And what a perfect juxtaposition of opposites, class critic Fussell and classy Lady Warnock. (Give her a listen, she sounds straight from Central Casting.)
Jean-Paul Sartre, his companion Simone de Beauvoir, and their cohort Albert Camus were Resistance fighters as well as French intellectuals. "Paris needed a philosophy that would give to individuals a belief in themselves and their own powers," says Lady W., and that's what JPS and his cohort tried to give them. That’s important to remember, when considering the extremity of some of their statements. They were up against the wall, with Nazis in the parlor. And they’re on tap today in CoPhi.
[Sartre, Camus @dawn... roads to freedom... deB SEP,IEP... "Stand By Your Man: The strange liaison of Sartre and Beauvoir...trees and bridges... Sartre's cat]
Warnock seems to find some of Sartre's terms and concepts puzzling: existence precedes essence, "whatever that means!" But I always thought this was one of Sartre's clearer statements: "if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it." And we are it.
What did Sartre mean by "freedom"? Inquiring minds want to know how any of us can be really free, when we still have payments to make on the fridge. Well, that's the crux of Sartre's "Roads to Freedom." Isn't it, Mrs. P? -"We'll ask him."
"What was Jean-Paul like?"
-"He didn't join in the fun much. Just sat there thinking..."
- “So this is hell. I’d never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the “burning marl.” Old wives’ tales!There’s no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS–OTHER PEOPLE!”
- “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. “Life has no meaning a priori … It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.”
- “Life has no meaning, the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.”
- “Words are loaded pistols.”
- “Life begins on the other side of despair.”
- “Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being – like a worm.”
- “There is no love apart from the deeds of love; no potentiality of love other than that which is manifested in loving; there is no genius other than that which is expressed in works of art.”
- “An individual chooses and makes himself.”
- “If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I’m still waiting, it’s all been to seduce women basically.”
- “It is disgusting — Why must we have bodies?”
- “I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.”
- “Life is a useless passion.”
- “There is only one day left, always starting over: It is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”
And so it goes. Picture him dropping his verbal cluster-bombs in a dingy Parisian cafe, ringed by his own unfiltered smoke and an adoring cultish audience, all wondering if he and his confreres would live to fight another day. “Useless passion”? Generations of Sartre’s politically (if not metaphysically) free French successors might disagree. But removed from that context, I find these weaponish words hard to love. At least the guy who said hell is other people liked cats.
- “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
- “She was ready to deny the existence of space and time rather than admit that love might not be eternal.”
- “A man attaches himself to woman — not to enjoy her, but to enjoy himself. ”
- “If you live long enough, you’ll see that every victory turns into a defeat.”
- “I am incapable of conceiving infinity and yet I do not accept finity.”
- “Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.”
- “I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.”
- “Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female — whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.”
- “Fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion a them that the daughters have to conform to.”
- “Why one man rather than another? It was odd. You find yourself involved with a fellow for life just because he was the one that you met when you were nineteen.”
- “Self-consciousness is not knowledge but a story one tells about oneself.”
Some stories ring truer than others though, no? De Beauvoir rings truer than Sartre, most of the time, for me. And Albert Camus with his Sisyphean view of life offers the starkest challenge when he says the ultimate question in philosophy is that of suicide. “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” More coffee! It makes me happy, and it’s the braver choice. But no room for cream, please.
Camus also said
- “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
- “There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.”
- “I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.”
- “Always go too far, because that’s where you’ll find the truth.”
- “Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.”
Albert Camus gave us the Existential version of Sisyphus, and the “fundamental question of philosophy”:
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.”
OK, got it. My answer is yes, of course life is worth living. Living’s not always easy, but there’s usually something to show for your hard work. It can be a source of happiness. (And what does Sisyphus do after hours?)
The next question, having consented to live, is how. Politics is supposed to help with that. But in this perpetual season of political discontent, when the polls say all politicians and parties are uniformly scorned by the populace, there have been moments when many of us have wondered if it’s all worth it. Camus felt the same.
“Every time I hear a political speech or I read those of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing which sounded human. It is always the same words telling the same lies. And the fact that men accept this, that the people’s anger has not destroyed these hollow clowns, strikes me as proof that men attribute no importance to the way they are governed; that they gamble – yes, gamble – with a whole part of their life and their so called ‘vital interests.”
Politics was supposed to be all about freeing the people to pursue happiness, Mr. Jefferson said. If it’s hard to imagine Sisyphus happy, it may be harder to expect that from our politics these days. But we must keep on pushing.
Sisyphus, for such a grim figure, has been a ripe source of amusement for a lot of us.
Paul Fussell (rhymes with Russell) wrote Class: A Guide Through the American Status System to make fun of both the concept of social "class" and the hypocrisy or obtuseness of those who deny that there's any such thing in the American democracy. Tongue lodged semi-firmly in cheek, he named nine classes-including one based on "the place you went to school".
The only escape from class in America, Fussell allowed, is via "category X." It includes people like Joyce Carol Oates, Albert Einstein, and Huck Finn, secure and dignified and unconcerned with class. It was a big joke, but it touched a big nerve. Clearly an area of sharp sensitivity, in our less than entirely secure and dignified USA.
And another such area is suggested by his swipe at "pathetic administrators of sad-sack Middle Western teachers' colleges which have been transformed by name only into universities" and "third-rate colleges and 'universities" whose curiosity begins and ends with "money, sports, 'entertainment,' or hobbies." We're not midwestern, in Murfreesboro, but we did begin as a teachers' college 100+ years ago. Some of our True Blue ears should be ringing.
The Playboy Philosopher. Seriously? Sure. Not everyone reads his rag just for the pictures. "Life is too short to be living somebody else's dream," says the Bunny Emperor. And,
My religion and the spiritual side of my life come from a sense of connection to the humankind and nature on this planet and in the universe. I am in overwhelming awe of it all: It is so fantastic, so complex, so beyond comprehension. What does it all mean -- if it has any meaning at all? But how can it all exist if it doesn't have some kind of meaning? I think anyone who suggests that they have the answer is motivated by the need to invent answers, because we have no such answers.So... let's party? He'd fit right in at the Greek Bacchanal or Medieval Carnival.
Carlin Romano seems to side with Hef's sympathetic biographer: "Hef had, in regard to sex, consumerism, pop culture, and, yes, women's rights, 'profoundly altered American life and values." Gloria Steinem was not a fun, but she was a bunny.
And at 86, he married a 26-year old. I really don't know what else to say, except: I wish I'd bought shares in Viagra.
No comments:
Post a Comment