"...I get to make myself who I want to be" -Brittany paraphrasing Sartre (see previous post)
Here's where I disagree with Sartre completely. While he never out rightly puts it in these terms, it follows logically from his argument that we have complete freedom to choose who we are, and therefore make ourselves who we want to be. While I agree with Sartre in some respects, I think he oversimplifies and generalizes the condition of human freedom (if such a thing exists). Let us think about this logically: a child is born HIV positive in Africa. That child did not choose to be inflicted with HIV anymore than he/she chose to be born. You can extend this argument to any disease/disorder. Besides physical limits to our freedom, there are social ones as well. We do not choose what situation we are born into and therefore what cultural values are passed down to us. We are products of our circumstances—we can never escape the lens through which we have been conditioned to view the world. We have no choice. As hard as I might try to escape it, my opinions, thoughts, actions, even desires will always be influenced by western culture and my upbringing. Let’s use an example that is already familiar to us: The Matrix (sorry). Neo and the rest of the Matrix characters were given a choice to escape the Matrix—to realize “reality”, if you will—but, what about those humans who never “wake up”? Who are never told the truth—namely that they are part of a system of control, and by being part of the system, perpetuating power relations, perpetuating the illusion of reality? Do they have a choice to escape the Matrix (Do we have a choice to escape “the system”, panopticon, whatever you want to call it)? Did they have a choice to be in the Matrix in the first place (Did we choose to be born into the system)?
I also would like to consider the issue of emotions. Sartre seems to suggest that we choose are emotions in the same way we choose what clothes we will put on. We are never sad; we only affect ourselves with sadness. I agree with him on some level—we are never inherently any emotion, at least not in the way that an object is the definition of that object. My problem with Sartre’s argument is his conjecture that we choose to affect ourselves with any given emotion. If someone close to me dies, I do not choose to affect myself with sadness; I am rather, affected by sadness. It is silly to reduce all the chemical processes that take place in one’s brain when an emotion is felt, to mere choice. We might choose to appear happy/sad/whatever, but there is a difference between acting happy and being happy, that is being affected by happiness.
Let us assume (like Sartre has assumed without proof) that we as human beings have unlimited freedom. “We are condemned to be free.” This in itself is paradoxical. We cannot choose to be free, we are forced to be free, and to be coerced is the very antithesis of freedom. There is one thing I agree wholeheartedly with Sartre on, and that is his concept of bad faith, and specifically his view of sincerity as bad faith. But if sincerity is bad faith, then we can never truly be sincere, and we therefore cannot choose to be sincere, that is, we do not have the freedom to choose sincerity.
P.S. My first post about Kierkegaard and Zizek (partly titled "The Illusion of Choice") also has some insight on this issue.
P.P.S. As a side note: I traced similarities between Sartre’s concept of Bad Faith and Harry Frankfurt’s definition of Bullshit in his essay/book titled On Bullshit. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. The last line of the essay, and one that is especially poignant to our discussion of Sartre: “…sincerity itself is bullshit.”
P.S. My first post about Kierkegaard and Zizek (partly titled "The Illusion of Choice") also has some insight on this issue.
P.P.S. As a side note: I traced similarities between Sartre’s concept of Bad Faith and Harry Frankfurt’s definition of Bullshit in his essay/book titled On Bullshit. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. The last line of the essay, and one that is especially poignant to our discussion of Sartre: “…sincerity itself is bullshit.”
11 comments:
Although I see where you're coming from regarding Sartre and his infered claim that we have "complete freedom to choose who we are", I think you may be looking at it from the wrong direction. I think that instead of stressing that we always have unlimited freedom as you seem to infer it, Sartre is stressing that we never comletely lack freedom. As we discussed in class, although humans may find themselves in situations where their options are limited, their ability to choose is never completely taken away. For example, you brought up the case of a child being HIV positive in Africa. Although this disease, like other diseases, may limit his/her ability to partake in certain aspects of life (I don't think Sartre would disagree with you there), it never completely takes away this person's freedom as long as they are alive. The ability to choose always exisits.
This is how I understood it. Whether it is correct or not is certainly up for debate.
