Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre

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Existentialism as Punk Philosophy
Stuart Hanscomb argues that existentialism is punk philosophy par excellence.

Punk rock I’m characterizing as nihilistic, extreme, passionate, liberating, inclusive, amateur, and violent. It had precursors, and it still exists, but Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols and all that they catalysed in the mid-Seventies are its most important moment of impact.

So, how close is this to pinning down punk? And how close is punk to a philosophy of life that will ever be of interest to anyone other than a tiny handful of people?

Sid Vicious...existentialist?

Punk was a wake-up snarl to an atrophied establishment – a “loud raucous ‘No!’” (Garry Mulholland, Fear of Music, 2006). It sought to destroy, and in the ruins left behind it flexed its gnarly uneducated wings and expressed anger and frustration in a crude but deliberate subversion of the previous rock scene.

And look at that "atrophied establishment" today. Donald Trump here, Marine Le Pen there. Ironically creeping closer and closer to the policies that plunged the world into the war that put existentialism on the map.

In place of refinement and privilege, it offered energy and inclusiveness. The distance between band and audience shrank, and sometimes disappeared. In place of a rider of white wine, Evian and cocaine, it offered spit, sweat and blood. In place of systems, plans, improvable pasts and functional futures, it offered an exhilarating and dangerous present like a hyperactive adolescent. It couldn’t be stage-managed. It wasn’t a performance in any conventional sense of the word, but a happening.

Yeah, sure, you do your "9 to 5" bit to sustain the atrophied establishment. And then there's the weekend for your "I've Got Friday On My Mind" punk persona. But look at the establishment today. It's all but completely immune to punk mentality. It's owned and operated by Wall Street instead.

[Impenitent]

punk - live fast, die young

Sid was a junkie - his mates took pity on him and allowed him to appear to be a musician

Jello Biafra explains "punk" better

Trump is not punk

-Imp

[Ansiktsburk]

All these later pages are filled with posts like the OP - Person this says that about existentialism. Where does all these references come from?

Punk is mostly an upper class lifestyle adhered to a really listenable pop music btw imho. Which fits, since only an upper class boy like Sartre could dream up that free choice manifestation. A normal life in a normal culture will limit choices far better than any religion.

[iambiguous]

Existentialism as Punk Philosophy
Stuart Hanscomb argues that existentialism is punk philosophy par excellence.

no future: Nihilism

Dada is art that is anti-art. Punk is music that is anti-music. Existentialism is a philosophy that is anti-philosophy.

In other words, whatever that means?

I would certainly not characterize existentialism as an "anti-philosophy" myself. Instead, it's a frame of mind that starts with the assumption that human interactions are not derived from any essential or objective moral or political truths. "I" in the is/ought world is [existentially] the embodiment of dasein out in a particular world. And even the theistic existentialists rely on a "leap of faith" to their own One True Path font.

How do they avoid the contradiction? They walk a tightrope, which is part of the point. Punk music is an “outsider aesthetic” but it’s still an aesthetic. Likewise, existentialism must recognize a place for reflective rational discourse, since that’s necessary to philosophy; but part of its agenda is to identify the limits of such discourse, and in so doing redirect us to what this perspective marginalizes and represses.

Now, that is clearly my point as well. The limitations of philosophy, in my view, are derived from the assumption that we do live in a No God universe. In His place, however, come all of the One True Paths that ideologues and objectivists insist reflect the only path to enlightenment.

And, of course, the thing about punk rock is that, as with all the rest of us, the musicians who play it are often wholly dependent on others in society to provide them with everything else that they either want or need in their lives.

It will rail against conceits such as the possibility of absolute knowledge, universal moral codes, an ultimate meaning of life, a final harmony between individual and state, or between the self and its possibilities. It will, in short, point to the limits of rational enquiry, and accordingly, the limits of the rational mind’s jurisdiction over emotion, desire, and the body.

