WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.319 Imagine being handed the steering wheel to a 00:00:02.319 --> 00:00:04.940 car that is already speeding down a highway at 00:00:04.940 --> 00:00:07.299 80 miles per hour. Oh, wow. Yeah. And a voice 00:00:07.299 --> 00:00:10.580 right next to you tells you, you didn't ask to 00:00:10.580 --> 00:00:12.839 be in this car, but you are completely in charge 00:00:12.839 --> 00:00:14.779 of where it goes. And you have absolutely no 00:00:14.779 --> 00:00:18.120 excuses if you crash. I mean, that's terrifying. 00:00:18.519 --> 00:00:21.480 It really is. But that speeding car is basically 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:24.140 the perfect metaphor for how the 20th century 00:00:24.140 --> 00:00:27.420 French philosopher Jean -Paul Sartre viewed human 00:00:27.420 --> 00:00:30.269 existence. It's a massive level of responsibility 00:00:30.269 --> 00:00:34.070 because you're entirely at the wheel, but without 00:00:34.070 --> 00:00:36.500 a map. And without any destination programmed 00:00:36.500 --> 00:00:38.899 into the GPS, you know, you literally have to 00:00:38.899 --> 00:00:40.939 invent the destination as you drive. Exactly. 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:43.719 So today we are taking a deep dive into the life 00:00:43.719 --> 00:00:46.560 of this incredibly complex figure. We're using 00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:50.840 his extensive Wikipedia biography to really explore 00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:53.460 a massive paradox. And it is a huge paradox. 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:56.280 Right. Because how does a man who built an entire 00:00:56.280 --> 00:00:59.240 philosophical system around absolute, unyielding 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:01.899 individual freedom, like navigate one of the 00:01:01.899 --> 00:01:03.859 messiest, most restrictive centuries in human 00:01:03.859 --> 00:01:07.049 history? Yeah, the 20th century was it was not 00:01:07.049 --> 00:01:09.430 kind to individual freedom. Not at all. We are 00:01:09.430 --> 00:01:13.810 talking about a life spanning global wars, brutal 00:01:13.810 --> 00:01:18.349 military occupations and just extreme political 00:01:18.349 --> 00:01:21.590 movements. It's the ultimate stress test of a 00:01:21.590 --> 00:01:23.730 worldview, I think, because it's one thing to 00:01:23.730 --> 00:01:26.329 sit in a Parisian cafe and write abstract essays 00:01:26.329 --> 00:01:28.829 about absolute freedom. Sure. But it's an entirely 00:01:28.829 --> 00:01:30.969 different thing to apply those theories when 00:01:30.969 --> 00:01:33.670 the actual gears of history are actively trying 00:01:33.670 --> 00:01:36.150 to crush you. Totally. But before we drop Sartre 00:01:36.150 --> 00:01:39.129 into the middle of, like, World War II, we really 00:01:39.129 --> 00:01:42.290 need to understand the core rule book he operated 00:01:42.290 --> 00:01:45.010 by. Right, the foundation of it all. Yeah. And 00:01:45.010 --> 00:01:46.870 the phrase that pretty much everyone associates 00:01:46.870 --> 00:01:50.049 with him is, uh, existence precedes essence. 00:01:50.409 --> 00:01:53.049 Which is, it's a dense phrase. Yeah. But to unpack 00:01:53.049 --> 00:01:55.150 that, let's actually look at an analogy he used 00:01:55.150 --> 00:01:57.090 in his own writings, which is the paper cutter. 00:01:57.170 --> 00:01:59.390 Okay, a paper cutter. Yeah. So think about an 00:01:59.390 --> 00:02:01.769 object like a paper cutter before it ever physically 00:02:01.769 --> 00:02:04.359 exists on a desk. And artisan had a concept of 00:02:04.359 --> 00:02:06.299 it. Like a blueprint in their head. Exactly. 00:02:06.540 --> 00:02:08.740 They knew its purpose. It was made to cut paper. 00:02:09.319 --> 00:02:11.900 So that purpose is its essence. Got it. So for 00:02:11.900 --> 00:02:15.780 any object, its essence precedes its existence. 00:02:16.539 --> 00:02:19.639 It's designed to be a specific thing, to serve 00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:22.520 a specific function. OK, let's unpack this. Because 00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:25.039 Sartre's argument is that humans are completely 00:02:25.039 --> 00:02:27.719 different, right? Yes, fundamentally different. 00:02:27.800 --> 00:02:32.020 Because in his atheistic view, There is no creator. 