Michael,
While I understand your argument, I still have a problem with Sartre's concept of freedom, and here's why: while yes, in a certain sense our "ability to choose is never completely taken away", my question is what goes into (i.e. what influences) those choices. The child with HIV was perhaps a bad example, and perhaps I didn't make this clear enough, but what I meant to say was: besides having very limited choices, that child, because of their condition, will make different choices than a middle class kid born in the USA. Now you (or Sartre) might argue that there is still choice, but my issue with Sartre is his universalization--he puts everyone on a level playing field and not just level, but the same playing field.
The physical limits to our freedom I think can be argued (as you have), but when we start talking within a social context, Sartre leaves questions unanswered.
Let me take a psychoanalytic position and borrow from Zizek for a moment: if we are taught what to desire, and indeed, how to think, reason, view the world, etc., by a system of biopower (see Foucault), are we really making free choices?
Furthermore, if it is a system of surveillance (as Foucault suggests), then the Gaze (see Sartre) is always on us, making us self conscious (making us objects) and binding us to its power merely by the act of looking. This is what I was trying to suggest with the picture of the panopticon.
"As hard as I might try to escape it, my opinions, thoughts, actions, even desires will always be influenced by western culture and my upbringing."--Kelie
Ok, I completely understand that there are certain physical limitations and cultural influences that have an impact on your choices, but that really has nothing to do with your freedom to choose. Like Dr. J kept saying in class, when Sartre says that we have freedom, that doesn't mean freedom to do/be whatever we want. I certainly don't have the freedom to fly in the same way that I don't have the freedom to be a different race. A child born with HIV in Africa still has freedom to become many different kinds of people. He can become an activist, a scientist, or a bum with no hope.
To further stress this point, you said that "We have no choice," and pointed out "the situation we are born into," but of course we have no choice in that. We have not been born yet, and how could we have a choice in a world that we are not a part of yet? I think this applies to your Matrix example also. I don't remember exactly, but I believe that humans were grown to be "batteries" or whatever. If they spend their entire existence plugged into the matrix, from fetus to death, of course there is no option for them to choose "reality."
This idea of not being able to choose until you are born would also address your arguement that we are "forced to be free." We cannot choose the conditions we are born in to, whether that be a disease we are born with, freedom, slavery, race, or gender. I don't think that was ever stated or implied by Sartre, at least in nothing we read in this class.
You also stated that "We are products of our circumstances..." My question is if you believe that we are merely products of our circumstances or if we have any choice concerning the way our lives turn out?
Just to get to the point...
YES you can't choose your facticity - your culture, the situation you were born into, blah blah blah. You can not choose that you were born in Africa and it limits your freedom. The POINT is that you can choose how to interpret this facticity. You can choose to view your situation as being miserable and hopeless and live a life of misery, or you can make the best of the situation and, for example, promote community resourcefulness and interdependence and form positive relationship with the people you meet or however you choose.
Nobody but yourself determines how you will interpret your reality and this is how one develops (especially for me) there own sense of values. This is mainly why I NEVER listen to authority unless I have been given justifiable reasons to follow them that I agree with. Never just accept your facticity - challenge it and make what YOU want of it. It's always worked for me (and generally gets you respect from the authorities, unless they are power hungry bitches).
"Ok, I completely understand that there are certain physical limitations and cultural influences that have an impact on your choices, but that really has nothing to do with your freedom to choose"-Brittany
Well, that's the point I'm trying to make. It has EVERYTHING to do with your "freedom to choose". I will stop being lazy and actually quote some Foucault to help illustrate this point (he of course says it a lot better):
"power reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes, and everyday lives." (from Prison Talk)
and...
"power would be a fragile thing if its only function were to repress...If on the contrary, power is strong this is because, as we are beginning to realise [sic], it produces effects at the level of desire--and also at the level of knowledge. Far from preventing knowledge, power produces it." (from Body/Power)
and...
"...the individual is not a pre-given entity which is seized on by the exercise of power. The individual, with his identity and characteristics, is the product of a relation of power exercised over bodies, multiplicities, movements, desires, forces." (from Questions on Geography)
So I guess what I'm trying to say is I understand that Sartre's freedom only refers to the choice, not the outcome of that choice, but my questions is do we really have choice in light of the way the various apparatuses of power affect us in ways we are not even aware of.
