Sartre’s Society is Alive and Well

Author: John Stonestreet and Dr. Glenn Sunshine

Much has been written about the crisis of meaning among young adults. In 2023, Harvard’s On Edge report found that 58% of 18- to 25-year-olds experienced little or no meaning or purpose during the previous month. 50% reported that their mental health suffered from “not knowing what to do with my life.” Earlier this year, Talker Research reported that 32% of Americans are suffering from an existential crisis, including 52% of Gen-Z.

It is no accident that the crisis of meaning has coincided with the rise of transgender ideology. The idea that the internal perception and projection of oneself is what is ultimately true, and that biology, family, culture, religion, and everyone else should be made to align is the ultimate social experiment. Specifically, it is the attempt to make meaning as if there is no meaning.

Of the many contributing factors to these phenomena, a primary intellectual source is the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre, who was born 121 years ago this month. Sartre was the central figure in the philosophical movement of existentialism. In fact, the term existentialism is derived from Sartre’s most famous statement, that “existence precedes essence.”

In this saying, Sartre inversed the traditional understanding of the relationship between essence, which refers to a thing’s nature or purpose, and existence. Historically across most times and cultures, essence was considered logically prior to existence. Thus, there is a fixed human nature (essence) in which people participate (existence).

Sartre rejected the notion of a fixed human nature. He argued that the individual must decide their nature. Without a fixed nature, humans are then radically free to choose values and identity. Though his ideas of “radical freedom” sound liberating, for Sartre, it was not a gift. Rather, humans are, he said, “condemned to be free.” No matter how we define ourselves or what meaning we make, it is all done within a meaningless, absurd universe. “It is meaningless that we are born,” Sartre said, “and it is meaningless that we die.”

Sartre vividly described the terrifying prospect of meaning-making in terms of anguish and nausea, but he believed it was the only path to an authentic life. We decide what values and causes to pursue, even though we know our choices are arbitrary and meaningless. For Sartre, the alternative was “bad faith,” to deny radical freedom by blaming a fixed nature or our culture and upbringing for our decisions.

Sartre’s greatest impact on America was during the postwar years, especially during the 1960s, but his ideas influenced a number of radical cultural movements that followed. For example, his moral and cultural relativism helped open the door to the sexual revolution. Not coincidentally, Sartre was himself a serial womanizer.

His attack on the idea of fixed human nature made possible viewing identity as pure construction and social roles as oppressive. This made plausible the emphasis of critical theories placed on power, deconstruction, and grievance. And of course, his insistence on radical freedom and the task of humans to define the self was a precursor of transgenderism.

His emphasis on anguish as the centerpiece of authentic living contributed greatly to a therapeutic culture obsessed with anxiety and victimhood. The idea of “bad faith” undermined institutions, roles, and social traditions. In all of it, Sartre’s ideas have brought us to the current crisis of meaning among young adults.

To borrow a phrase, Sartre is one of those thinkers who “rules the world from the grave.” A dominant intellectual during his lifetime, his ideas continue to shape hearts, minds, and cultures, and not in a good way. Because his ideas are in the cultural water, they continue to have consequences and victims. They must be identifiedand refuted. Even more, they must be replaced by ideas that are true and good about the meaning of life and value of the human person.