00:02:32.259 --> 00:02:36.419 There's no divine artisan who drew up a blueprint 00:02:36.419 --> 00:02:38.560 for what a human being is supposed to be. Right. 00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:41.360 We just arrived. We exist first. We just show 00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:44.560 up in that speeding car. Exactly. Without a predefined 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:46.860 purpose. Yeah. And because there is no creator 00:02:46.860 --> 00:02:49.599 to give us an essence, we just have to invent 00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:51.979 our own essence through our actions. Which is 00:02:51.979 --> 00:02:54.560 heavy. It is. We are, as he famously put it, 00:02:54.759 --> 00:02:56.580 condemned to be free. Condemned to be free. But 00:02:56.580 --> 00:02:58.860 wait, even if there's no divine creator, we still 00:02:58.860 --> 00:03:01.360 have like... biology and psychology and social 00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:03.620 conditioning, right? Well, sure. I mean, I didn't 00:03:03.620 --> 00:03:05.780 choose my genetics. I didn't choose the era I 00:03:05.780 --> 00:03:08.319 was born into. Doesn't all of that act as a sort 00:03:08.319 --> 00:03:10.860 of blueprint we have to follow? He definitely 00:03:10.860 --> 00:03:13.219 acknowledged that. Because if I'm completely 00:03:13.219 --> 00:03:15.719 free, does that mean I'm responsible for literally 00:03:15.719 --> 00:03:18.860 everything I do? Isn't that? Utterly exhausting. 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:21.979 It is entirely exhausting and Sartre recognized 00:03:21.979 --> 00:03:25.000 that those limitations exist He actually called 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:27.520 them our facticity, you know the facts of our 00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:31.300 condition But he argued that your true freedom 00:03:31.300 --> 00:03:33.800 lies in what you actually do with those facts 00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:35.879 Oh, I see like you didn't choose your genetics, 00:03:35.919 --> 00:03:39.060 but you choose how you live with them but yes 00:03:39.060 --> 00:03:41.639 carrying the weight of every choice is an immense 00:03:41.639 --> 00:03:45.159 burden and Because it brings such immense anguish 00:03:45.159 --> 00:03:47.810 people try to escape it How do they escape it? 00:03:47.870 --> 00:03:50.469 They do what he called acting in bad faith, or 00:03:50.469 --> 00:03:53.789 in French, mauves fois. They lie to themselves. 00:03:54.050 --> 00:03:57.129 So think about a time you told yourself, I have 00:03:57.129 --> 00:03:59.310 to stay in this terrible job because the economy 00:03:59.310 --> 00:04:02.409 is bad. Right. A classic excuse. Sartre would 00:04:02.409 --> 00:04:04.590 look right at you and say, that is bad faith. 00:04:04.770 --> 00:04:06.650 Absolutely. You are choosing the security of 00:04:06.650 --> 00:04:10.110 the job over the terror of quitting. You're pretending 00:04:10.110 --> 00:04:12.270 you are like the paper cutter, just an object 00:04:12.270 --> 00:04:14.969 reacting to the world rather than a free subject 00:04:14.969 --> 00:04:17.579 shaping it. What's fascinating here is the mechanism 00:04:17.579 --> 00:04:20.379 Sartre actually suggests we use to break out 00:04:20.379 --> 00:04:23.040 of this bad faith, to achieve what he called 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:26.360 authenticity. How do we do that? He points to 00:04:26.360 --> 00:04:28.959 the concept of death consciousness. That sounds 00:04:28.959 --> 00:04:31.600 intense. It is. He says we spend most of our 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:33.980 lives distracted, pretending we have infinite 00:04:33.980 --> 00:04:37.310 time. which allows us to just defer our choices 00:04:37.310 --> 00:04:40.209 forever. We just put things off. Exactly. But 00:04:40.209 --> 00:04:43.209 he argued that truly realizing our mortality 00:04:43.209 --> 00:04:46.209 understanding that one day we will permanently 00:04:46.209 --> 00:04:49.310 become static objects in the ground, devoid of 00:04:49.310 --> 00:04:51.829 choice, is the only way to wake up. Because it 00:04:51.829 --> 00:04:54.129 puts a ticking clock on everything. Right. Facing 00:04:54.129 --> 00:04:56.589 death forces a localized crisis. It turns that 00:04:56.589 --> 00:04:59.050 