And how is that not basically a repugnant frame of mind to the objectivists among us? Again, in my view, existentialism is actually rejected because it challenges this or that One True Path and argues instead that given the limitations of philosophy in the world of conflicting goods, the best of all possible worlds is likely to be democracy and the rule of law.

[iambiguous]

Existentialism as Punk Philosophy
Stuart Hanscomb argues that existentialism is punk philosophy par excellence.

Punk was “a politics of energy” (Stewart Home, The Assault on Culture, 1988), and also traded in extremes: short songs aggressively delivered, Mohican haircuts, ripped PVC, and the pogo dance.

As you might imagine, the ruling class was shaking in its boots when it appeared as though punk rock was actually going to change the world, turn everything inside out and upside down, create anarchy over the entire globe.

Instead, it took off only "in the heads" of some as this whole new way to play music. As though this would spark the revolution that the Sixties radicals failed to bring about.

The medium, like the message, was intense and to the point.

Instense, surely. But to what point? Not all punk rockers emulated the Clash. Punk, as with most other genres across the entertainment/art spectrum, can be found all up and down the "human all too human" collection of ideological/religious/philosophical/moral/political prejudices:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_ideologies

Similarly, the existential in Kafka is firmly linked to the surreal and grotesque worlds of dung beetles, hunger artists, and burrow-dwellers; Camus presents murder, despotism, plagues, and the punishment of Sisyphus; Sartre began with the neo-horror of Nausea and moved on to suicide squads, jealous assassins, and condemned prisoners; Kierkegaard used seducers and infanticide to illuminate the human condition; and Nietzsche styled himself as the anti-Christ. Since human existence is so vividly exposed by exploring its boundaries, extreme situations present the existentialist with a perfect method.

And then there's my own even more glum assessment of human interactions as little more than the actual existential consequences of fractured and fragmented daseins embodying the Benjamin Button Syndrome in what may or may not be a free will universe for matter that "somehow" acquired self-consciousness. Though, sure, the more extreme the situation the more extreme reactions to it can be.

And who can deny that these days [around the world] uncertainties abound.

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Sartre’s Being & Nothingness: The Bible of Existentialism?
Christine Daigle discusses some of the key concepts and ideas in Sartre’s most important philosophical book.

June 1943, occupied France. A writer named Jean-Paul Sartre sees his latest philosophical manuscript, Being and Nothingness, a “phenomenological essay on ontology”, 722 pages of fine print (in the original French edition), published in the midst of World War II. The presentation wrapper on the early reprint of 1945: “What counts in a vase is the void in the middle”!

Phenomenology is the study of conscious experience from the first-person point of view. Husserl used principles of formal ontology even as he bracketed the natural-cultural world in describing our experience, and Heidegger pursued fundamental ontology in his variety of phenomenology describing our own modes of existence. I shall address the role of ontology in phenomenology, and vice versa. Our account of what exists depends on our account of what and how we experience. But, moreover, our understanding of the structure of consciousness depends on our understanding of structure, basic ontological structure, and hence of the place of consciousness in the structure of the world. What makes consciousness “hard” for contemporary philosophy of mind is understanding how intentionality and subjectivity fit into the structure of the world: how phenomenology fits with ontology. Phil Papers

Formal or pure ontology describes forms of objects, as Husserl says. Phenomenology describes forms of conscious experiences, as we readily say. cairn

Now, all we need is for some here to react to this by instantiating it. In other words, noting how, given their own understanding of it, it impacts the behaviors they choose pertaining to conflicting value judgments.

Then the particularly tricky part where, given some measure of free will, one makes a distinction between the phenomenological and the ontological when, for example, posting here.

This wasn’t the first of Sartre’s writings to make some waves. His article on Husserl’s phenomenology from 1936-1937, ‘The Transcendence of the Ego’, had made quite an impression in philosophical circles. Its author cleverly re-appropriated Husserl’s goal of going back to the things themselves by kicking the ego out of consciousness and carefully delineating the various modes of consciousness and its encounter with the world. No longer personal, consciousness was presented as something that would only form an ‘I’ through its encounter with the world. The ‘I’ thus becomes an object, just like any other, only slightly more personal. After all, we care more for our ‘ego’ than for a rock!

