Jean-Paul Sarte's Being And Nothingness

Throughout his existentialist Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sarte expresses his belief of the “bad faith” and attempts to impose on others how we should live our own lives. In the personal narrative, Sarte explains that anyone in “good faith” allows themselves to be individualistic and free, and as a result, believes that nobody should belong to any type of classification system. Sarte’s beliefs appear to be appropriate and somewhat helpful as it is always a great idea to be individualistic and self-expressive. However, when taken in the context of his own personal lavish lifestyle and his biased examples, Sarte’s definition of “bad faith” cannot physically apply to the majority of individuals since it excludes the working class and women.

Throughout his essay, Sarte explains that society only expects people to do their job, and as a result, the job adds no meaning to their life. When referring to the grocery store cashier, Sarte states that “society demands that he limit himself to his function as a grocer, just as the soldier at attention makes himself into a soldier-thing” (Sarte). In another example, Sarte believes that since a waiter is never allowed to be self-expressive (since he should be focused primarily on his quality of service), he should immediately quit and participate in more reflective activities. Sarte believes that hobbies such as writing and acting help a person become more creative then they would have if they stayed with their employer. In Sarte’s eyes, employees behave as if they were pawns in a chess game, as they cannot express their inner beliefs and values. While working, he believes the employee is treated more like an object than an actual human

In her landmark novel, Firestone states that “(Male) culture was (and is) parasitical, feeding on the emotional strength of women without reciprocity” (Firestone). She believes that women are constantly being subjected to this male-favored class system which restricts them from expressing any of their own creative ideas. Even if a woman removed herself from this extraordinarily biased workforce, Firestone believes she would still not be able to be successful with the more creative fields (writing, acting, etc..) since the ‘parasitical’ male culture is still present. Firestone’s comments about the continual discrimination against women throughout society indicate that Sarte’s philosophical advice is inherently biased against women since there would be no possible way for women to live the “good