exhausting burden of freedom into the ultimate 00:04:59.050 --> 00:05:01.389 act of taking ownership of your life, you know, 00:05:01.389 --> 00:05:03.029 while you still have the agency to actually do 00:05:03.029 --> 00:05:05.399 so. The concept of death consciousness isn't 00:05:05.399 --> 00:05:08.370 just like... a fun cafe thought experiment for 00:05:08.370 --> 00:05:11.110 Sartre. No, not at all. He is forced into the 00:05:11.110 --> 00:05:13.550 ultimate test of it when World War Two breaks 00:05:13.550 --> 00:05:16.610 out. Because how do you practice absolute freedom 00:05:16.610 --> 00:05:19.730 when your country is literally conquered by a 00:05:19.730 --> 00:05:22.449 fascist army? It's the ultimate paradox. He actually 00:05:22.449 --> 00:05:26.550 gets drafted as a meteorologist and is captured 00:05:26.550 --> 00:05:29.810 by German troops. He spends nine months as a 00:05:29.810 --> 00:05:31.790 prisoner of war. Yeah, but he manages to get 00:05:31.790 --> 00:05:35.310 released in 1941 and the historical accounts 00:05:35.310 --> 00:05:37.490 in And the sources suggest he may have pulled 00:05:37.490 --> 00:05:40.870 this off by faking poor balance due to his wandering 00:05:40.870 --> 00:05:43.389 right eye. Oh, really? Yeah. He had a condition 00:05:43.389 --> 00:05:46.990 called sensory exotropia. So he supposedly uses 00:05:46.990 --> 00:05:49.870 this medical discharge to regain his civilian 00:05:49.870 --> 00:05:53.769 status and just, uh... returned to occupied Paris. 00:05:54.350 --> 00:05:56.889 But the Paris he returns to completely short 00:05:56.889 --> 00:05:59.589 circuits his expectations. Oh, so? Well, he writes 00:05:59.589 --> 00:06:02.310 about the correct polite behavior of the German 00:06:02.310 --> 00:06:05.170 occupiers. The soldiers weren't like striding 00:06:05.170 --> 00:06:07.550 through the streets with revolvers drawn, shoving 00:06:07.550 --> 00:06:09.350 civilians into the gutters. Right, they weren't 00:06:09.350 --> 00:06:11.910 acting like cartoon villains. No, they were offering 00:06:11.910 --> 00:06:14.230 their seats to old ladies on the metro. They 00:06:14.230 --> 00:06:17.470 were politely asking for directions in this German 00:06:17.470 --> 00:06:19.769 accented French. And this polite occupation was 00:06:19.769 --> 00:06:22.410 a highly calculated form of psychological warfare 00:06:22.410 --> 00:06:24.750 it totally was if we connect this to the bigger 00:06:24.750 --> 00:06:27.980 picture of his philosophy Sartre recognized that 00:06:27.980 --> 00:06:30.759 this correctness caused a really deep moral corruption 00:06:30.759 --> 00:06:33.180 among the Parisians. It's like a burglar breaking 00:06:33.180 --> 00:06:35.360 into your house, but instead of tying you up, 00:06:35.459 --> 00:06:37.699 they start doing your dishes and politely asking 00:06:37.699 --> 00:06:39.800 where you keep the good silverware. That's a 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:41.939 great way to put it. It completely short circuits 00:06:41.939 --> 00:06:45.060 your ability to naturally resist, you know? Exactly. 00:06:45.519 --> 00:06:48.120 Because the occupiers were acting so civilized, 00:06:48.519 --> 00:06:50.920 it kind of tricked the occupied citizens into 00:06:50.920 --> 00:06:53.569 passivity. It gave them an excuse to just go 00:06:53.569 --> 00:06:55.649 about their day -to -day lives. But going about 00:06:55.649 --> 00:06:58.810 your normal day was aiding the occupation. Right. 00:06:59.110 --> 00:07:01.970 The German war machine needed a passive functioning 00:07:01.970 --> 00:07:04.949 French population to make their new order actually 00:07:04.949 --> 00:07:07.990 work. So Sartre observed that it made everyone 00:07:07.990 --> 00:07:11.069 complicit. Because even small interactions felt 00:07:11.069 --> 00:07:14.189 dirty. Exactly. If a soldier politely asked you 00:07:14.189 --> 00:07:16.629 for directions, even if you just mumbled that 00:07:16.629 --> 00:07:19.230 you didn't know and walked away, you felt ashamed. 