Sartre. Existentialism is a Humanism. What it means to Respond

Sartre. Existentialism is a Humanism. Why Respond?

Thought is dangerous. 

One cannot help but draw correlations between philosophy, social movements and established rule.  Philosophy and by extension critical thought has threatened the power dynamics of social systems whether or not this danger is real or perceived. As a class we have most notably witnessed this with Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, the great thinkers of ``The Enlightenment`` that posed a threat to the Ancient Regime and the Church.

Again we see this play out for Jean Paul Sartre and the notion of Existentialism which is greatly associated with him. In his lectures Existentialism is a Humanism he responds to the critiques of the Church and to Communist thinkers.

It is important to understand the context of the time when Sartre had given this lecture: Paris 1945 just after the liberation from the Nazis. The aftermath of the Second World War had garnered a rise in popularity of Communism not only from external pressures such as the Soviet Union but internally within France and other European nations as well. As we know this will ultimately lead us into the Cold War.

A theory that I am going to present is that, it is the critics that Sartre responds to, the Church & the communists, who provide a glimpse into determining what institutions and ideas were seen as holding the most power and influence over people in their everyday lives.  

The United States genuinely saw communism as a real threat and feared that all of Europe would succumb to it. It was the United States who suspected members of the French Resistance as being communist. It is within reason that the people of France would look to members of the Resistance in leading the Nation after liberation.

Much of the information that I based this theory on come from a talk done by Dr. Andy Martin (from the University of Cambridge) on "Nausea in New York: the FBI & CIA vs Sartre and Camus" His talk is quite long but very interesting (If you feel up to the challenge, I’d suggest skipping it ahead a bit)

In brief, Martin`s lecture examines the FBI & CIA investigation of Sartre and of other French philosophers of the time. They were a perceived as communist threats and according to Martin, Sartre was the first to be investigated, unsure if his ideas were communist in nature, specifically relating to Existentialism. There was a fear in what his ideas would mean to the people of France.    

It is within this investigation that another powerful institution is threatened; the United States government and capitalism. Due to this reactionary stance, can one therefore state that Philosophy is inherently tied to an ideology?  Or can it be open to interpretation?