people like Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, Marcel etc.
Sartre was a Marxist, in his book (which is a transcription of a talk) “Existentialism is a Humanism” we argues thst existentialidm and marxism both are compatible philosophies. If we could sum up existentialism to some very ridiculously small idea, it would be “existence precedes essence”, what this means is that first we exist, we are, then and only then we choose what we become, what we are not, and so on and so forth. This basically means, there is no human nature, god is dead, we are what want us to be. Now if we look at what Marx had to say regarding material conditions and the state of the proletariat and the bpurgeoisie, is that these dwtermine what and how we will develop as humans. If you are poor you will be more likely to facd certain difficulties, and so on, and whatever, but this alligns again with existence precedes essence, being a proletariat is not an quality inherent to certain group of humans, but rather something forced upong them by material restrictions, this can be change, but in order to do so you need a revolutionary praxis.
Now, I can’t say Sartre was super based, I haven’t seen what exactly were his views on realpolitik, but nevertheless his writings on philosophy are super important and can help any Marxist. Camus is shit, don’t spend time reading him unless you read his literary worls which I enjoyed more than Sartres’s. De Beauvoir is super cool but you’ll be reading about feminism and so it will aim towards something else.
Yeah EIAH is what I recommend to anyone looking at existentialism for the first time. Besides the pedophile apologia stuff they all had I actually quite liked most of Sartre’s works. I like Simone way more and The Second Sex is one of my favourite books ever (there’s actually some really interesting critiques of Engels in there).
I think I agree that those two at least were Marxists, even if it was part of the pretty ineffective Western European left of post-WWII.
Wasn’t the paedophilia thing something related to a comparison with homosexuality? Like homosexuality was illegal and so paedophilia so they compared the absurd of one with the other? Maybe im wrong tho.
Camus was an anarchist iirc, so iugh.
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Ahh, waht a stupid thing.
yeah iirc the 1977 petition was because sodomy was legal at 18 yet hetero sex was legal at 15. At this level it’s fine but Foucault and Sartre took it further by arguing that minors were capable of sexual relations. Foucault called consent a “contract” and said it can’t accurately determine the actual feelings of the people in the relationship which just comes off kind of strange to me
Camus wasn’t only an anarchist he actively protested the USSR and said it wasn’t socialist at all
Not about absurdism specifically, but about the CIA’s relations with anti-USSR french intellectuals and their influence.
They’re dialectical methods that can be used honestly or dishonestly the same as others. I think Marxism-Leninism is a higher order philosophy concerned with an over-arching social-economic theory. I wouldn’t consider absurdism or essentialism a ‘grand theory’.
Regardless of the philosophers, I like absurdism. I think it’s powerful but also dangerous. I feel like the world is a big, beautiful joke sometimes. Our lives, as important as they are to us, are rather meaningless in the grand scheme, even in the short sigh that is the human species on this Earth. Given the fact that we are unbroken chain of reproduction down to the very first bacteria, I think it’s ridiculous to say one thing is the absolute truth…
“How do I justify being a communist then?” I hear a lib ask.
Because it takes courage to believe in anything in a world whose number one belief is the belief in no belief; aka enlightened centrism, nihilism. Almost everyone I know is captured by nihilism and they are lost and depressed. Even if I am some sort of underachiever, i feel like i am more at peace with myself, the world and the way it is than many I know. So that’s one way I try to help people understand my point of view.
The best thing Camus brought was the myth of Sisyphus. Since everyone I know is a nihilist, albeit subconsciously, I try to meet them where they’re at and justify communism as a sort of existential courage.
In this way, I hope to steer people away from anarchism, at least.
I have nothing great to add but I’ve always had the feeling that the reason existentialism got big was because it is a reaction to feminism. I have no clue if that has any truth to it tho, it’s just a hot take.
only Camus is not even worth getting close.
