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POLAR_SARTRE
November 7, 2011
Sartre's "In Search of Method" (1963),
translated by Hazel M. Barnes (paper ed.) SEARCH_FOR_A_SEARCH
In essence this is a survey and
critique of other Marxist
intellectuals, only occasionally The extant description of
using the conceit that what's under this book on wikipedia
discussion is a set of "methods". makes it sound much more
coherent than it reads...
Trying to sort out what's going
on in this book is difficult: It's a book full of
it looks like there's a tangled intriguing jabs in
mess of emotions, a set of different directions,
complex maneuvers in though decoded and
intellectual posturing... summed up I don't think
it adds up to too much.
Perhaps: Sartre wanted to maintain his
leftist credentials without being Marx == cool, but
rejected as a Communist? marxists == dumb.
Sartre early on became known as
Mr. Existentialism, and apparently
spent his life trying to reconcile Is it supposed to be a
it with Marxism. problem that existentialism
lends itself to radical
In "In Search of a Method" individualism, and is hence
Sartre presents an incompatible with any sort
intellectual history of of group effort?
his tribe, placing a lot
of emphasis on how ideas Needless to say, free
are influenced by social individuals can work together
events, and serve a if they want to, without
purpose in their time... abandoning their right to
call themselves individuals.
He puts so much emphasis on the
notion that the intellectual Is there supposed to be a
world reflects social events contradiction between
that I began to think that this the doctrine of implacable
was an early version of historical forces and the
post-modern disease: the existentialist notion of
assumption that because many self-reinvention? Are you
things are "social constructs" free, or are you a product
everything must be. of society, pinned in
place in you're point in
But then later Maybe those history?
he complains were all
about his supposed Is scientific materialsm
fellow Marxists to be incompatible with
losing touch excuses? individual freedom?
with reality...
The Zeitgeist FREEWILL
made me do it,
I know better
now.
NODAL_SELF
Quoting from page 8 of my paperback edition:
"Those intellectuals who come after the great
flowering and who undertake to set the systems in
order or to use the new methods to conquer territory
not yet fully explored, those who provide practical
applications for the theory and employ it as a tool to
destroy and to construct-- they should not be called
philosophers. They cultivate the domain, they take an
inventory, they erect certain structures there, they
may even bring about certain internal changes; but
they still get their nourishment from the living
thought of the great dead. They are borne along by
the crowd on the march, and it is the crowd which
constitutes their cultureal milieu and their future,
which determines the field of their investigations,
and even of their 'creation.' These _relative_ men I
propose to call 'ideologists'. " -- Jean-Paul Sartre
The translator explains that Sartre's word here
is idéologues. I suspect a more modern
translation would just drop the accent: ideologues.
But are the people who build on a
philosophic foundation just ideologues?
Why not, for example, scientists?
But yes, perhaps also scientists:
On p.35 Sartre states that for "the
contemporary Marxist" the ideas of
Marx "_already_ constitute a So it appears that
_knowledge_. We think, on the other here Sartre is
hand, that everything remains to be asserting that
done; we must find the method and Marx is the real
constitute the science." philosopher and he
himself is just a
follower.
So which is it? Does
philosophy devolve And here, he
into ideology, or certainly sounds
evolve into science? like an ideologue.
Or is he asserting
some sort of odd
equation between
science and ideology?
philosophy
o
/ \
/ \
ideology o -?- o science
Later on, in "The
Problem of Mediations", Sartre
appears to be complaining
Perhaps: his language gets more about the ideological blinders
forgiving when he's thinking of of Marxists-- and it's no
himself as a member of the set, longer clear if he regards
and more critical when he's himself as one.
standing outside of it? You do
ideology, I do science. And indeed, it's
stunningly clear
whatever one
RED_SARTRE thinks of Marx
that Marxists
have their
The initial stance of "In problems.
Search of a Method" looks
like a justification for I was listening to a
being trendy. Sartre wants recent presentation at
to be a Marxist just like the Later he gets some anarchist gathering
rest of the cool kids, and increasingly where the two speakers
he's willing to deep six critical of kept "proving" their
existentialism, if that's the Marxist points by tracing them
what it takes. scene, to the back to quotations from
point where Marx.
But it could the intitially
be that that's favorable The well-regarded
unfair. remarks seem Marxist historian
like they're David Harvey made
If intellectuals are intended to fun of this
going to work soften the tendency: he
together, how else blow. commented that
is it going to done something he was
except by following (Perhaps saying could be
up on what seems another found in "Das
like the hot ideas? example of Kapital" if you
the "circular looked carefully,
What else would a firing squad" and added a remark
work produced for syndrome.) like "Marxists
one's own time always like to have
look like but everything rooted
"trendy"? in the sacred
texts."
(Or perhaps,
"reactionary") (A "Democracy Now"
interview.)
NODAL_SELF
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