Dostoevsky once wrote that "if there is no God, then everything is permitted." This is the starting point of existentialism.
Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and therefore a person is abandoned, he has nothing to rely on either in himself or outside.
First of all, he has no excuses. Indeed, if existence precedes essence, then nothing can be explained by referring to human nature given once and for all. In other words, there is no determinism, man is free, man is freedom.
On the other hand, if there is no God, we do not have before us any moral values or precepts that would justify our actions. Thus, neither behind ourselves nor before ourselves - in the light kingdom of values - we have no excuses, no excuses.
We are alone and there is no excuse for us. This is what I express in words: man is condemned to be free. Condemned because he did not create himself, and yet he is free, because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
He believes that man is responsible for his passions. The existentialist also does not believe that a person can receive help on Earth in the form of a sign given to him as a guide. In his opinion, a person deciphers the signs himself, and as he pleases.
He believes, therefore, that man, having no support and assistance, is condemned to reinvent man every time. In one of his wonderful articles, Ponge wrote: "Man is the future of man."
And this is absolutely correct. But it is completely wrong to understand this in such a way that the future is foreordained from above and known to God, since in such a case it is no longer the future. This expression should be understood in the sense that, no matter what a person is, an unknown future always awaits him.
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But this means that the person is abandoned. To illustrate with an example what abandonment is, I will refer to the story of one of my students who came to me under the following circumstances. His father quarreled with his mother; in addition, my father was inclined to cooperate with the occupiers. The elder brother was killed during the German offensive in 1940. And this young man with somewhat primitive but noble feelings wanted to avenge him.
The mother, very saddened by her husband's half-betrayal and the death of her eldest son, saw in him the only consolation. Before this young man had a choice: either to leave for England and enter the armed forces of the "Fighting France", which meant leaving his mother, or to stay and help her. He well understood that his mother lived by him alone and that his departure, and possibly death, would plunge her into complete despair.
At the same time, he realized that in relation to his mother, every action he took had a positive, concrete result in the sense that it helped her to live, while every action he took in order to go to fight, indefinitely, ambiguously, could leave no trace. and not bring the slightest benefit: for example, on the way to England, passing through Spain, he can get stuck for an infinitely long time in some Spanish camp, maybe, having arrived in England or Algeria, get into the headquarters as a clerk.
At the same time, he oscillated between two types of morality. On the one hand, the morality of sympathy, personal devotion, on the other hand, the moral is broader, but, perhaps, less effective. I had to choose one of two. Who could help him make this choice? Christian teaching? Not.
Christian teaching says: be merciful, love your neighbor, sacrifice yourself for the sake of others, choose the most difficult path, etc. etc.
But which of these paths is the most difficult? Whom do you need to love as your neighbor: a warrior or a mother? How to bring more benefit: fighting together with others - the benefit is not quite definite, or - quite definite benefit - helping to live a specific creature? Who can decide a priori here? No one. No written moral can provide an answer.
Kantian morality says: never see other people as a means, but only as an end. Perfectly. If I stay with my mother, I will see her as an end, not a means. But by doing so, I risk seeing the means in those people who fight. Conversely, if I join the combatants, I will see them as an end, but thereby risk seeing a means in my own mother.
If the values are uncertain, and if they are all too broad for the particular case we are considering, we are left to trust instincts. This is what the young man tried to do. When I met him, he said: “In essence, the main thing is feeling. I have to choose what really pushes me in a certain direction.
If I feel that I love my mother enough to sacrifice everything else for her - thirst for revenge, thirst for action, adventure, then I will stay with her. If, on the contrary, I feel that my love for my mother is insufficient, then I will have to leave. But how to determine the significance of a feeling? What is the significance of his feelings for his mother?
Precisely in the fact that he remains for her sake. I can say, "I love my buddy enough to sacrifice some money for him." But I can only say this if it has already been done by me. I can say, “I love my mother enough to stay with her,” if I stayed with her.
On the other hand, as André Gide put it well, the feeling that is portrayed and the feeling that is experienced are almost indistinguishable. Deciding that I love my mother and staying with her or acting a comedy as if I am staying for my mother is almost the same thing. In other words, feeling is created by the actions that we do.
I cannot, therefore, turn to feeling in order to be guided by it. And this means that I can neither seek in myself such a true state that would induce me to act, nor demand from any morality to prescribe how I should act. However, you object, because he also turned to the teacher for advice.
The fact is that when you go for advice, for example, to a priest, it means that you have chosen this priest and, in fact, you already more or less imagined what he would advise you.
In other words, choosing an advisor is again deciding on something yourself. Here's the proof: if you're a Christian, you say, "Consult a priest." But there are priests-collaborationists, priests-waiters, priests - members of the Resistance movement. So who should you choose?
And if a young man chooses a priest - a member of the Resistance or a priest-collaborationist, then he has already decided what the council will be. Turning to me, he knew my answer, and I can only say one thing: you are free, choose, that is, invent.
No general moral will tell you what to do; there are no signs in the world. Catholics will argue that there are signs. Let's say so, but even in this case I myself decide what is their meaning. IN
captivity, I met a remarkable man, a Jesuit, who joined the order in the following way. He suffered a lot in life: his father died, leaving his family in poverty; he lived on a scholarship from a church school, and was constantly made to understand that he was accepted there out of grace; he has not received many of the honorary awards that children love so much.
Later, at about 18 years old, he failed in love and, finally, at 22 years old, failed with military training - a fact in itself a trifle, but it was exactly the drop that overflowed the cup. This young man could, therefore, consider himself a complete failure. It was a sign, but what was its meaning?
An acquaintance of mine could sink into grief or despair, but he reasoned quite sensibly that this was a sign indicating that he was not created for success in the worldly field, that he was assigned success in matters of religion, holiness, faith. He saw, therefore, the finger of God in this and entered the order. Wasn't the decision regarding the meaning of the sign made by himself, completely on his own?
From this series of failures, a completely different conclusion could be drawn: for example, it was better to become a carpenter or a revolutionary. Therefore, he is fully responsible for the interpretation of the sign. Abandonment suggests that we ourselves choose our being. Abandonment comes with anxiety.
Jean Paul Sartre, "Existentialism is Humanism"