00:07:19.529 --> 00:07:22.470 The very act of interacting with them on their 00:07:22.470 --> 00:07:25.509 terms felt like collaboration. You could no longer 00:07:25.509 --> 00:07:28.670 act naturally in your own city. And he describes 00:07:28.670 --> 00:07:32.310 this chilling atmosphere in Paris as A sham. 00:07:32.430 --> 00:07:35.089 A sham. Yeah, because the physical architecture 00:07:35.089 --> 00:07:37.990 of the city looked exactly the same. But it was 00:07:37.990 --> 00:07:40.230 completely hollowed out. Like, shock windows 00:07:40.230 --> 00:07:42.790 had empty wine bottles on display because all 00:07:42.790 --> 00:07:45.290 the actual wine had been requisitioned and shipped 00:07:45.290 --> 00:07:48.410 to Germany. Wow. There were barely any cars. 00:07:48.850 --> 00:07:51.529 People survived on awful rations. I mean, Sartre 00:07:51.529 --> 00:07:53.550 himself was living off rabbits sent from the 00:07:53.550 --> 00:07:55.829 countryside by a friend. And he noted these rabbits 00:07:55.829 --> 00:07:58.230 were often so rotting and full of maggots, he 00:07:58.230 --> 00:08:00.329 just had to throw them away. Ugh, that's brutal. 00:08:00.839 --> 00:08:03.339 Honestly, the physical hunger was secondary to 00:08:03.339 --> 00:08:05.379 the paranoia. The psychological toll. Right. 00:08:05.480 --> 00:08:07.600 You'd go to the cafe to floor and the intellectual 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:10.259 conversations were totally stifled. There was 00:08:10.259 --> 00:08:12.759 just this constant fear of informers. People 00:08:12.759 --> 00:08:14.899 were mysteriously vanishing. Just disappearing 00:08:14.899 --> 00:08:17.060 without a trace. Yeah. You'd call a friend, get 00:08:17.060 --> 00:08:20.000 no answer, go to their flat, force the door, 00:08:20.040 --> 00:08:22.680 and just find two chairs with German cigarette 00:08:22.680 --> 00:08:24.720 butts between them on the floor. That is terrifying. 00:08:24.920 --> 00:08:27.860 And when the family asked the Gestapo where they 00:08:27.860 --> 00:08:30.740 went, they were politely sent away with comforting 00:08:30.740 --> 00:08:33.320 words. It was maddening. And this is actually 00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:36.179 the origin of one of his most famous quotes from 00:08:36.179 --> 00:08:39.600 his play No Exit. Hell is other people. Oh, I've 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:43.789 heard that. The French population often referred 00:08:43.789 --> 00:08:47.470 to the Germans as the others, and Sartre intended 00:08:47.470 --> 00:08:50.049 that line partially as a dig at the occupiers 00:08:50.049 --> 00:08:52.429 who were just constantly watching, judging, and 00:08:52.429 --> 00:08:54.690 constraining the freedom of the French. And because 00:08:54.690 --> 00:08:57.769 Sartre realized in occupied Paris that passive 00:08:57.769 --> 00:08:59.809 inaction was actually a choice to collaborate, 00:09:00.129 --> 00:09:02.509 he was backed into a philosophical corner. He 00:09:02.509 --> 00:09:05.429 had to do something. Right. He realized his philosophy 00:09:05.429 --> 00:09:07.549 couldn't just exist in a vacuum. It demanded 00:09:07.549 --> 00:09:09.649 action. Doing nothing is a choice to let the 00:09:09.649 --> 00:09:13.240 oppressors win. Yes. That realization just hurls 00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:15.840 him directly into the messy, highly polarized 00:09:15.840 --> 00:09:18.759 politics of the Cold War. It does. He decides 00:09:18.759 --> 00:09:21.500 that a writer, a philosopher, absolutely must 00:09:21.500 --> 00:09:23.580 be politically engaged. You cannot stand on the 00:09:23.580 --> 00:09:26.460 sidelines. But bringing pure philosophical ideals 00:09:26.460 --> 00:09:29.659 into real world geopolitics gets incredibly messy. 00:09:30.039 --> 00:09:33.360 It creates severe cognitive dissonance. Because 00:09:33.360 --> 00:09:35.840 he embraces Marxism, though he doesn't officially 00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:38.460 join the Communist Party, he enters what one 00:09:38.460 --> 00:09:41.019 contemporary called his ultra -Bolshevik phase. 00:09:41.370 --> 00:09:44.149 And so what does this all mean? I mean this is 00:09:44.149 --> 00:09:46.289 where the contradictions start piling up to an 00:09:46.289 --> 00:09:48.850 almost uncomfortable degree. How so? How does 00:09:48.850 --> 00:09:51.830 a guy who literally wrote the book on individual 00:09:51.830 --> 00:09:55.309 freedom become what critics called a useful idiot 00:09:55.309 --> 00:09:58.450 who justifies authoritarian regimes? Well to 00:09:58.450 --> 00:10:00.470 understand the mechanism of how he justified 00:10:00.470 --> 00:10:02.330 this we really have to look at what you could 00:10:02.330 --> 00:10:04.990 call the existentialist political trap. Okay. 00:10:05.240 --> 00:10:07.679 The sources show he identified so strongly with 00:10:07.679 --> 00:10:10.580 the ultimate goal, which was liberating the oppressed 00:10:10.580 --> 00:10:13.539 working class masses of the world that he became 00:10:13.539 --> 00:10:15.639 hyper focused on the ends over the means. So 00:10:15.639 --> 00:10:18.539 the gold justified the violence. Basically, he 00:10:18.539 --> 00:10:20.240 believed the bourgeois capitalist states were 00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:23.440 fundamentally flawed by nature. Therefore. The 00:10:23.440 --> 00:10:25.580 revolutionary states, like the Soviet Union, 00:10:25.879 --> 00:10:28.399 were the only viable path forward, even if they 00:10:28.399 --> 00:10:30.440 were actively failing to live up to their own 00:10:30.440 --> 00:10:33.799 noble ideals. So he engages in extreme self -censorship. 00:10:33.940 --> 00:10:37.480 Yes, he does. Like in 1950, he actively refuses 00:10:37.480 --> 00:10:39.539 to write about the existence of Soviet labor 00:10:39.539 --> 00:10:42.480 camps. And his justification is fascinating, 00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:45.200 if, you know, baffling. What did he say? He famously 00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:47.679 said the workers of Billincourt must not be deprived 00:10:47.679 --> 00:10:51.009 of their hopes. Billancourt being a major industrial 00:10:51.009 --> 00:10:53.909 suburb of Paris. He essentially decided it was 00:10:53.909 --> 00:10:56.490 better to hide the brutal reality of the gulags 00:10:56.490 --> 00:10:59.309 than to damage the revolutionary enthusiasm of 00:10:59.309 --> 00:11:01.789 the French working class. Right. He felt that 00:11:01.789 --> 00:11:04.289 criticizing the Soviet Union would only give 00:11:04.289 --> 00:11:07.730 ammunition to the capitalist West. For Sartre 00:11:07.730 --> 00:11:10.649 in this period, truth wasn't an abstract objective 00:11:10.649 --> 00:11:13.879 ideal. It was a tool for liberation. If the truth 00:11:13.879 --> 00:11:17.100 hurt the cause, hide it. Exactly. If broadcasting 00:11:17.100 --> 00:11:19.379 a truth harmed the liberation movement, it must 00:11:19.379 --> 00:11:21.679 be suppressed. But his views were constantly 00:11:21.679 --> 00:11:23.879 shifting, trying to balance these geopolitical 00:11:23.879 --> 00:11:26.059 scales. He went back and forth a lot. He did. 00:11:26.399 --> 00:11:29.480 In 1954, after Stalin's death, he visited the 00:11:29.480 --> 00:11:32.240 USSR and claimed it had complete freedom of criticism. 00:11:32.639 --> 00:11:35.659 Which we know wasn't true. Right. But the reality 00:11:35.659 --> 00:11:38.860 of Soviet actions continually tested his allegiance. 00:11:39.080 --> 00:11:42.019 Because just two years later, he heavily condemned 00:11:42.019 --> 00:11:45.139 the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. Oh, OK. 00:11:45.340 --> 00:11:48.080 And later on, he actively protested the expulsion 00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:51.080 of the dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn 00:11:51.080 --> 00:11:52.980 from the Soviet Writers Union. And it wasn't 00:11:52.980 --> 00:11:55.940 just the Soviets either. He was a fierce anti 00:11:55.940 --> 00:11:58.960 -colonialist. He supported the FLN in Algeria, 00:11:58.960 --> 00:12:01.179 which used violence to fight for independence 00:12:01.179 --> 00:12:03.539 from France. Which made him a huge target back 00:12:03.539 --> 00:12:06.940 home. Yeah. That stance resulted in his own apartment 00:12:06.940 --> 00:12:10.620 in Paris being bombed twice by right -wing paramilitaries. 00:12:10.620 --> 00:12:13.799 Wow. And he went to Cuba, met Che Guevara and 00:12:13.799 --> 00:12:16.779 called him the Sartre's most perfect man. He 00:12:16.779 --> 00:12:19.000 even destroyed his close friendship with fellow 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:21.320 writer Albert Camus over all this. And the split 00:12:21.320 --> 00:12:24.100 with Camus is deeply illustrative of this political 00:12:24.100 --> 00:12:27.059 trap. Camus rejected political violence entirely. 00:12:27.179 --> 00:12:29.840 Why? He argued that revolutionary movements often 00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:32.820 turn into the very tyrannies they sought to overthrow. 00:12:33.379 --> 00:12:35.860 But Sartre believed violence was an unfortunate 00:12:35.860 --> 00:12:39.139 but necessary mechanism for systemic change. 