Now, all we need is for some here to react to this by instantiating it. In other words, noting how, given your own understanding of this, it impacts the behaviors you choose pertaining to conflicting value judgments given interactions with others.

Then the particularly tricky part where, given some measure of free will, one makes a distinction between the phenomenological and the ontological.

This wasn’t the first of Sartre’s writings to make some waves. His article on Husserl’s phenomenology from 1936-1937, ‘The Transcendence of the Ego’, had made quite an impression in philosophical circles. Its author cleverly re-appropriated Husserl’s goal of going back to the things themselves by kicking the ego out of consciousness and carefully delineating the various modes of consciousness and its encounter with the world. No longer personal, consciousness was presented as something that would only form an ‘I’ through its encounter with the world. The ‘I’ thus becomes an object, just like any other, only slightly more personal. After all, we care more for our ‘ego’ than for a rock!

Over and again in philosophy circles, we come upon this distinction:

Being is subdivided, as it were, into two major regions – being for-itself (l'être pour-soi) or consciousness, and being-in-itself (l'être en-soi) which is everything other than consciousness, including the material world, the past, the body as organism and so on. REP

As though given The Gap, Rummy's Rule and the Benjamin Button Syndrome, this distinction is actually, what, a piece of cake?

Which is why I would be particularly interested in discussing this part...

...consciousness was presented as something that would only form an ‘I’ through its encounter with the world. The ‘I’ thus becomes an object, just like any other...

Why? Because this is the part I construe to be revolving existentially around dasein. Also, when Sartre speculated that "hell is other people", I've always seen this as revolving around the assumption that not only will others objectify us but, for the overwhelming preponderance of us, we objectify ourselves.

[iambiguous]

Sartre’s Being & Nothingness: The Bible of Existentialism?
Christine Daigle discusses some of the key concepts and ideas in Sartre’s most important philosophical book.

June 1943, occupied France. A writer named Jean-Paul Sartre sees his latest philosophical manuscript, Being and Nothingness, a “phenomenological essay on ontology”, 722 pages of fine print (in the original French edition), published in the midst of World War II. The presentation wrapper on the early reprint of 1945: “What counts in a vase is the void in the middle”!

Phenomenology is the study of conscious experience from the first-person point of view. Husserl used principles of formal ontology even as he bracketed the natural-cultural world in describing our experience, and Heidegger pursued fundamental ontology in his variety of phenomenology describing our own modes of existence. I shall address the role of ontology in phenomenology, and vice versa. Our account of what exists depends on our account of what and how we experience. But, moreover, our understanding of the structure of consciousness depends on our understanding of structure, basic ontological structure, and hence of the place of consciousness in the structure of the world. What makes consciousness “hard” for contemporary philosophy of mind is understanding how intentionality and subjectivity fit into the structure of the world: how phenomenology fits with ontology. Phil Papers

Formal or pure ontology describes forms of objects, as Husserl says. Phenomenology describes forms of conscious experiences, as we readily say. cairn

Now, all we need is for some here to react to this by instantiating it. In other words, noting how, given their own understanding of it, it impacts the behaviors they choose pertaining to conflicting value judgments.

Then the particularly tricky part where, given some measure of free will, one makes a distinction between the phenomenological and the ontological when, for example, posting here.

This wasn’t the first of Sartre’s writings to make some waves. His article on Husserl’s phenomenology from 1936-1937, ‘The Transcendence of the Ego’, had made quite an impression in philosophical circles. Its author cleverly re-appropriated Husserl’s goal of going back to the things themselves by kicking the ego out of consciousness and carefully delineating the various modes of consciousness and its encounter with the world. No longer personal, consciousness was presented as something that would only form an ‘I’ through its encounter with the world. The ‘I’ thus becomes an object, just like any other, only slightly more personal. After all, we care more for our ‘ego’ than for a rock!

