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their acts of free choice and arbitrary commitment. The Heideggerian
thesis that "Man alone
exists"
involves his deconstruction of the pre–
vailing metaphysical view that human beings, like all other species of
animals, possess essential properties. In declaring that humans are exis–
tential beings, Heidegger is asserting that only humans exercise free
choice, including the choice of the kind of self that they can become. A
characteristic existentialist theme is the claim that only human beings
are free to decide in favor of suicide, while all other beings are deter–
mined to pursue their given biological ends.
To a degree, Heidegger's conception of liberty influenced his political
decision to support the National Workers' Socialist Party in the early
1930s. His choice did not represent a utilitarian calculation of the con–
sequences of each of the political options confronting the Weimar
Republic. He considered the root of both international communism and
international capitalism to be ways in which the capacity for human
choice would be subverted by the imperatives of technology. Conse–
quently, national socialism, in rejecting both options, represented a
"third way" in which a search for authentic human expression in the
political life of the nation could be furthered .
The interpretation of liberty does not univocally dictate any specific
political commitment. The existentialist concept of liberty also had a
significant role in the ideology of parts of the French Resistance move–
ment against Nazi occupation in the 1940s. This movement portrayed
itself as a commitment to resistance against overwhelming power at a
time when the successful results or beneficial consequences of such a
commitment were not predictable. In Jean-Paul Sartre's play
The Flies,
which was staged in Paris during the Occupation, the hero decides to
defy the omnipotent deity, Zeus, in the absurdist belief that the arbitrary
exercise of free choice can be carried out in a divinely determined uni–
verse. The political implication of Sartre's play was that even if the
decrees of the Occupation had the force of the ordainments of Zeus,
French citizens could decide to commit acts of resistance.
The interpretation of freedom as the arbitrary exercise of choice
reflected the perception of the historical circumstances of resistance to
Nazi authority. In these circumstances, it seemed that the consequences
of the decision to resist were not calculable, for any act of resistance did
not demonstrably represent an incremental step toward the realization
of its goal, the overthrow of Nazi power. Further, such acts did not
result in predictable retribution against their agents, but could be met
by random and disproportionate violence against large numbers of
innocent persons, including children.