00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:41.980 He argued that the status quo of colonialism 00:12:41.980 --> 00:12:44.940 was already inherently violent, so violent resistance 00:12:44.940 --> 00:12:47.259 was a justified response. Here's where it gets 00:12:47.259 --> 00:12:51.600 really interesting. Honestly, pretty dark. Because 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:54.919 the tension between Sartre's grand ideals of 00:12:54.919 --> 00:12:57.799 freedom and the real world harm they could cause 00:12:57.799 --> 00:13:00.700 wasn't just political, it was deeply personal. 00:13:00.840 --> 00:13:03.700 The private life. Right. We have to look at his 00:13:03.700 --> 00:13:05.940 lifelong partnership with Simone de Beauvoir, 00:13:06.340 --> 00:13:08.620 who is a brilliant philosopher and feminist in 00:13:08.620 --> 00:13:11.360 her own right. They had a very famous lifelong 00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:13.940 open relationship. They did. They actively and 00:13:13.940 --> 00:13:15.840 intentionally challenged what they considered 00:13:15.840 --> 00:13:18.259 oppressive bourgeois conformity and how people 00:13:18.259 --> 00:13:20.620 were expected to live. live, love, and form families. 00:13:20.740 --> 00:13:22.600 They wanted to build a relationship based on 00:13:22.600 --> 00:13:25.139 an essential truth rather than societal rules. 00:13:25.299 --> 00:13:27.539 But the biography outlines some deeply troubling 00:13:27.539 --> 00:13:29.559 allegations about how they actually practiced 00:13:29.559 --> 00:13:32.759 that freedom. Yes, it does. In 1993, an author 00:13:32.759 --> 00:13:35.419 named Bianca Lamblin, who was actually a former 00:13:35.419 --> 00:13:38.320 student of Beauvoir's, published a memoir alleging 00:13:38.320 --> 00:13:40.899 sexual exploitation by both Sartre and Beauvoir. 00:13:41.539 --> 00:13:43.679 And the accounts in the source text detail a 00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:45.960 really predatory pattern, often referred to as 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:48.600 the trio. The trio. Multiple sources allege that 00:13:48.600 --> 00:13:51.159 Beauvoir, in her capacity as a teacher, would 00:13:51.159 --> 00:13:54.179 seduce young female students, groom them into 00:13:54.179 --> 00:13:56.960 this avant -garde lifestyle, and then essentially 00:13:56.960 --> 00:13:59.440 pass them on to Sartre. It's like finding out 00:13:59.440 --> 00:14:02.059 the architect who designed a beautiful monument 00:14:02.059 --> 00:14:05.320 to human rights used toxic materials that poisoned 00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:07.659 the workers building it. That's a powerful analogy. 00:14:07.899 --> 00:14:09.940 They are operating from this philosophy of radical 00:14:09.940 --> 00:14:12.879 freedom, throwing off societal rules. But does 00:14:12.879 --> 00:14:15.539 that philosophy just become a high -minded excuse 00:14:15.539 --> 00:14:18.120 to ignore mass - of power imbalances? Does it 00:14:18.120 --> 00:14:20.700 become an excuse for predation? This raises an 00:14:20.700 --> 00:14:22.639 important question, and it is perhaps the most 00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:25.460 critical way to apply Sartre's own philosophy 00:14:25.460 --> 00:14:28.470 back onto him. We have to return to his cardinal 00:14:28.470 --> 00:14:31.929 sin, which is bad faith. Lying to oneself. Exactly. 00:14:32.230 --> 00:14:34.970 The listener has to critically analyze whether 00:14:34.970 --> 00:14:38.149 Sartre and Beauvoir were operating in extreme 00:14:38.149 --> 00:14:40.509 bad faith here regarding those relationships. 00:14:40.669 --> 00:14:43.450 But how so? Isn't it just hypocrisy? Well, if 00:14:43.450 --> 00:14:45.909 we view it strictly through his existential lens, 00:14:46.809 --> 00:14:51.190 when celebrated, powerful, middle -aged intellectuals 00:14:51.190 --> 00:14:53.169 enter into relationships with teenage students, 00:14:54.009 --> 00:14:57.570 Is there truly an equal exercise of freedom happening? 