Condemned to be free

How much of our lives and the things that happen to us are we responsible for? The common-sense answer would be that we are responsible only for those actions which we cause and intend to cause, but that we are not responsible for the things that happen to us, good or bad, that just happen to us. That is to say, where the causes was something other than us. For example, things caused by society, luck, accident, other people, or physics. And this common-sense answer is often taken as relinquishing us from responsibility for things like being drafted in a war, or being born into poverty, or indeed being born into wealth.  

But in Being and Nothingness, Sartre takes these ideas and arrives at a completely different and much more extreme conclusion. We are wholly responsible for ourselves, he argues, including even if we are drafted into a war. 

To make this argument, Sartre first has to argue that consciousness doesn't pick it's intended actions just based on what the facts cause it to pick, e.g. Bill is caused to get a drink because of the fact that he is thirsty.

Sartre argues that there could be no fact in the world that could motivate our conscious actions by itself. We would always need in addition goals, values and interpretations in order to have the intentions that lead to our deliberate actions. Put another way, for a cause (some fact in the world) to motivate an action it must be experienced as a cause. So for example, for Bill to be motivated to perform the action of getting a drink because of the cause 'thirst', he must first experience thirst as as a cause. He must have ideas about what one should do if they are thirsty. If he did not have the idea that when thirsty he should get a drink, on the other hand then thirstiness would cease to be a cause for him doing so.

So similarly, according to Sartre's thinking, even if Bill is stranded on a dessert island and is thirsty and can't get a drink, it's his responsibility, because it's he, not his thirst, that has motivated him to want a drink.

Sartre himself gives the example of war.

"If I am mobilized in a war, this war is my war... I deserve it first because I could always get out of it by suicide or by desertion; these ultimate possibles are those which must always be present for us when there is a question of envisaging a situation. For lack of getting out of it, I have chosen it. ... If therefore I have preferred war to death or to dishonour, everything takes place as if I bore the entire responsibility for this war. of course others have declared it, and one might be tempted perhaps to consider me as a simple accomplice. But...it depended on me that for me and by me this war should not exist, and I have decided that it does exist... But in addition the war is mine because by the sole fact that it arises in a situation which I cause to be, and that I can discover it there only by engaging myself for or against it"

Life without Drama

Personal dramas are created when the parties involved feel so sure that they're entitled to their negative interpretation of one another that actions such as cutting people off, breaking up, or being disrespectful, harsh or maybe even cruel, are warranted.

What is surprising though is that not much is actually needed to convince people they are entitled to their negative interpretation. People always feel they are, of course. But that's the point, they *feel* they are. Emotions become part of the decision. Frustration, anger, confusion, sadness, pride--it's not always an obvious emotion. But an emotion and a few bits of evidence are not sufficient to make an informed decision.

What the emotion does is fit with a particular interpretation of the evidence, and THEN cause that interpretation to become rigid (because emotions are hard to overturn). One is stopped from easily seeing *different* perspective (including more true perspectives)

Actually almost nothing warrants a negative interpretation. It's always good to err because you'll learn more being open to positive interpretations than the other way around. Negative interpretations are a bit of a full stop.

On maybe an implicit level the idea behind this process is that we sometimes should cut people off, break up, or be disrespectful, and being entitled to a negative interpretation tells us when to do this. So if we never let ourselves have negative interpretations we might end up 'being walked on' or harmed in some ways. But this way of thinking ignores how easy it is to get along with people if you try to. One can take up ideas like 'not taking things personally'.

We simply don't need to ever be disrespectful to people to not be victimised. We can not be victimised by our positive attitudes. And as for breaking up and cutting people off, this is something we should rarely ever do. People should be able to drift apart mutually if they so wish. But in general, relationships have a lot of knowledge to them, and we should only ever put a stop to them if absolutely necessary. Where 'absolutely necessary' here means 'when the other person has destroyed the relationship' and there is now nothing that could be done'. And where 'absolutely necessary' DOES NOT mean 'my negative interpretation tell me to end the relationship.'