Self Encounter; 8; Engaged Freedom

Man is free, but his freedom has no value for himself or for anybody else until he learns to engage it. Engaged freedom, which the existentialists have made such an important concept, means that one involves oneself, one commits oneself to something or somebody. The existentialists have been accused of saying that any commitment is better than no commitment. This is obvious nonsense and they did not intend such an idea. What they do mean is that if man is to live completely and with integrity, his condition as man, he will first find out what he does believe and then having decided he will commit himself wholly and consistently

to it. I think we can understand the idea of best perhaps in terms of the religious commitment. Whatever our own view may be, I think we all tend to admire more. A person who knows what he believes in religious terms and lives consistently with his ideas and is willing to stand up for them. Such a person we admire much more than the man who is nominally something or other but who doesn't live it all consistently with what he professes. When it comes to political commitment, there is no one position which naturally end of necessity goes with existentialism. If we look historically, we find that Martin Heidegger on the one hand seriously compromised himself by working with Hitler. And on the other hand, the other extreme, we have Norman Maylor in America who calls himself the first American existentialist and who holds a philosophy which is an almost anarchist individualism.

The French existentialists and Christian existentialists here in America have been almost entirely on the liberal or even radical side. I think the leftist position, though not the totalitarian position, is a natural and logical one for existentialism. For it holds that man is responsible for his fellow men and that all men are equal, that no accident of birth or wealth or even intelligence gives a person or a class and a natural rights over another person or class. And yet there is a paradox, a kind of tension in any political ideal which existentialism can back. On the one hand, they do emphasize the individual and never forget him and yet one is responsible for all other individuals. There is also the community. On the one

hand again, they call for action in the real world, but on the other hand, they refuse to compromise with what they consider a true principle. And so we have the demand for purity of principle over here and yet the insistence on immediate action over there and a rejection of quietism. I think it's particularly interesting to see how they have attempted to resolve this tension by noticing the different positions assumed by Jean-Paul Sartre and by Albert Camus. Sartre posed the question fairly in a play which came out about 1948, dirty hands. In this play, we see the question, can an intellectual who believes in truth and freedom, work for a party which even in the name of ultimate justice and good for all, sacrifices both truth and freedom. A young man you go has been sent

by the workers party to serve as a secretary to a party leader, Erder. In reality, he is supposed to assassinate Erder. For the party believes that Erder is pursuing his own policy which is against the interest of the party. For you go, the problem is simple. Erder is ready to sacrifice principle for immediate expediency. How you cling to your purity young man. How afraid you are to soil your hands. Well, stay pure. What good will it do you? Well, why did you join us? Purity is an idea for a yogi or a monk. New intellectuals and bourgeois anarchists use it as a pretext for doing nothing. They do nothing to stand motionless. Arms of your size wearing kid gloves. Well,

I have dirty hands. Right up to the elbows. I have plunged them in filth and blood. What do you hope to do? Do you think you can govern innocently? You'll see someday that I'm not afraid of blood. Oh, really? Red gloves. Well, that's elegant. That's the rest that scares you. It's that that stinks to your little aristocratic nose. Oh, we're back to that, are we? I'm an aristocrat. A guy who's never gone hungry. Unfortunately, for you, I'm not alone in my opinion. So you misunderstand something, my boy. I know these people of the party who disagree with my policy. And I can tell you that they are of my tribe

and not of yours. If they oppose these negotiations, it's simply because they think them inopportune. Under other circumstances, they would be the first to launch them. But you are making it a matter of principle. Who spoke of principle? Well, aren't you trying to make it into a matter of principle? Oh, good. Then here's something that ought to convince you. If we deal with the regents, they'll call off the war. But if we break off these parties, hundreds of thousands of men will lose their hides. Now, what do you say to that? Can you scratch out a hundred thousand men at the Circle of Pen? I can't make revolution with flowers. But if there's no other way. Ben? So much the worst. There you are. You can see for yourself, you don't love men, you go. You love only principles. Enjoying the party because its cause was just.