Over and again in philosophy circles, we come upon this distinction:

"Being is subdivided, as it were, into two major regions – being for-itself (l'être pour-soi) or consciousness, and being-in-itself (l'être en-soi) which is everything other than consciousness, including the material world, the past, the body as organism and so on. " REP

As though given The Gap, Rummy's Rule and the Benjamin Button Syndrome, this distinction is actually, what, a piece of cake?

Which is why I would be particularly interested in discussing this part...

...consciousness was presented as something that would only form an ‘I’ through its encounter with the world. The ‘I’ thus becomes an object, just like any other...

Why? Because this is the part I construe to be revolving existentially around dasein. Also, when Sartre speculated that "hell is other people", I've always seen this as revolving around the assumption that not only will others objectify us but, for the overwhelming preponderance of us, we objectify ourselves.

[Impenitent]

do we objectify ourselves from fear of being alone or unique?

do we objectify others as external beings to be regarded other than other objects?

"Now I wanna sniff some glue" - Joey Ramone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf6Yv4lMhhs

-Imp

[iambiguous]

Sartre’s Being & Nothingness: The Bible of Existentialism?
Christine Daigle discusses some of the key concepts and ideas in Sartre’s most important philosophical book.

Setting his feet in the phenomenological tradition, presenting himself as an heir of Heidegger and as critical of the master phenomenologist Husserl and of the whole idealistic and rationalistic tradition, Sartre investigates the lived experience of the individual. True enough, he subtitles his book “a phenomenological essay on ontology.”

"Phenomenology and ontology are distinct fields within philosophy. Phenomenology studies the nature of conscious experience and the structures of consciousness, while ontology is concerned with the nature of existence and what exists. Ontology explores the fundamental types of entities and their relationships, whereas phenomenology focuses on the lived experience of phenomen." AI

But then the part where, given a particular set of circumstances, philosophers are able to note this distinction in some detail. There are the lived experiences of self-conscious human beings interacting phenomenally with other self-conscious human beings. Okay, so, ontologically, how would one go about encompassing these interactions objectively? How would the individual out in a particular world understood in a particular way go about ascribing what he or she thinks and feels to his or her own subjective experiences rather than one or another philosophical assessment that revolves around objectivism.

However, while Heidegger had been interested primarily in the metaphysical nature of Being and only studied Da-sein (the being of the human individual) as an instance of it, Sartre wanted to focus mainly on this human reality. What of Being? The introduction of Being and Nothingness takes care of it rather quickly and concludes: “Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.” Now what? Let us get down to serious business and talk about what really matters: the for-itself, human reality, and its relationship with the in-itself and with others.

Then that profoundly problematic relationship between being and becoming. The part where contingency, chance and change sustain a human condition such that who we think we are at any given time is always subject to reconfiguration given new experiences. And even here only in assuming we have free will.

After all, are we really different from any other animals? Well, obviously, yes. But how do we explain that? In other words, given that it is our very brain that has to explain...itself?

I will not enter into the details of Sartre’s ontological theory, as this would entail an over-technical discussion that would not enlighten the reader as to the real import of the book.

For me, this pertains as well to the part where the "technical arguments" are brought down out of the philosophical clouds and intertwined in our actual behaviors.

Rather, I will concentrate on the concepts that he presents and that have shaped Sartre’s existentialism and contributed to the impact of his work. Thus, what follows will focus on freedom, responsibility, bad faith, and relationships with others.

But: will it only follow...conceptually?

[iambiguous]

Sartre’s Being & Nothingness: The Bible of Existentialism?
Christine Daigle discusses some of the key concepts and ideas in Sartre’s most important philosophical book.

Being
The in-itself (in other words, Being), is the first of the pair ‘Being and Nothingness’ to be investigated by Sartre. It is not to be equated with the world. The world is a later product of the encounter between the for-itself (consciousness, human reality) and the in-itself.

