Sartre om: frihet og ansvar.

«Selv er jeg intet, verden er alt,

men jeg også det intet ved hvilket verden er»

Jeg hadde lyst til å lære mer om Sartre fordi jeg forbandt ham med eksistensialisme. Et annet tema hos han er frihet, friheten mennesket eier. Sartre sier at ethvert menneske er dømt til å være fritt- og dermed står det ansvarlig for alt det foretar seg, og unnlater å foreta seg.

Den friheten mennesket har kommer av at det er overflødig (kontingent). Vi kommer til verden ved en tilfeldighet og er erstattelige, utskiftbare. Vi er ikke nødvendige i verden. Denne følelsen av å være overflødig er ubehagelig og angstfylt men målet er, ifølge Sartre å føle at den er lett å bære.

Som følge av kontingensen kommer friheten.  Det at vi ikke er nødvendige i verden betyr at vi kan gjøre hva vi vil. Når vi kan gjøre hva vi vil betyr det også at vi står ansvarlige for alt vi gjør. Når mennesket står ovenfor denne friheten kan det lett falle i noe Sartre kaller «vond tro». Det betyr at man prøver å unngå friheten og ansvaret ved å innbille seg at man ikke har noen annen mulighet, at man er nødvendig der man er. 

Sartre brukte begrepet prerefleksiv bevissthet om den delen av bevisstheten som ikke ser seg selv som et «jeg». Et Jeg-løst bevissthetsnivå der bevisstheten ikke bøyer seg og betrakter seg selv. Som for eksempel når du skal ta et valg og du kjenner du et lite øyeblikk hva du vil før du har begynt å tenke. 

Den prerefleksive bevisstheten er «ekte» i det at den plukker opp hva vi vil, hva som er prosjektet vårt, uten å sammenblande hva vi vil være, for eksempel: at jeg vil være flink, snill eller smart. Den prerefleksive bevisstheten er utgangspunktet for en autentisk eksistens der prosjektet er å gjøre noe, ikke være noe. 

Dette «gjøre noe» kaller Sartre for prosjekt og prosjektet avdekker verden, avdekker væren. Ved det vi gjør, ved vårt blikk på verden rundt oss, ved måten vi behandler tingene, bringes de til å være.

Men for å komme dit, til prosjektet , må man altså erkjenne sin kontingens, sin frihet og ansvar og erkjenne at alle ens handlinger ikke har annen grunn enn friheten selv.

On the philosophy of Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School

On Marcuse and suppression

Departing from my own feeling of discontent or disharmony in relation to some facets of today’s society, I wanted to take a closer look at the theory of the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, who in his book One-Dimensional Man (1964) analyses this discontent in the context of our contemporary culture.

Born in Germany in 1898, Marcuse served as a soldier during the World War I. In the 1920s he studied with Husserl and Heidegger, and in 1932 he joined the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt, later known as the Frankfurt School. Other prominent theorists associated with the Frankfurt School are Theodore Adorno, Jurgen Habermas and Walter Benjamin. Their influence can clearly be seen in postmodernism, today’s theoretical paradigm represented by thinkers like Foucault, Derrida, Heidegger, Gadamer, Sartre and Lyotard.

The Frankfurt School became famous for their introduction of critical theory, which may be defined as social critique that is aimed at change and emancipation through enlightenment, and which does not stick dogmatically to its own doctrinal assumptions. They distinguished “critical” from “traditional” theory saying that a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks to explain all the circumstances that enslave humans. The Frankfurt School saw modernity and enlightenment joining hands to create a new universal myth that entrapped us with its appeal, while controlling us and diminishing our freedom at every step. 

Due to his Jewish background, Herbert Marcuse had to flee to the United States in 1933, never to live in Germany again. The social theories of Marcuse and the Frankfurt School were developed on the backdrop of the rise of the fascist movement in mid-war Europe.

In the US, Marcuse taught at American universities, becoming explicitly political, resonating with the concerns of the student movement of the 1960s and thus making him the father of the American New Left movement.

In his work One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse claims that while enlightenment in the Renaissance intended to disclose the structures of society that stood in the way of human emancipation, enlightenment today is used to maintain status quo in a totalitarian system.  In this process, technology and science are used as suppressors and not liberators. He states that capitalist, basic principles such as reason, freedom and individuality are betrayed by late-capitalism, and that a symptom of this is the smoothness of the cultural industry, which reduces the ability of critical thought in the population. According to Marcuse, the masses are being kept in check, not by force and surveillance, but by entertainment and consumption.

Like both Benjamin and Adorno, Marcuse is of the opinion that art promises resistance to social repression (The Aesthetic Dimension, Marcuse, 1977) Through detachment, the successful artist will attain truth in his work. True art must invoke a longing for something utopian and the promise of happiness represented by beauty. This symbolic longing for fulfilment will awaken us from complacency.

The concept of beauty in Ancient Greece

As part of a Continuum Art Project we're writing several essays on philosophical issues relating to art. One of these essays is called "The concept of beauty in Ancient Greece" and is about the modern way seeing beauty compared to that of Antiquity. 

These days we think of beauty as something describing only the surface of things or people. But the greeks saw deeper and found that by studying the beauty of the world, man had the possibility to transcend his everyday self and merge into something bigger than himself. This transcendental potential is called Plato's Metaphysics and is something most of us has experienced in nature or in art. 

You can read the whole essay here (so far in norwegian only). 

Poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson

- Truth is Fire -

Nuda Veritas - Naked Truth - by Klimt reads "Truth is fire and to speak the truth means to shine and burn."

Klimt belonged to the Secessionist Movement of the fin-de-siecle Vienna which aim was to redefine the relationship between art and society.

Poster from Continuum Project