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is now largely of historical interest-Sartre's criticism of the latter-day,
intellectual saints of Communism is both bitter and satirical.
At the same time, it is this very criticism of the philosophical foun–
dations of Communism which throws a peculiar light upon the am–
biguity of Sartre's own position. He is most anxious to refute a ma–
terialistic determinism, or the belief that the human enterprise is subject
to an inexorable dialectical law of "nature." He is just as anxious to
replace this "myth" by his own philosophy which proclaims the priority
of a free, creative human consciousness in order to introduce, into the
world of nature and machines, an ineradicable element of subjectivity
and contingency. Yet his anguished cry that this freedom be
for
some–
thing remains strangely vacuous and exposes the dubious nature of his
own myth.
Sartre is still on fairly safe grounds as long as he clings to the
general assertion that this freedom is a precondition for the permanent
reconstruction of the human situation (he cites Trotsky's concept of
the "permanent revolution" with approval in this sense) ; but the ground
becomes slippery, indeed, as soon as this formal condition is translated
into the concrete human and historical situation in which we must
choose and act. For then it appears that the "proletariat" is the symbol
of the new universal man of our age; and what's worse, it is the pro–
letariat as defined by the official Communist doctrine. Thus while
existentialism is supposed to be the revolutionary theory
par excellence,
its manifestation in practice is the Communist party. Or: the philosophi–
cal basis of Communism is first shown to be completely false; yet Com–
munist action is asserted to be the only true expression of a revolu–
tionary philosophy. In short, the formal outlines of the existentialist
metaphysics of freedom are filled in with the rigid blueprint of the
official party line. Surely, this myth is but another form of doublethink.
The problem of human freedom begins precisely where Sartre closes
his books.
Add to these three sources, a basic concept or two drawn from
the reading of Heidegger, and you have what I believe to be the major
sources for the system of ideas of which Sartre has become the most
conspicuous public symbol.
I haven't said a word about the literary essays. This is not merely
a matter of personal preference. I believe that the philosophical essays
are the only ones worth reprinting. By contrast, the literary essays are
rather thin and dull. Literary criticism, for Sartre, is just another form
of philosophical exposition. The result is an impoverishment of the
critical apparatus. As a literary critic, Sartre has a few philosophical
