Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Sartre On

SOCIETY: 'People who live in society have learnt to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. Is that why my flesh is naked? You might say - yes you might say, nature without humanity... Things are bad! Things are very bad: I have it, the filth, the Nausea'. EXISTENCE: 'The thing which was waiting was on alert, it pounced on me, it flows through me. I'm filled with it. It's nothing: I am the Thing. Existence, liberated, detached, floods over me. I exist'. THINKING: 'It would be better if I could only stop thinking. Thoughts are the dullest things. Duller than flesh'. GOD: 'I do not believe in God... But in the internment camp, I learnt to believe in men'. CRITICS: 'Critics are people who have had no luck in life, and at the point of despair, found a little quiet job as the caretaker of a cemetery...'. FREEDOM: 'Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does'. REVOLUTION: 'At the beginning of any revolt, you have to kill people. Murdering a European (for an Algerian) is killing two birds with one stone. He is getting rid of an oppressor and someone who was oppressed'
From ‘The Second Coming Of Sartre’ , The Independent.

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