And I shall leave the party when its cause ceases to be just. As for men, it's not what they are that interests me. It's what they can become. And I love them for what they are. Soiled hands or blood stained gloves. With such an alternative, it is easy to see why Sartre has declared that it is Erder's position, which he favors. You go is willing to sacrifice men to principle. And the list of those who throughout the century have been willing to kill and torment other people in the name of a religious ideal or a national loyalty or even some private belief is sickeningly long. And yet I don't think we can be quite satisfied with Erder's position as the only alternative. In terms of the play, what

he does is realistically humane. And yet his doctrine comes dangerously close to saying that the end justifies the means. It does raise the question as to whether we dare adopt the opponents methods, work with the opponents, and yet not become like the opponents. Is there perhaps a limit beyond which we cannot compromise without betraying the very thing we are trying to accomplish? Sartre, of course, did not mean to say that the end justified the means. And yet it seemed to many of us who watched him during the years accompanying the production of this play and following it, that he himself was too much inclined to go along with Erder. He worked with the communists, though he never became a member of the Communist Party. He seemed to advocate all that they advocated until the time that Russia

attacked Hungary in 1956. At that point, he broke with the party completely. But many people asked whether this was because he disagreed in the doctrine that the end justifies the means, or whether it was just that he had become disillusioned about the end. If we try to see the difference between Sartre and Kamu, I think one of the best ways to approach the problem is to see how they use the words rebel or rebellion or revolt on the one hand, and revolutionist or revolution on the other. For Sartre, the rebel is simply the one who is responsible for a negative rebellion. He rebels, but not in the name of anything. He is inefficacious. It is the revolutionist who by committing himself to a party and an institution accomplishes enough to make the necessary sacrifice worthwhile. For Kamu, the opposite is true. He feels that institutionalizing, that organizing, a revolution usually

ends up in betraying it, that it ends up in simply codifying political murder. The true rebellion to which we might give our loyalty, he says, is that movement of revolt which acknowledges limits. Such a revolt always maintains the individual at its very heart. It begins with the assumption that there are certain things which simply are not permitted, and at no time will this revolt be itself guilty of transgressing those limits. We admit that violence is not something we may rule out completely. If we had a philosophy of eternity, perhaps we could. If we knew that when we died, we would be reincarnated immediately again, then we might say we will suffer anything rather than to be guilty

of murder or violence. But if we have only one earthly life, then we cannot stand by and let the violence of the other man go unchecked. But Kamu feels that in our concern who are accomplishing a society where there will be no violence, we must not sacrifice the present generation. If we resort to violence, we must never do so in the name of any institution which would make violence a part of its structure. But only take up violence as an extreme to another violence, and the work then work in the direction of getting rid of violence completely. Kamu's rebel, like Kamu himself, would join in fighting in a World War II, for example, on the side of the Allies. But he would not subscribe to any totalitarian state, nor would he subscribe to legalize violence, which we call capital punishment. The literary presentation of Kamu's doctrine of a revolt with limits is found in a play

called the Justice Assassins. Here we have a group of Russian terrorists at about 195. These are historical people, and Kamu respects them. He calls them the fastidious or scrupulous murderers. For if they committed an act of violence, they did so on the condition that they knew they would pay for it with their own lives. And they were not simply trying to bring in another society which would support itself by violence. In the play, the young man, Yanuk, agrees to throw a bomb at the carriage in which the grand duke is sitting. But then he doesn't throw the bomb for as he is just about to let it go. He sees that there are two children in the carriage. In other words, he finds it difficult to explain himself to the other members of the group. Open your eyes to form, and try to realize that the group would lose its entire driving

