SARTR!
VS.
·PROUST
639
are alike, they will have helped all of them by enlightening every–
one about himself- And. as they start from the same postulate ,as
analysis, it seems very simple to them to use the analytical method
to
know themselves.
84Ch
is the origin of intellectualist psychology,
the perfect .example of which we find in Proust's works. A paeder.,
ast,
Proust thought he could use his homosexual experience to de–
scribe Swann's love for Odette; a bourgeois, he presents this senti–
ment of a rich, idle bourgeois for a kept woman as the prototype of
love. Obviously, then, he believes in the existence of universal pas–
sions,
the mechanism of which does not vary much when one modi–
fies
the sexual characters, the social condition, the nation or the
time of the individuals who feel them. After thus "isolating" these
unalterable affections, he will be able to start converting them, in
their turn, into elementary particles. Abiding by the postulates of the
analytical mind, he does not even think that there may be a dialectic
in
sentiments, but only a mechanism. Thus social atomism, the posi–
tion
of retreat for the contemporary bourgeoisie, brings about psy–
chological atomism. Proust has
chosen to be a bourgeois,
he has
made himself the accomplice of the bourgeois propaganda, since
his
work contributes to spreading the myth of human nature.
Weare convinced that the analytical approach is dead and
I
that its unique role today is to trouble the revolutionary conscience
and
isolate men in favor of the privileged classes. We do not believe
any more in the intellectualist psychology of Proust and we con–
sider it harmful. Since we chose his analysis of passionate love as an
example, we will probably enlighten the reader by mentioning the
essential points on which we disagree with him entirely.
First, we do not accept
a priori
the idea that passionate love
,
~
an affection constitutive of the human mind. It could very well
have, as Denis de Rougemont suggested, a historical origin related
to
Christian ideology. More generally, we think that a sentiment is
always the expression of a certain way of life and a certain concep–
tion
of the world, common to a whole class or time, and that its
evolution
is
not caused by I know not what inner mechanism but
by
these historical and social factors.
Secondly, we cannot admit that a human affection is composed
({molecular 'elements which are juxtaposed without modifying one
another. We consider it to
be
not a well adjusted machine but an
