PHOTO: People in Philadelphia looking at a new map of Europe following World War I.
As I mentioned yesterday in Part Three, my father had a few books by existentialist writers on his bookshelf, including The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, and I’d heard my father use the term ‘existentialism’ in talking with friends, but I never understood the meaning of the term.
Perhaps I don’t, even now, after doing a bit of reading and research. Philosophy isn’t necessarily my strong suit.
But from what I’ve gleaned from Simone de Beauvoir book so far, this month, she saw women in France treated as second-class citizens, with limited rights and limited privileges… constantly compared to ‘men’ and found lacking… confined to the home and a boring, seemingly meaningless existence.
Powerless, except as a sexual object.
Her book asks, “Why?” How did this situation develop, and why do French men and women perpetuate it?
Was change possible?
Simone de Beauvoir’s book was written near the end of World War II, during which a considerable amount of violence was on display. She was still a child, when France and much of Europe became embroiled in ‘The Great War’ — World War I — a violent transfer of power that involved numerous countries and European colonies around the world.
The U.S. was also involved in World War I.
When asking the U.S. Congress for permission to send troops to Europe in 1917, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson gave his reasons for embracing violence, including this comment:
The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them…
In the end, however, the U.S. and the victorious European nations ultimately did desire dominion over the conquered Central Powers — Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, along with other minor principalities… and also, over the newly-formed Soviet Union. Nine new, nominally independent countries were imposed on the losers by the victorious powers. Russia was forced to recognize Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania as separate states. Germany, in particular, was subjected to the Treaty of Versailles, which contributed to Germany’s economic collapse, and to a lingering resentment that led the rise of the Nazi Party, and eventually, the outbreak of World War II.
Which brings us to a short discussion about ‘existentialism’ — apparently, one of the philosophical outcomes of World War II.
Mme. de Beauvoir was, for most of her life, in an ‘open’ romantic relationship with another prominent existentialist philosopher and writer, Jean-Paul Sartre. My impression of existentialism, from a few weeks of casual study (thanks to our Ruby Sisson Library and the inter-library loan system) is that its proponents were trying to build a meaningful intellectual structure to counter ‘determinism’ — a philosophical view wherein all events, and all human activities, are determined by previously existing causes.
The existentialists (from what I can understand) held that humans are essentially free of pre-determined causes, and every act and decision results from freely chosen alternatives. That the future is an blank book, waiting for us to write the next chapter.
The essence of human existence, then, is freedom. Even the slave, even the prisoner in solitary confinement, chooses… moment by moment… how to act, or not act. Resist? Submit?
I’m thinking about the Book of Genesis, and the story of Adam, who was told to enjoy the fruits of the Garden, except for “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
The exact instructions:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Sometime later, seeing that Adam was lonely, the Lord God borrowed one of his ribs and made Adam a companion named Eve. (She didn’t have a name at first. Everyone just called her “the woman” until the expulsion from the Garden, at which point Adam gave her the name ‘Eve’. Except that’s actually a Greek translation of her real name, which was ‘Hava’.)
Either the Lord God knew what was going to happen next — in which case, we might be dealing with a ‘deterministic’ universe — or else He didn’t know what was going to happen and we can safely state that humans have had free will from the git go… free to make good and bad decisions… and the existentialists are onto something.
The way the story is written, in Genesis, it appears that the Lord God did not know how things were going to turn out.
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
The man answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The man said, “The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Call me an existentialist, but this certainly sounds like the Lord God was surprised that His creations had broken the rule. From what we can tell, there was only one rule. “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
The man and the woman couldn’t even follow one simple rule.
They were free. But evicted.