Leslie, I believe this would answer your response as well that: "Nobody but yourself determines how you will interpret your reality and this is how one develops (especially for me) there own sense of values." My point is, values are relative and constructed and your interpretation of reality equally so. Yes, there is subjectivity involved, but my question has more to do with what sorts of things go into making us who we are.
Okay, I'm going to bed.
Oh and sorry I have to be such a Foucault whore...I suspect the "foucaulting" will increase as the semester progresses.
Yes, and I think my point was that Sartre is not attempting to level the playing field in a societal sense. In fact, I'm pretty sure Sartre would agree that everyone grows up in a different environment, the West versus the Rest, and this will affect to a large degree what types of decisions one will be making, but Sartre is only saying that one's conscious is free and can choose to interpret how one wants.
I'm guessing what you are saying is that one's social construction of reality determines how one is to synthesizes her own being and ultimately how she reacts to her facticity? I can certainly see that argument, but i think your argument is weakened when you write of physical constraints, such as geography or sickness, because i think what you are referring to is more cultural restraint than anything which isn't necessarily affected by the physical - which sartre argues that one can transcend.
i am also a Foucault whore, so you should also check out Berger's Social Construction of Reailtiy.
Sorry to drone on about this...but maybe this concept can be related to cultural relativism, or even lazy relativism in which we sluff off the responsibility for our decision making by claiming that our freedom is restricted by facticity. Excuses, excuses - transcend that shit and develop your own values.
PS - feeling a little like Terrence McKenna at this point.
Facticity: the facts about oneself that cannot be changed, like your example of the baby in africa with aids. Transcedence: the freedom you have. This distinction clears up your issues through most of the first full paragraph you write.
"We are products of our circumstances—we can never escape the lens through which we have been conditioned to view the world." I completely disagree with your idea that we cannot escape or revalue the things that have been taught or influenced by our cultural or society. You could chose tomorrow to join a monkhood in tibet and tyhrough your own conditioning in accordance with their laws reform all your previous desires, inclinations etc.
Yeah, but even though Sartre makes that distinction, I think Kelie's right in saying that he has provided us with little reason to believe that the 'decisions' we make are motivated by anything more than our facticity. If I 'freely choose' to move to a Tibetan monkhooh, it may seem like I've made a free choice, but the mere fact that I have engaged in choosing does not mean that I have exercised my free will. The choice could just as easily have been motivated entirely by factors outside of my control, (i.e. where I was born, who my parents are, what religious beliefs they impose on me, etc.) It certainly seems that a legitimate argument can be made for the idea that my decision to go to Tibet was caused entirely by the uncontrollable facts of my life, and freedom never entered the picture.
What's frustrating about Sartre's philosophy is that he simply assumes the existence of freedom, even though perfectly reasonable and intelligent people have made very compelling arguments that suggest otherwise. The idea that humans are free is in no way obvious or intuitive and should thus be supported if it is to be taken seriously. Simply saying that Sartre has drawn a distinction between transcendence and facticity is not enough to demonstrate that Sartre has in fact provided us with good reason to believe we are free, and I think Kelie is right to call him out on this.
As we've been over in class a couple of times, Sartre's point isn't that we are completely free all the time, or that our freedom means that we can do whatever we want. Rather, he is saying that at no point are we 100% determined. And I agree with that. I don't think that Sartre is completely oblivious to the things in life that humans have no control over (gender, height, origin of nationality, etc.), I just think that he believes that none of those factors will leave you completely unfree or predetermined.
You are right to say that a child that is born HIV positive did not choose to be born at all, let alone to be born that way. However, I think Sartre might counter you by saying that while that child does have HIV, HIV is not all that that child is. The child is still left with choices about what it can do that day, and who to play with, etc. I agree with you that our situations do take some choice away from us, but most importantly, I agree with Sartre that our situations do not take all of our freedom away from us. I think it is important to see that societal situations and limits give people different possibilities, but they do not completely remove possibilities from their lives.
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