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Camus and Sartre
Sep. 14th, 2015 11:00 am“Your combination of dreary conceit and vulnerability always discouraged people from telling you unvarnished truths. The result is that you have become the victim of a dismal self-importance, which hides your inner problems, and which you, I think, would call Mediterranean moderation.”
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
In the philosophical-literary rivalry that sprung up between Camus and Sartre, in these quotations we see Sartre coming out and swinging hard. At this point, Sartre still has full faith in Stalin’s communist government, and he cannot accept Camus’s failure to follow suit. In the excerpt below, he specifically addresses the revelations of the Soviet Union’s brutal forced labor camps, which had not diminished his faith.
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Excellent method: either the poor wretch turned his back upon the Communists or he became an accomplice to “the greatest crime on earth.” It was then that I began to find these blackmailers despicable. For, to my way of thinking, the scandal of the camps puts us all on trial - you as well as me, and all the others. The Iron Curtain is only a mirror, in which each half of the world reflects the other. Each turn of the screw here corresponds with a twist there, and finally, both here and there, we are both the screwers and the screwed.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
[Source: Ronald Aronson, “Camus and Sartre” (2004)]
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
In the philosophical-literary rivalry that sprung up between Camus and Sartre, in these quotations we see Sartre coming out and swinging hard. At this point, Sartre still has full faith in Stalin’s communist government, and he cannot accept Camus’s failure to follow suit. In the excerpt below, he specifically addresses the revelations of the Soviet Union’s brutal forced labor camps, which had not diminished his faith.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Excellent method: either the poor wretch turned his back upon the Communists or he became an accomplice to “the greatest crime on earth.” It was then that I began to find these blackmailers despicable. For, to my way of thinking, the scandal of the camps puts us all on trial - you as well as me, and all the others. The Iron Curtain is only a mirror, in which each half of the world reflects the other. Each turn of the screw here corresponds with a twist there, and finally, both here and there, we are both the screwers and the screwed.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
[Source: Ronald Aronson, “Camus and Sartre” (2004)]
