NATE PRESENTS
Jean-Paul Sartre
Rebel Genius
Born June 21, 1905 into near tragedy as his father passed away when he was only 15 months old and his mother was forced to return to her home, where young Jean-Paul was reared under the watchful eye of his Paternal Grandfather whose influence included an experimental education which helped emphasize the young boys love for reading.
Sartre was an imaginative and performative youth with a strong rebellious tendency, which would ultimately manifest in the signing of a letter protesting the country's wartime reorganization effort by the French government.
The mundaness of his early military career, which was characterized by the military uncertain how to use the extremely intellegent, but also extremely myopic Sartre, stood in stark contrast to the lessons of solidarity and anti-authoritarianism he learned while being held as a prisoner of war.
No Exit
jean-paul sartre
"I'm going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils..."
No Exit is an intellectual examination of the concept of Hell focusing on 3 individuals trapped together in a single, windowless room for eternity. Sartre comments that "L'enfer, c'est les autres" or "Hell is other people", No Exit seeks to illustrate how the fire and brimstone concept of Hell may be preferable to the cruelty and devastation that humans can heap upon each other.
This appears relevant in modern times considering the disparity between philosophies in the US today. It may not just be in the afterlife, but in our societal struggle today to address the ills of the world, one person's solution is clearly another person's misery, as even now we are embroiled in a cyclical discussion that appears to have no happy ending and no exit.