00:14:57.710 --> 00:15:00.190 Probably not. Right. Or were Sartre and Beauvoir 00:15:00.190 --> 00:15:02.970 blinding themselves to the inherent coercion 00:15:02.970 --> 00:15:05.590 of their academic and cultural power just to 00:15:05.590 --> 00:15:07.370 justify their own desires? They were ignoring 00:15:07.370 --> 00:15:09.730 the reality of the situation. Yes. If you pretend 00:15:09.730 --> 00:15:11.710 a massive power imbalance doesn't exist, you 00:15:11.710 --> 00:15:13.730 are acting in bad faith. You are pretending the 00:15:13.730 --> 00:15:15.809 situation is an equal meeting of free subjects 00:15:15.809 --> 00:15:18.320 when it clearly is not. And the biography also 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:21.340 notes that in 1977, Sartre and Beauvoir both 00:15:21.340 --> 00:15:24.120 actually signed a petition to decriminalize consensual 00:15:24.120 --> 00:15:26.460 sex between adults and minors in France. They 00:15:26.460 --> 00:15:28.840 did. It really forces you to ask where the boundary 00:15:28.840 --> 00:15:31.320 is between intellectual radicalism and real -world 00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:35.179 harm. That tension is absolutely central to evaluating 00:15:35.179 --> 00:15:38.580 his life. His ideas gave immense power to the 00:15:38.580 --> 00:15:41.139 individual, but his application of those ideas 00:15:41.139 --> 00:15:43.679 often seemingly disregarded the collateral damage. 00:15:43.870 --> 00:15:46.350 And that is the ultimate existential question 00:15:46.350 --> 00:15:49.250 for his legacy. But despite these massive contradictions, 00:15:49.929 --> 00:15:52.470 like the political blind spots, the personal 00:15:52.470 --> 00:15:56.110 exploitation sartre remained an absolute global 00:15:56.110 --> 00:15:58.990 icon. A towering figure. And what's wild is that 00:15:58.990 --> 00:16:01.350 a lot of that enduring fame came from what he 00:16:01.350 --> 00:16:04.649 refused to do. Yes. His legacy is heavily defined 00:16:04.649 --> 00:16:07.820 by refusal. He spent his entire life trying to 00:16:07.820 --> 00:16:09.960 avoid being captured by institutions. Because 00:16:09.960 --> 00:16:13.240 institutions represent a static essence. Exactly. 00:16:13.779 --> 00:16:15.779 And the most famous example of this refusal, 00:16:15.820 --> 00:16:17.919 of course, being the Nobel Prize in Literature 00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:21.139 in 1964. This is crazy to me. He wins the biggest 00:16:21.139 --> 00:16:23.299 prize in the literary world and he becomes the 00:16:23.299 --> 00:16:25.840 first person to ever voluntarily decline it. 00:16:26.059 --> 00:16:28.320 He did. And his reasoning was very consistent 00:16:28.320 --> 00:16:31.179 with his early philosophy. He stated that a writer 00:16:31.179 --> 00:16:33.580 should not allow himself to be turned into an 00:16:33.580 --> 00:16:35.919 institution. He didn't want the label. Right. 00:16:36.179 --> 00:16:38.200 He also said he didn't want to take sides in 00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:41.120 the East versus West cultural struggle by accepting 00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:43.340 an award from a prominent Western organization. 00:16:43.919 --> 00:16:46.600 He wanted to maintain his absolute independence, 00:16:46.860 --> 00:16:50.159 his unyielding freedom to criticize both sides. 00:16:50.440 --> 00:16:53.919 Though the biography includes this amazing, slightly 00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:57.049 humorous detail. Oh, about the money. Yeah. Years 00:16:57.049 --> 00:17:01.549 later, in 1975, someone close to Sarch, or possibly 00:17:01.549 --> 00:17:04.710 Sarcher himself, it's not totally clear, allegedly 00:17:04.710 --> 00:17:07.390 contacted the Swedish Academy to ask if he could 00:17:07.390 --> 00:17:09.500 still get the prize money. And what do they say? 00:17:09.619 --> 00:17:11.740 The academy refused. It's so funny. It really 00:17:11.740 --> 00:17:14.579 highlights the constant tension between his lofty 00:17:14.579 --> 00:17:17.920 ideals and practical reality. Money is a very 00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:20.380 practical reality, but he kept fighting for his 00:17:20.380 --> 00:17:22.779 ideals right to the end, getting physically involved 00:17:22.779 --> 00:17:25.359 in the world. Like in 1968, during the massive 00:17:25.359 --> 00:17:28.319 student and worker strikes in Paris, Sartre was 00:17:28.319 --> 00:17:30.839 out there in the streets. As an older man? Yes. 00:17:31.180 --> 00:17:33.339 He actually got arrested for civil disobedience. 