Jean-Paul #Sartre said in Being and Nothingness
in 1943 that a human is a conscientious being who knows who he is, what he does
and what he can do. Then, thanks to his characteristic of Homo sapiens sapiens (he knows that he knows what he knows), human
can have a good hold on the World. The latter is composed by other humans,
rules of Societies and personal desires. At this time, it is necessary to have
link with those elements in order to live. Indeed, according to #Sartre, existence is before essence,
and then, humans have to lead actions and fulfil purposes to reach their own
personality, their own life, so essence.
The Truman show, a movie of 1998, gives
us a quotation that I think it’s better to keep in French version: “Chacun de nous accepte la réalité du monde
auquel il est confronté”. What an enthralling sentence well-linked with
Existentialism’s and #Sartre’s ideas!
According to this, a human is going to carry his essence out by following
Society’s principles. We have to focus on this claiming and see if an essence
of a human is linked to his neighbouring world.
To
do it, we will study 3 cases that I met in movies: Truman Burbank in The Truman
Show, Stanley Schupak also known as Bree in Transamerica, and Larry Gopnik in A serious man.
In A serious man, Larry Gopnik represents the concrete example of a
stage in his world’s reality.
Larry
is a physics teacher at the university, and has a wife and two children. He is
an upright civil servant and a good practicing Jew. Then, he respects all rules
in civil Society and religious Society. A such respect is going to be testes by
a lot of hardships, like his wife who wants to divorce or an attempt of
corruption by one of his students. At this time, it is interesting to notice
that Larry keeps his good conduct, but, in spite of all, misfortunes arrive in
a large number. Then, a question is highlighted: What can he do in order to be
happier? Indeed, he has all behaviours that Society requires… What else? To
know what to do, he decides to meet rabbis, but no one has a good solution to
give him. In this way, it proves that the internalization can’t give human a
good life. The problem is that Larry does nothing to change it, and appears
unlucky deeply. Indeed, the once time he attempts to change his behaviour by
changing his student’s mark results to a bad news: medical problems.
In
this case, Larry belongs to his Society perfectly, but it doesn’t end in a good
essence for human. World is accepted, but it doesn’t result in a happy life. At
this moment, we should better talk about a peremptory submission to the world
rather an acceptance.
Truman Burbank embodies in The Truman Show the perfect example of a
man who is in symbiosis with his world, but ends up denying it.
Truman is a young man who lives in Seahaven and is
married with Meryl. He lives a perfect life, regulated by his job and by his
little customs. For instance, he goes to buy newspaper everyday close to the
same seller, and talks with him a few minutes. He has internalized habits of
his Society perfectly: all its rules and good manners are known by him. Then,
each day, he says to his neighbours: “Good
morning! Oh, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good
night.”.
What a sweet neighbour!
So, he’s the best man of the city due to his
complete adaptation to the rules. We could imagine that he would lead a perfect
and calm life, without having any problem or worry. However, movie is going to
show us that this kind of way of life which represents Truman’s essence is
undesirable. Indeed, Truman appears sad, and seems bored by this monotonous
life. Then, the only thing which appeals to him is to find a woman again, who
said to him that life isn’t what it seems several years ago. By this research,
Truman wants to break customs, and make his life take a turning point.
We have here a situation where a
human is able to adapt himself to his neighbouring world, but feels bad because
it doesn’t delight him. Then, Truman gets used to his world’s reality, but
doesn’t accept it and is going to make it change.
Our last case, Stanley Schupak/Bree in Transamerica is a good mean
to show the rejection of the world and its reality by human.
Stanley is a man who wants to be a woman,
and is about to suffer a vaginal surgery. His/her parents disagree with him/her
completely, because they deem that a man is just a man and a woman is just a
man.
The struggle of essence against existence
In this situation, Stanley’s will is the perfect illustration of
the idea of existence before essence. Stanley’s
existence, his reality and his neighbouring world’s reality are that he is a
man. At this time, his physical transformation is made in order to reach his/her
real essence, that is to say being a woman. This fulfilment of his/her essence
is a shift of his neighbouring world’s reality. There is not acceptance of the
reality, but a strong fight against it, and a final success to change it. It is
perceptible when his/her own son attempts to kiss her/him: a new part of
his/her world has been led to the shift, and accept it. For Toby, Stanley is first of all
Bree, despite he doesn’t know Bree’s true identity.
In the situation of Stanley/Bree, a
human is not going to accept his world’s reality. On the contrary, a human
changes his world and adapt it to his own essence. The link is inversed: the
human’s essence, just made by his own personality, influences the world and its
way to see him.
To sum up, humans belong to the
world which surround them, and but have different links with it. Some of them
have a weak personality, which entails that they are going to be led by world’s
rules and principles. Other have a strong personality influencing their way to
make their essence deeply, and then which ends in leave their own mark on their
world. The ways to perceive their own essence affect the degree of acceptance
of their world, and cause will to make change it sometimes.
Then, my question
will be simple: Do you think we have to
change our neighbouring world to be happy?
Thank you Quentin for your article, which I think illustrates well how difficult it is for human beings to reach the happiness. Another movie that you haven’t include in your list of examples but that you could have, is “Into the Wild”. The main character leads a very classic life and has apparently everything to be happy: he just get his degree, his parents truly love him, he has a lot of friends, etc. But in spite of all of this, he is deeply unhappy and thus convinces himself that he would be happy only if he left everything behind him to go to Alaska and to live alone, in the Nature. I pass the details but at the end, just before dying, he writes on a piece of paper the sentence “happiness only real when shared”. It appears that Chris (that’s his name) has crossed thousands of miles and sacrificed his whole life in a desperate quest for happiness, and eventually he became aware that the happiness was actually closer that he thought. In a way, I think he really could have been happy but his obsession of reaching “true happiness” paradoxically took him away of it. In my opinion, it’s not our neighbouring world that has to be changed so we can be happy, but ourselves and our relation with the world and the people living in. Of course I’m not saying that we have to be submissive like Larry Gopnik, but we have to cope with a world that we couldn’t change completely anyway. We would never be entirely satisfy with our neighbouring world, so I guess the key of happiness is inside us, not outside.
ReplyDeleteIt is a good point yeah ! I believe that those two dimensions have to be considered together, in order to improve our own happiness, and in the same the other's one. Changing the world helps us to understanding it, and questionning our own personnality is a nice way to be closer to our neighbouring world ;)
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ReplyDeleteI let you think about a famous quotation coming from Adam Smith which answers to your argumentation about diversity of points of view and uncapacity to change the world : "La somme des intérêts individuels mène à l'intérêt général" =)
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DeleteIt's just that it denies your argumentation about impossibility to change the world because of diversity ;)
ReplyDeleteHi Quentin !
ReplyDeleteTo answer to your question, I do not think that we can change the neighbouring world even if we want it, the world is as it is. The only way to be happy is to change the approach which we have of this world: take some distance with certain things, be interested in new things. I think that to be happy it is necessary to change his own way of life and not the neighbouring world.
It is a good pount, but changing our approach that we have about our world is goung to change our own personnality, no ? If the latter changes, we aren't ourselves, so we are unhappy...
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