago, the bimonthly paper has had three editors. The first two are in jail for inciting public disorder. Their conviction last May touched off clashes reminiscent of the 1968 student uprisings in Paris. The third editor is Jean-Paul Sartre, 65.
The father of existentialism and refuser of the Nobel Prize explains that he did not accept the editorship so much "to defend La Cause du Peuple as to defend the liberty of the press." He does not align himself with the rabid left-wing advice blazed in La Cause's headlines to "Enlist everybody in the Guerrillas."
<...> Then the police arrest everyone giving away, selling or reading the paper. Everyone, that is, except prominent people and, of course, Sartre and De Beauvoir, who stay on to deliver diatribes about the rape of press freedom.
The government's decision not to arrest him galls Sartre. "I am not convicted, nor am I interrogated," he says. "But the printer of the paper is apprehended." It was De Gaulle who once expressed the absurdity of arresting Sartre for his writings and actions. "One doesn't arrest Voltaire."
"Print, and Be Seized" - Time (Monday, Nov. 16, 1970)
Especially in its current form, mindless consumerism appeals to me as a mind-forged manacle. Where lies the balance between unconscious submission to it and human erring, that is, aware of its existence but giving into it for own pleasure?