Then [for me] this part:

If you were born and raised in a Chinese village in 500 BC, or in a 10th century Viking community or in a 19th century Yanomami village or in a 20th century city in the Soviet Union or in a 21st century American city, how might your value judgments be different?

As though there have not been countless human communities over the centuries that have once, still do now and probably ever will continue to construe the pour-soi and the en-soi in very, very different ways given very different embodiments of dasein.

Then those fiercely fanatical zealots [left and right, God and No God] who insist that the en-soi and the pour- soi are in perfect alignment. All you need to do is to become one of them.

What comes out of this encounter is the world which is truly a human creation. Sartre has adopted the phenomenological concept of intentionality whereby consciousness is always conscious of something. If there is nothing besides consciousness, nothing of which it can be conscious, it ceases to exist.

A "phenomenological concept of intentionality?" But then the part where the conceptual construct is brought "down to Earth". The part where the Benjamin Button Syndrome reveals all of those existential variables that can often be beyond our fully grasping or controlling.

Thus, the in-itself is needed as the basis upon which a consciousness and a world will emerge. We cannot say more than the ‘in-itself is’ because the in-itself lies beyond our experience of it, our being conscious of it.

Me, I link this part to The Gap and to Rummy's Rule. The en-soi given the astounding vastness and complexity of the universe....of the multiverse?

Then the part where Sartre suggested that "Hell is other people". For some, this revolved around the manner in which others objectify us. For me, however, it is equally applicable to how we objectify ourselves.

What is unveiled through our conscious grasp of being is a world supported by being of which we can say nothing but that it is. Hence the remainder of the treatise is devoted to explain the for-itself and its various modes of existence as a for-itself, i.e. a conscious being and all that this implies, as a being-for-others and as an acting being in the world.

The part that for me revolves around dasein here: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/a-man ... sein/31641

[iambiguous]

Sartre’s Being & Nothingness: The Bible of Existentialism?
Christine Daigle discusses some of the key concepts and ideas in Sartre’s most important philosophical book.

We thus learn that the for-itself is none other than the nothingness that encounters Being. The for-itself, consciousness, is conceived of as a nothingness of Being, as a lack of Being. Indeed, intentional consciousness is initially empty, a void that is filled through its being conscious (of) the world. Only following this initial encounter can consciousness move on to self-consciousness and, eventually, ego formation.

You tell me. In other words, from my own frame of mind, the above encompasses a classic example of a "general description intellectual contraption". Thus, all I can do is ask those here convinced they understand it philosophically, to note how it is applicable given their interactions with others from day to day.

Then back to the part where, given a particular set of circumstances, one individual's rendition of being for himself or herself clashes with other individuals who see it as anything but something for them.

As for this part...

The for-itself is a being in situation that has a certain grasp on the world and shapes itself through it.

...what situation? And how is this not rooted existentially in dasein in regard to conflicting value judgments?

Sartre will say that the for-itself is a ‘project’. It is constantly making itself. Since the for-itself is a nothingness, i.e. a being that distinguishes itself by not being the world or that of which it is conscious, the for-itself is thus not determined. This entails, for Sartre, that the for-itself is entirely free to become through its actions. It can freely break from its past or even from social or historical conditioning and affirm itself through its actions.

This is basically equivocal enough to mean very different things to those who have lived very different lives. And having "projects" is one thing, intertwining them in a world where the "projects" of others can result in any number of confrontations, another thing altogether.

Then those who argue that en-soi and pour-soi are actually interchangeable given...the only possible reality?

[iambiguous]

Sartre’s Being & Nothingness: The Bible of Existentialism?Christine Daigle discusses some of the key concepts and ideas in Sartre’s most important philosophical book

Freedom and Responsibility

Although this freedom could be seen as a great gift, Sartre tones this down quite a bit by insisting on the responsibility that it entails.