00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:35.420 And the president of France, Charles de Gaulle, 00:17:35.839 --> 00:17:38.019 actually steps in and pardons him. De Gaulle 00:17:38.019 --> 00:17:40.299 famously said, you don't arrest Voltaire. Which 00:17:40.299 --> 00:17:43.180 is such an incredible quote. It tells you exactly 00:17:43.180 --> 00:17:46.000 how monumental Sartre's status had become in 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:48.640 French culture. He was untouchable. Despite his 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:51.539 radical politics, he was seen as the inheritor 00:17:51.539 --> 00:17:54.259 of the great French intellectual tradition of 00:17:54.259 --> 00:17:57.400 speaking truth to power. He passed away in 1980 00:17:57.400 --> 00:18:00.579 from pulmonary edema and the reaction to his 00:18:00.579 --> 00:18:04.039 death was just staggering. 50 ,000 Parisians 00:18:04.039 --> 00:18:06.400 descended on the streets to follow his funeral 00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:09.660 cortege. 50 ,000. 50 ,000 people shutting down 00:18:09.660 --> 00:18:12.119 the streets of Paris. And if we step back and 00:18:12.119 --> 00:18:15.799 look at that image. The massive crowds, the halted 00:18:15.799 --> 00:18:18.539 traffic, it points to a really profound irony. 00:18:18.619 --> 00:18:21.559 It really does because he spent decades refusing 00:18:21.559 --> 00:18:24.619 honors, refusing to be tied down, terrified of 00:18:24.619 --> 00:18:27.799 becoming a rigid institution. And yet a funeral 00:18:27.799 --> 00:18:30.839 with 50 ,000 mourners proves he'd become exactly 00:18:30.839 --> 00:18:33.420 that. He was the ultimate French institution, 00:18:33.599 --> 00:18:35.960 the ultimate object of national reverence. He 00:18:35.960 --> 00:18:38.059 became the very thing he spent his life trying 00:18:38.059 --> 00:18:41.319 to avoid. Exactly. So we've covered a lot of 00:18:41.319 --> 00:18:43.779 ground today. We've seen Sartre as a - man of 00:18:43.779 --> 00:18:46.359 extreme brilliance and extreme contradiction. 00:18:46.599 --> 00:18:49.529 A very complicated figure. Very. He gave the 00:18:49.529 --> 00:18:51.609 world the vocabulary to take ownership of their 00:18:51.609 --> 00:18:54.289 lives, to stop making excuses, to embrace the 00:18:54.289 --> 00:18:56.390 terror and the beauty of being completely free. 00:18:56.470 --> 00:19:00.049 Yes. And yet his own choices, both in justifying 00:19:00.049 --> 00:19:02.990 authoritarian regimes and in his deeply flawed 00:19:02.990 --> 00:19:05.769 personal relationships, show how messy that freedom 00:19:05.769 --> 00:19:08.630 gets in practice. The philosophy is often clearer 00:19:08.630 --> 00:19:11.549 than the philosopher. Well said. But for you, 00:19:11.630 --> 00:19:13.809 listening right now, the beauty of this deep 00:19:13.809 --> 00:19:16.349 dive is that you don't have to agree with Sartre's 00:19:16.349 --> 00:19:19.650 politics or excuse his personal life to use the 00:19:19.650 --> 00:19:21.869 philosophical tools he built. You can take what 00:19:21.869 --> 00:19:24.470 works. Right. Tomorrow, when you feel tracked 00:19:24.470 --> 00:19:26.990 by your job, by your relationships, or by the 00:19:26.990 --> 00:19:29.410 expectations of your circumstances, you can ask 00:19:29.410 --> 00:19:31.710 yourself that core question. Am I acting in bad 00:19:31.710 --> 00:19:34.410 faith? Exactly. Am I pretending I have no choice? 00:19:34.930 --> 00:19:37.490 Or am I owning my freedom and taking the wheel 00:19:37.490 --> 00:19:40.329 of the car? Sartre argued fiercely that we are 00:19:40.329 --> 00:19:42.750 entirely responsible for our actions, that we 00:19:42.750 --> 00:19:45.549 are the authors of our own essence. But if we 00:19:45.549 --> 00:19:48.970 look at his life, and our own. It leaves us with 00:19:48.970 --> 00:19:51.829 one final lingering question based on these accounts. 00:19:52.230 --> 00:19:54.690 If we are shaped by a society that normalizes 00:19:54.690 --> 00:19:57.369 terrible things, like the passive Parisians sitting 00:19:57.369 --> 00:20:00.269 next to polite German occupiers, or the accepted 00:20:00.269 --> 00:20:03.490 academic power dynamics of the 1930s, at what 00:20:03.490 --> 00:20:05.349 point does our radical freedom simply become 00:20:05.349 --> 00:20:07.509 a mirror of the flawed era we happen to live 00:20:07.509 --> 00:20:10.650 in? Are we ever truly completely free from the 00:20:10.650 --> 00:20:11.390 times that shape us?