PNTV: Existentialism Is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre (#340)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes TV. Today, another great book, Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean Paul Sartre. Existentialism is a Humanism. No subtitle necessary. Jean Paul Sartre was, as you may know, one of the leading intellectuals of the 20th century, the leading proponent of existential philosophy. In this book, it's a short little book, but densely packed with lucid wisdom, is a transcript of a speech he gave in 1945 to essentially an audience of critics, and he was addressing their criticisms of existentialism. I picked this book up after reading James Stockdale's Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot. Stockdale has a series of essays, and one of them talked about a class that he once taught on moral philosophy. And he actually shared the syllabus of the class and the recommended reading. This was one of the books that they talked about in that class. I went ahead and bought this book and a ton of other ones that he used as sources that we haven't talked about yet. And I plan to walk through and work through each of those in the months and years ahead. So. So, Philosopher's Note. Five big ideas. Another little thought just to connect. James Stockdale spent eight years in a prison camp in North Vietnam. Sartre spent a year in a Nazi German, Nazi prisoner of war camp in World War II. So they have that in common. And they also have just an absolute fierce resolve and commitment to our responsibility to act nobly. Stoicism and existentialism share that profound commitment to our responsibility, our option to, and our moral obligation to respond to life as nobly as we can. Another World War II prisoner, Viktor Frankl, who experienced the horrors of the concentration camps in World War II, echoes this same idea. He says that the last freedom that can ever be taken from you is your freedom to choose. You are responsible, and you are called by life to respond appropriately. Each of these thoughts, the stoicism, the existentialism, the logotherapy of Frankl, echo one another in some really powerful ways. So first big idea here. Anguish. So anguish and abandonment and despair are common themes of existential philosophy. And Sartre talks about, what do we mean when we talk about anguish, right? And his critics were saying, you know, such a pessimistic philosophy. And we're going to talk about how it's not actually a pessimistic philosophy, it's a sternly optimistic philosophy, but for now, anguish. How do we experience anguish in life? Well, Sartre tells us, and his existential colleagues tell us that when you step back and you look at life, you realize that there's really no ultimate source of authority. The existentialists, of course, don't believe in the authority of kind of the big guy in the sky God telling us what we should do. And they say we exist, and then we create our essence, hence existentialism. And we do that by making our lives one big project. And we need to realize that we are ultimately responsible for our choices. And not only that, but we need to live as if what we're about ready to do is going to be copied by the entire world. He says that's one way to arrive at what the noble moral action is. What would the world be like if everyone in the world did what you do and what you're about ready to do in this moment? He says that's the level of responsibility that we should feel called to embrace. And when you embrace that level of responsibility and you look at yourself relative to the behaviors you engage in, in imagining the world watching you and then emulating what you do, he says that creates anguish. Can I live up to that? There's a level of anguish in that. And he says, that's actually a beautiful, powerful thing. It just is what it is when you accept that responsibility. And he says most people don't appear to have that anguish. But he says it's there, it's just under the surface, and they mask it and they numb themselves out. So they don't need to actually think about this responsibility, and they'd prefer to blame everything around them and pretend like they don't have the responsibility. But the anguish doesn't go away. He says, And I've never used the word anguish to describe this state, but I do talk about its antidote quite a bit. I'll actually pause. Can you think of what I think and will suggest is the antidote to this anguish? I talk about it all the time. If you've watched many of these, you know that I mentioned this word anguish. What is the antidote to anguish? Arete, The Greeks said the same thing. They said that, look, you have a responsibility. This is what you're capable of being. Your potential in any given moment is right there. If you are actually doing that. And there's a gap between what you're capable of expressing and what you're actually expressing. Guess what exists in that gap? I've always said it's where regret and anxiety and disillusionment and depression exist when you know you're capable of this, but you're only doing that right. Well, guess what another word for that is? Anguish. There's an anguish that we feel. Our soul is begging us to do more. And that, if we're able to look at it cleanly, is a good thing. Because then we, as the Greek suggests, live with arete. We close that gap. What happens when you close that gap? Well, you're not masking the anguish. You're experiencing the joy of flourishing. True eudaimonia, sense of actually doing what you're here to do. That feels good. We want to experience that more. That is a quick look at my thoughts on anguish, the antidote, etc. Second, big idea. These are all related. When you read existentialism, what you'll see again and again and again is responsibility, commitment, action, right? And they say that passions can never be an excuse. You can't say, oh, I got caught up in my passion and then I did this. Oh, man, I wish I could have done something different, but I was just caught up in my emotional spree, right? Well, Epictetus talked about the same thing 2,000 years ago. He didn't call it passions, he called it impressions, right? Remember the episode on Discourses? He says, look, you got to step in between this impression and your response. You can't let it just drag you by the nose. He says, you got to realize that you have responsibility. The existentialists say the same thing. You need to recognize you have a choice. You have response, ability, the ability to choose your response to any given situation. Don't ever use anything outside of you as an excuse. Make the choice. Yes, that comes with a bit of anguish when you're honest about that reality, but do it anyway. Third, big idea is a cool concept. Quietism. Quietism versus commitment. He says, look, let's be really clear. We're not talking about kind of rejecting reality and rejecting life and quietism, which for him means basically saying, resigning yourself to life and saying, oh, well, they can do things that I can't do. So there you go. I'm just going to kind of retreat cowardly back into my little hole. He says, no, no, no. You need total commitment. You need to take responsibility for what life is asking