That's how it works by and large. You either have the option to behave in particular ways or you don't. But in choosing behaviors you are able to pursue, you will generate consequences that might precipitate in turn hostile reactions from those who eschew the very behaviors that you yourself highly value. 

In fact, the for-itself will discover its own freedom in anguish. If freedom is absolute, responsibility is also absolute and hence I am really what I have made myself.

Anguish intertwined in freedom? Maybe for some but certainly not for others. And, for the objectivists among us, the anguish is often obviated by, or subsumed in one or another One True Path. And who here, other than the moral objectivists, actually believes that both freedom and responsibility are...absolute?

If I collaborate with the Nazi occupiers my collaboration is all my doing. I may want to blame my actions or attitudes on my upbringing, my social or economic situation, my past history and behavior patterns but, the fact is, I made that choice and even if everything points me towards being a passive citizen, I may freely break with this and decide to be involved politically.

Your doing, my doing, their doing. Here, however, my own understanding of dasein still seems considerably more relevant. And to just shrug off the part where we are indoctrinated as children, given the historical and cultural parameters of the lives we live, along with the "for all practical purposes" consequences embedded in Benjamin Button Syndrome, makes the part about doing this or doing that far, far more problematic than most are willing to accept. So, they become objectivists at least in part in order to make the "agony of choice in the face of uncertainty" go away.

Instead, assessments of this sort...

Because I can break with my past, I am entirely responsible for it. Whatever I have done before I have freely chosen and I must be held responsible for it. Freedom is thus the core of our being and, one might say, a poisoned gift, as it plunges the for-itself deep into anguish because of the responsibility it entails.

...are, in my view, hopelessly abstract. What particular understanding of freedom given what particular sets of circumstances? And while I recognize that freedom and responsibility are bound existentially, I don't believe this can be pinned down philosophically [let alone deontologically] other than in a world of words.

[Impenitent]

other than words...

he has apparent freedom of action

take his life - anyone can

no more freedom of action

take his senses (killing in degrees)

lessen freedom

not to be

-Imp

[iambiguous]

Sartre’s Being & Nothingness: The Bible of Existentialism?
Christine Daigle discusses some of the key concepts and ideas in Sartre’s most important philosophical book.

Bad Faith

Sartre acknowledges that, most of the time, individuals will have recourse to bad faith to hide their own freedom from themselves. Bad faith is different from lying in that in bad faith, the dualism ‘liar/lied to’ vanishes: I am the one lying to myself and yet I believe in the lie. To me, the lie is the truth. Sartre calls this state a precarious one. Indeed, for in bad faith, I am also conscious of the lie: fundamentally, I know that the truth I believe in is a lie I made up for myself.

"In existentialism, bad faith (French: mauvaise foi) is the psychological phenomenon whereby individuals act inauthentically, by yielding to the external pressures of society to adopt false values and disown their innate freedom as sentient human beings. " wiki

Of course, for all practical purposes, who among us can actually pin down true freedom and true responsibility? In other words, given particular sets of assumptions regarding particular social, political and economic circumstances.

Anyone here care to give it a go?

The most famous example that Sartre provides to illustrate the attitude of bad faith is that of the waiter in the café. It shows us a man who “is playing, he is amusing himself.” What game is that? “He is playing at being a waiter in a café.” Indeed, since he is not a waiter in essence (in fact as a for-itself he has no essence) he has to make himself such. However, he never is a waiter in-itself. That is impossible.

Really, think about it. How many men and women sustain their interactions with others -- at home, at school, at work, online etc. -- by grappling with this philosophical quandary? Instead, people become waiters by and large because for all practical purposes most of us need to earn a living to pay the bills. It's a job. And it's a job for most given the manner in which, historically, capitalism encompasses employment by sustaining a particular political economy. One in which some make the distinction between being a wage earner and a wage slave.

For any number of socialists, bad faith revolves instead around those who refuse to grasp or to accept the part where historically capitalism creates the conditions which bring socialism into existence...materially, dialectically.

Naturally?

