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<\/a><\/p>\nThe one who realizes in anguish his condition as being thrown into a responsibility which extends to his very abandonment has no longer either remorse or regret or excuse; he is no longer anything but a freedom which perfectly reveals itself and whose being resides in this very revelation. <\/span>But as we pointed out at the beginning of this work, most of the time we flee anguish in bad faith<\/span> (Being and Nothingness, p.711).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Part of my (barely surviving) MA thesis in Philosophy examines Sartre\u2019s understanding of the self or subjectivity. The above is also quoted in a paper I wrote for my class last year on that topic. I find in Sartre one of the most poetic and poignant critiques of Western dualism \u2013 and yet Sartre the man is hardly the exemplary figure of emancipation, freedom, and spontaneity.<\/span><\/p>\n
The power of the very idea of <\/span>realizing in anguish<\/span> the fact that I am in a world which goes beyond my choosing, beyond my ability to escape, brings with it relief.<\/span> Realizing this, accepting it, I become the freedom I always have been, between an unclear future and a similarly changing past. Yet, Sartre is probably all too correct to say that we flee anguish in bad faith<\/span>. That is, we can\u2019t handle our own freedom; we desperately seek to pin down a future or live in our past joys and accomplishments.<\/p>\n