force where it to tolerate the idea of children being blown to pieces by our bombs. I'm sorry, but I don't suffer from a tender heart. That sort of nonsense cuts no ice with me. Not until the day when we stop sentimentalizing about children with the revolution triumph. And that day comes, the revolution will be hated by the entire human race. What's a matter if we love it enough to force our revolution on it? Can't you see what is at stake? Just because Yanuk couldn't bring himself to kill those two, thousands of Russian children will go on dying of starvation for years to come. Have you ever seen children die in a starvation? Well, I have. Yanuk's ready to kill the grand duke, because his death may bring near the time when Russian children no longer starve to death. Even that in itself is none too easy for him. But the death of the grand duke's niece and nephew won't prevent any child from dying of hunger. Even in destruction, there's a right way and a wrong way. And there are limits. There are no limits. The truth is, is that you don't believe in the revolution. Any of

you. If you did believe in it, if you felt that by the dent of our struggles and sacrifices, one day we could build up a new Russia, redeemed from despotism, a land of freedom that will gradually spit out over the whole earth, and that then man freed from his masters and his superstitions could at last look up toward the sky, a god in his own right. And how I ask you can the deaths of two children be weighed in the balance of such a faith. To fauna cannot let you continue, I am ready to shed blood, so stover through the present despotism. But behind your words, I see the threat of a despotism which, if ever it comes into power, will make of me a murderer. And what I want to be is a doer of justice, not a man of blood. As long as justice is done, even if it's by assassins, what does it matter? Men do not live by justice alone. When their bread is stolen, what else have they to live by? By justice? And don't forget, by innocence. Innocence? Yes, maybe I know what

that means. But I prefer to shut my eyes to it for the time being so that one way it will have a worldwide meaning. You must feel very sure that day is going to come soon. If you are willing to repudiate everything that makes life worth living today on its account. I'm certain that that day is coming. You can't be that sure. And by the time that all this blood is dried off this earth, we will long since have turned to dust. Then others will come. Then I will hail them as my brothers. You say others. Well, I can tell you that the men that I love are the men who are alive today that walk this earth. It's they who my hail. It is for them I am fighting, for them I am willing to lay down my life. And I will not strike my brothers in the face for the sake of some far off city which for all I know may not even exist. No, I will not add to the living injustice I see all around me for the sake of a dead justice. Killing children is against a man's honor.

And if one day the revolution chooses to break with honor. Well, I am through with the revolution. Yonic's reference to the coming despotism is Camus condemnation of the Soviet totalitarian state. If the society which comes into being upholds political murder, then the people who had by supposedly heroic exploits brought it into being become simply political assassins. Does the end justify the means as Camus possibly yes? But the answer to this question which historical thought leaves dangling is only this. What can justify the end only the means? If we could foresee the future, if we could see absolutely what will come into being. And

if we could see that what comes into being is a perfect state and total happiness for mankind, then possibly we could justify the arbitrary sacrifice of other people as well as ourselves. But since we can't foresee the future, then it seems that there is nothing to justify our designating as victims, the men with whom we share our present existence. And yet, says Camus, our only recurred course is what you might call a calculated culpability. There is no innocence for one cannot refuse to act at all. And if one acts at all, one is in all probability going to sacrifice someone. If one tried to attain a position of absolute innocence, it would be just like the act of the man who in his fear of death resolves to commit suicide. For by not acting at all, we are simply allowing violence to go on unchecked.

Saratra criticized the rebel, calling it a selling out to the forces of reaction on Camus part and a quietism. And Camus, on the other hand, felt that Saratra had compromised to the point where he was no longer living even by the principles of his own philosophy. The two men never reconciled their quarrel. And yet it has always seemed to me that it was a quarrel which existed more in the application to specific actions than in the real formulation and intent. For one thing, Saratra, in criticizing Marxism, has always felt that it was wrong in assuming that a sort of economic determinism was acting, forcing men to do things, instead of recognizing in people free agents. And he has always insisted that a state is nothing except a collection of individual, real people. And that consequently, individuals shouldn't