As a human being who is fundamentally free, who is not what he is and is what he is not, he could decide all of a sudden to quit the café and become something else than a waiter. But no, our man conscientiously makes himself into a waiter. All of his gestures are carefully executed so that he can be a café waiter. But no matter how hard he tries, he will never be such in the mode of the in-itself. He can never be, he can become. He can make it his project to be a waiter, a very good one at that, but he cannot say that he is one.

Here of course, such behavior might revolve instead around those who take their jobs as waiters more seriously than others. They like being a waiter and they are committed to being a good waiter. Though how many will stop to think "I am a waiter."

He is not his behaviour nor is he his conduct. For, as Sartre says, “if I am one [café waiter], this cannot be in the mode of being in-itself. I am a waiter in the mode of being what I am not.” The waiter is playing at being a café waiter. Concentrating on the gestures and attitudes, he is dwelling in bad faith. His focus is misplaced. Sartre tells us that the same happens to the student who wants to be attentive. He so “exhausts himself in playing the attentive role that he ends up by no longer hearing anything.” The play has taken over.

Any waiters here? Yes? Okay, given the above, how do you construe yourself "on the job"? Philosophically, in other words.

There are clearly behaviors here that are valued more than others. And some certainly make better waiters than others. But who is going to argue that they embody the very essence of what being a waiter encompasses?

A waiter en-soi?

[iambiguous]

Sartre’s Being & Nothingness: The Bible of Existentialism?
Christine Daigle discusses some of the key concepts and ideas in Sartre’s most important philosophical book.

What Sartre wants to get at here is that when I say that I am, I am missing my own being as a being that constantly makes itself. To put it differently, by claiming to have a static being (“I am”) I am denying that I am a dynamic being (“I become”) who makes oneself via its actions. Sartre says that, for consciousness, making sustains being. Hence, consciousness is as making itself, “consciousness is not what it is.”

Think of it this way. Given free will, we choose behaviors from moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day, year in and year out. At any particular time, in any particular set of circumstances, we might choose anything that we are physically capable of. We might start a novel, go bowling, masturbate, listen to music, plan a murder. And different people will react to what we do given the manner in which their own assessment of the world around them predisposes them existentially to react in ways not entirely fully understood or controlled.

I merely suggest there are basically two ways in which we can come to a point of view pertaining to value judgments. On the one hand, we can spend hours and hours and hours actually thinking about the pros and the cons of the behaviors we derive from our particular value judgments. We can then try to have as many different experiences as possible relating to those behaviors. And we can discuss them with as many different people as possible in order to get diverse points of view. And we can try to acquire as much knowledge and information about these behaviors/value judgments in order to be fully informed on it. 

On the other hand, based on my own experience, most folks don't do this at all. Instead, they live in a particular time and place, acquire a particular set of experiences, accumulate a particular set of relationships and acquire particular sources of knowledge and information -- which then comes [rather fortuitously] over the years to predispose them to particular subjective points of view that might well have changed over and again throughout the years. And, indeed, may well change many times more. I know that mine did.

Is bad faith inevitable? Sartre questions the possibility of sincerity and presents it as yet another instance of bad faith: One plays at being sincere! In both instances, bad faith and sincerity, one is aiming at being in-itself, hence one is fleeing from one’s own being.

That's what is crucial here in my view. The moral and political objectivists embody their own One True Path in order to sustain one or another rendition of the "psychology of objectivism". The comforting and consoling belief that how they view themselves "out in the world" really and truly is the most rational frame of mind. It's the belief itself rather than what is believed that reflects my own understanding of "bad faith".

He concludes this section on a rather gloomy note that already casts a bad spell on his later attempts at delineating an ethics: he says that the being of the human being is bad faith. However, in a footnote, Sartre does say that authenticity is a human possibility. Only, he does not explain here how one can achieve it.

Does anyone here think they might have achieved it themselves? If so, how did you manage to accomplish it?  And how does it impact the way you choose to interact with others in a world of conflicting goods.