from you and not exert or exhibit rather, this quietism. And Viktor Frankl, I talk about this in the note a lot. He says, and we talk about man's search for meaning, that ultimately we are each asked by life to show up fully, to make a total commitment to what we can do in the world, to give our gifts and greatest service to the world, not to resign ourselves and pull back in cowardly Quietism and Then the Fourth Big Idea is one of my favorites. Again, a lot of the critics that he was addressing in 1945 said this is a pessimistic philosophy. You talk about abandonment, anguish, despair, etc. And he says, look, you know what? What you're really frustrated about with existentialism isn't our pessimism, it's our stern optimism. Because what we say is, you have no excuses. You can't. Just because you experience this anguish doesn't excuse you from being responsible. We are stern optimists and we say, you're capable of this and you need to go out and live it and quit making excuses for your circumstances or your heredity or whatever it is outside of your control that has led you to be less than what you want to be and take ownership of that. It's an amazing phrase or a passage, rather, that I capture in the note. Super intense. He says, look, you'd rather me tell you that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You didn't achieve all the things you wanted to achieve in life, right? You didn't achieve the great love that you wanted to have in your life or write the great books you wanted to write or raise the family you wanted to raise, and it was because it just didn't work out for you, right? You want me to tell you that. That it was the circumstances that just didn't quite line up. So you'd like me to tell you that. But the reality is, it's because you didn't make the choices that would create that reality. And it hurts to be that real. And as I was reading it, it made me think of the fixed mindset vis a vis the growth mindset that we talk about all the time. Our culture is a fixed mindset attitude. The basic idea there, again, is this idea that you either have it or you don't. So it's kind of outside of you. You either have athletic prowess or speaking ability or leadership competency or whatever it is, right? Whatever your domain is, you either have it or you don't. That rock star has it, right? But you don't. You just weren't born with it, right? Well, as Anders Erickson says, we're all born with it. It is the gift that we all have is the gift of adaptability. We can all, if we choose to commit over the long run, do extraordinary things, but only few of us do because most of us live in a fixed mindset culture. And this type of existential stern optimism is enough to shake you out of that stupor and take responsibility again and make a Total commitment rather than retreating into that quietism, the fifth big idea. He says that moral choices are like a work of art, and not in this sense, in the sense of aesthetically. Right. It's not that like your moral choices. It's just like this beautiful work of art, which I actually think it is too. But Sartre was saying in this context that it's more like the process of creating a work of art. So when you make moral choices, again, existentialists don't believe that you have this rule book handed down from you that's flawlessly perfect to tell you exactly what you should do in every single situation. He says that's kind of like someone telling an artist, okay, make this painting exactly this way. By definition, that's not art. The artist approaches the canvas that's blank, and they kind of figure out what they're going to create as they go. And it's all the artist as they work with their medium and as they create a body of work that they create this art. Right? There's no a priori sense of this is how it should be, and these are the rules. And boom, there you go. It's figured out dynamically. And that's the essence of existential moral choices. We each need to take responsibility and figure out for ourselves through our own choices. And asking questions like, what would the world be like if everyone in the world did what I'm about ready to do? And figure it out as you go. Just like an artist figures out what the art is going to look like as they create their painting or sculpture or whatever. And having said that, he says that we are all responsible for the portrait of our lives. So ultimately, our work is both like art in the process and the result. Who we are is our own responsibility. Again, that word again and again and again. Let's make a masterpiece as we make moral choice by moral choice by moral choice. The stern optimism. I just love it. I quote Socrates in the note as well. Socrates was another stern optimist. He says, look, life is a combat. I exhort you to use all the power you have to do your best to live with Arete, to do what you're capable of doing in service to the world via total commitment and not retreating into quietism. Passions are not an excuse for living with virtue. We. We always have the choice, the responsibility, and then again, the anguish that many of us want to pretend isn't there. We want to go numb ourselves out via whatever it is we use to numb ourselves. Because this gap is painful. Well, yes, it is the sensitive human being is going to feel that pain and the noble human being is going to choose to heroically step up and step into our ultimate potential, not just for ourselves, but but for everyone in our world. So there you go. Quick look at Existentialism is a humanism, obviously. I just pulled on some threads from a practical perspective. So much more we can talk about. But I hope you enjoyed and think about what your favorite idea was and as always, most importantly, how can you translate the idea into a more integrated, embodied part of your life? Get on that and have another awesome day. Look forward to sharing more soon. See you. Isn't it a bit odd that we went from math to science to history, but somehow missed the class on how to live? For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule. Of course, it's too late to go back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up yet. If you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your potential. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on optimal living and pulling out the big ideas that can truly change your life. You know those sections you asterisk and underline and mark all up. Then imagine that guy me connecting those ideas to other great books and helping you apply them to your life today. Well, that's what I do with something we call Philosopher's Notes where I break down each great book into a simple 6 page PDF, 20 minute MP3 and 10 minute Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in fun, inspiring, super practical optimal living 101 classes on stuff like purpose 101, confidence 101, business 101, meditation 101. That sort of thing. You got a personal trainer? I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient Wisdom plus Modern Science plus Common Sense plus Virtue plus Mastery plus Fun. That's what our Optimized membership program is all about. We'd love to have you join us. Check us out at BrianJohnson. Me join.