be judged in terms of the whole. And also, Saratra in his recent years has said over and over again that a country must not take the position that any action is justified so long as it accomplishes a national goal. In his play, the condemned of Altona, again in his introduction to Henria Legs, the question, when he takes up the question of torture, he says as emphatically as anyone could, that neither France nor any other nation must use torture or political murder unless it wants to lose everything which it is struggling to keep alive as being its own ideal. I think that Saratra has actually sought throughout his life a sort of reconciliation of these demands, just as Kamu has felt that somehow or other, the extremes must be limited so that there can be some proper mean found between quietism

and compromise. And one of his plays, a scenario called In the Mesh, Saratra very pessimistically, describes how a certain John gradually becomes a dictator of a small country, only to find that like those who preceded him and like those who are going to follow him, he must compromise until all the ideals for which he fought have been lost. He had first condoned violence against his enemies, and then gradually in order to keep himself going, he had had to use it even against his friends, especially against his close friend Lucian, who not understanding John's motives, had attacked him over and over in the newspapers. Finally, John has Lucian imprisoned, and when Lucian is at the point of death, John comes to visit him in the concentration camp.

Well, old fellow, I thought you'd come. Are you in pain? No. No, she'll never make all bones. Lucian, do you hate me? No. I pity you. I shall have kept my hands clean to the last. I regret nothing. Your hands are covered with blood. I know. Don't you think I would have liked your state clean? But if I'd been like you, the region would still be on the throne. Purity is a luxury. You could afford it because I was on hand to do the dirty work. It's not from myself, I'm angry with you. It's because of the others. I tell you I regret nothing. I had to save the revolution. If I'd nationalized oil, that would have met war. Why didn't you say so? I couldn't. Did you have to report so many people to save the revolution? If the foreigners had reinstated the region, don't

you think there would have been a hundred times as many deported? I had to choose. Lucian, the whole country is against me. One year, maybe two, I shall be overthrown and shot. Well, I shall have hauled on for five years. The revolution is saved. In a few years, the deported will be able to return. They will be able to nationalize oil and men will be happy. Thanks to me, the tyrant, and they will still curse. And what have you done? What is the sense of babbling about justice if you don't do anything about it? What do you say to me? Do you want me to die in despair? No, no, no, Lucian. Don't you think I'm in despair myself? Taking everything on my shoulders? All the murders? Even your death? And I'd blow with myself. Jean, I think I understand you. Do you think it was a crime to want to

remain unsullied? I don't think so. Lucian, there have to be men like you and men like me. We've both done everything we could. We've both gone to the limit. But listen, one day they'll invade the palace and condemn me to death. I almost hope for it. But there's one thing which counts. I must know if you acquit me. You did what you could. My little brother. The Sartre artistically, whether or not an actual life, has found a reconciliation between the conflicting needs for purity of principle on the one hand and the need for concrete action in the real world on the other. But someone might say this is all very well this

talk of commitment for dictator or ruler or a person of responsibility in a war. But what about me? What difference does it make to the history and the people of the future? Whether or not I commit myself this way or that way. But we, you and I, will all be part of those nameless dead who together enable historians to sum up a period. You know the kind of statement we make when we are trying to get what the Germans call the zeitgeist or the spirit of the age, something like this. In the Middle Ages, European man was on the whole content to accept the place in the universe which the church gave to him and the social status into which he was born. Or in the first 50 years of America, men pushed on restlessly farther and farther against the frontier, tired of stability and seeking to rest ever more and more greatness from the boundless wilderness or in the 20th century.

20th century man was so content with the material comforts which he was understandably proud of achieving that he felt suspicious and resentful of those people who tried to tell him that it all was not well with the world. Or isn't this the way to sum up the 20th century? It depends on you and me how the future will sum it up. We are now by our commitments and our evasions, writing that statement for the future historian to decipher. 20th century man was so content with the material comforts which he was understandably proud of. 30 Hens by Jean Paul Sartre was translated by Lionel Label. The Justice Assessons by Albert

Camel was translated by Stuart Gilbert. Both books are published by Alfred A. Kinoff Incorporated. This is NET National Educational Television.