Is Michael Onfray destroying Sartre’s memory?
“Sartre was always wrong” states Michael Onfray. Onfray is a polemic french writer who splits the french intellectual community because of his harsh positions.
Onfray in Albert Camus, L’ordre libertaire writes an hommage to Albert Camus and meanwhile completely delegitimizes Sartre. By rudely simplifying, he depicts Camus as being a poor, humanist, exceptional, resistant writer, while Sartre is a bourgeois, dishonest, manipulating, mediocre author, who on top of that was a collaborator.
Hell is Sartre
Since the 100th anniversary of Sartre’s birth, french newspapers and the intellectual debate were limited in scope to Sartre’s inactiveness during the Second World War. The commemoration was focused on making a trial of Sartre’s non-resistence. It is stated that Sartre took profit of the anti-Jewish legislation by taking the position of the Lycée Condorcet’s jewish director Henri Dreyfus-Le Foyer in 1941. He is also criticized for not having taken part of the Resistance. Completely inactive during the Second World War, he then out of a sudden makes the topic of engagement and resistance his own.
No, hell is others.
Some authors took his defense. In the Album des Lettres françaises some letters of Sartre are published in which Sartre denounces and represses antisemitism. Some may say this is not much, but as Michel Winock states, many French writers were simply silent during the whole period of occupation. Rare were the writers who had the courage to denounce the german Occupation and the anti-law legacy out loudly.
So, admittedly, he only started his active resistance after the war by founding the resistant movement “Socialisme et liberté”. But does it mean that Sartre should be only known by our current generation for his non-resistance during the Second World War? Does it mean that Sartre should hit the newspaper only through Onfrays’s critical quotes?
The following quote truly illustrates the unfounded and groundless critic of Onfray.
« If the XXth century is Sartre’s century, then only because the author of the Nausea decided that it will happen that way, and that nothing will hinder him from achieving his ends. To acomplish his strategy of conquer the intellectual power in France and to assure his domination, he is shameless. His fortune delivers him from a terrible competition. Nizan simplified Sartre’s life by dying in Dunkerque in 1940, Politzer does the same by dying in Valérian in 1942. Camus finally had the good taste to die in a car accident in 1960 and Merleau-Ponty to die from an infarctus the following year. » he writes.
I think this is a shame. It is a shame that the newspapers such as Le Point, Le Monde, or France Culture focus their analysis of Sartre on Michael Onfray’s view. Even if the articles criticize his view, as does Le Monde, (http://www.monde-
Why does the newspaper allow such an unfounded and empty analysis of Sartre to be omnipresent in the media? Is this the only charateristic of Sartre our current generation should retain?
The political context of an author is determinant, but shouldn’t his philosophy be in the center of attention?
I would like to come back on Felicie’s post WE ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE - Liberty during the German occupation and the quote « We were never more free than during the German occupation ». Instead of trying to understand Sartre by only considering his political actions, I think this post really managed to consider Sartre as a thinker first of all. As a thinker who used his experience during the Second World War to develop the notions of freedom and choice-making.
Sartre depicts himself as “a writer who resisted” and not as a “resistant who wrote”. And it is as such that we should consider him.
What do you think on the trial of the inactiveness of french thinkers during the German occupation? Is it worth obscuring their philosophical and literal writings?
Hello Anastasia !
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question on the importance to take into account a philosopher's actions as much as his/her writings, I think that yes, of course we should.
There was a greek biograph, Herodote, that always divided the philosopher's biography into four parts : the presentation of their life, the list of their treaties, a summary of their main thesis and, finally, anecdotes. The last part was always a bit odd, even funny sometimes and some people struggled to see the point in them. But Herodote explained to them that he will never trust a philosopher that didn't live according to his/her philosophy, because he will find it rather strange.
As philosophers give us "life advices", trying to find the meaning of life and all, I can't view them only as thinkers. With Sartre, I struggle even more as his philosophy - Beauvoir's as well - is about revealing yourself through engagement and actions. You define yourself with your choices after all - since you are free ! Sartre made a choice to not commit into the Résistance. Some might find it bad, others might no care much, but it is his choice and it defines him anyway, according to his own ideas, and he is definitively not a "writer who resisted", from my point of views at least.
Yes, he does have some very interesting ideas that we should not forget. But we can't forget either that he willingly chose not to resist - and also that he willingly chose to support the communist dictatorship in URSS as well ;)
I think that Michel Onfray’s attacks against Sartre are way too excessive and partly irrelevant. Sartre is above all a philosopher, a thinker and the doubts concerning his resistance or inactivity during the Occupation shouldn’t influence the way we see his work. We estimate that around 1% or 1,5% of the French population has resisted under the Occupation. I don’t know if these numbers are reliable but I think we all agree to say that only a tiny minority has effectively resisted during these black years. (I don’t think it’s something we should be proud of, but let’s be realistic: it is easy to criticise, like Michel Onfray does, people for not having resisted, but I don’t know what we would have done if we lived in the 1940s). Michel Onfray is famous thanks to (or because of?) his polemics. You seem to be irritated because serious newspapers such as Le Point use the view of M. Onfray to talk about Sartres. I’m not that surprised, because the objective for newspapers is to sell the most exemplars they can. And we all know that the best way to sell is to provoke polemic. Besides, most of people don’t have effectively read Sartres. Therefore they would be more likely to read an article that condemns Sartres using arguments which have nothing to do with philosophy than a real philosophical article about his work as philosopher…
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the issue is not that Sartre was not a resistant -- like you pointed out, most French weren't, but that he built most of his philosophy around the idea of actions and engagement. When you think about it, it is quite a paradox we have here, aren't we ?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Claire that so many newspapers includes Michel Onfray's opinion because of its sensationalist nature. Comparing a philosopher's action to their written word is indeed one way of judging the legitimacy of their words. But a philosopher's actions do no make their words any less important or influential if their words/works resonate with other people, regardless of how contradictory the philosophers actions are. I personally believe there is a divide between author and works. In addition, Sartre's support of engagement in the post WWII years may have been a result of some sort of residual guilt from not taking enough action during the war years. None of us lived through the occupation years, and therefore it is impossible for us to judge the level of action or inaction of those who did.
ReplyDelete