Jean-Paul Sartre’s doctrine was a kind of link between the interwar period and sometimes the postwar period. His Philosophical Book Being and Nothingness published in 1943. We propose under this text its most crucial passage for us.
(We quote for Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and nothingness. Specimenological Ontology, in translation by Jan Kiełbasa, Piotr Mroz and others, Wydawnictwo Zielona Sowa, Kraków 2007, pp. 680-683.)
American War
This passage is peculiarly crucial due to the ongoing war in Ukraine and the tense global situation. In fact, the war is about the dominance of major global corporations, about the control of natural wealth of Russia and Ukraine, about future sources of natural materials, outlets and places of fresh capital investments. This war is actually waged by the United States against Russia by the Ukrainians. In a broader plan, the United States is besides at war against the European Union, in peculiar Germany and France, and in the future against China. The United States is fighting in this war to keep the dollar as the clearing and reserve currency of the world, to have their right to a continuous budget deficit and to keep all mankind's arms at a level unknown in erstwhile history, to have the right to grow NATO and to keep its dominance in the world. On its occasion, the United States has already succeeded in eliminating 1 of the 3 main oil and gas suppliers, and now they are pushing Europeans on their way to clean and economically shale gas. So the stakes are high.
Liability of everyone
It so seems appropriate to callback Sartre’s text, in which he refers to the work of the individual for participating in the war on the side Adolf Hitler. German soldiers explained at the time that they were only following orders, that they did not personally kill anyone, that they were only a cog in a immense extermination machine, and if they did not do so, individual else would come to their place and do the same (killing innocents). They were most frequently criminals from behind the desk (like young drone operators dropping bombs), sitting in comfortable seats in places distant from their crime..., and for that only any Germans incurred individual responsibility. Today's war is fought by armed and unarmed methods, economic, political, propaganda, legal and informational methods, etc., etc. It is being treated as a fight ground against Russia and China and for fresh weapons. Powers talk and arguments come out from Hitler and the Cold War. PiS conducts an global policy preparing the Polish people to straight participate in military actions against Russia. The war for the “back of Crimea” could end in a atomic disaster...
For each of us, Sartre’s text is an chance to reflect on what he was doing and doing against the ongoing planet Hybrid War. For man is free, and freedom gives birth to work for his actions. The states have put us in a situation, and our activity depends on what our freedom will be utilized for.
Innocent victims?
Sartre recalls the quote Jules Romainsthat “There are no innocent victims in the war”. Removed from the context is diametrically contrary to the general feeling of what is known about the destiny of civilians during armed action. civilian victims of war crimes in a narrow sense of work are virtually innocent and defenseless. It seems that the civilian population in the land that was attacked and conquered had no influence on the outbreak of war. The average "grey" citizen and the reader may indeed feel innocent, for they are all to blame, "party bureaucrats", "power", and "grey" citizen to the election did not go and in the fight for his immediate needs and interests, he was incapable to put his own life at risk. In democratic systems, however, there is no clear deficiency of responsibility.
With respect to the opinion that “There are no innocent victims in war”, a policy example could be given Édouard Daladier is Neville Chamberlain and their voters – they were of course innocent from a certain point of view, but besides guilty, all acted as standard erstwhile extraordinary methods were needed against Hitler's politics. I think that's how he understood Sartre's work problem erstwhile he was writing his book, somewhere in the prisoner of war camp, erstwhile the reflection on the causes of the First and Second planet War was not besides deep, and what we were not aware of now.
Militarian amok
We besides do not know about the causes of the war in Ukraine what secret government archives and archives of large corporations and banks hide. For the average man, the war in Ukraine began with the attack of Russia on February 24, 2022 – it was Russia that made armed aggression against the defenceless Ukraine with a view to establishing vassal marionet regulation and annexation if not all, it was at least part of Ukraine's territory. The date of February 24 is true, but the causes and origins must, of course, be sought at least 8 years earlier and in the policy of expanding NATO conducted by the US and in the interests of oligarchs and global corporations. Ukraine besides had the chance to prevent war, not just a puppet in the hands of the United States. It is so crucial to mention the hypocrisy and guillotine of Ukraine. establishment in matters of links and conflicts of interests with Russian oligarchs, nationalism, the cultivation of native fascists and criminals as national heroes, the persecution of the Russian-speaking population, the efforts to transform Ukraine into Anti-Russia. Helping Ukraine should be called for peace and stopping militaristic amok.
War, as he wrote Carl von Clausewitz, is simply a continuation of military policy by methods. So war is just a circumstantial political measure, where strength and not arguments decide. However, since there is simply a primacy of politics over military action, political and compromise measures must besides be sought to velocity up the end of the war.
Obligation to be active
I think that resisting the propaganda mill of our ratlers, who prey on Russia, held on NATO's leash, showing deeper ground and the character of this confrontation, is simply a task which stands before all those who want to live to live their last days in peace. The situation is highly hard and any voice of reason can be met with the fire of propaganda and politicians effectively referring to the deepest emotions, common thinking, collective ignorance, thoughtlessness and studry.
When I decided to print it, I considered it. I disagree with Sartre that the alternate to supporting the war is suicide. True, there is simply a danger that if a man does not support a criminal war, he can be killed as a traitor. But if he supports the criminal war, they'll hang him as winners erstwhile the criminal war is lost. Many people committed suicide after the war began, and it did not change anything. So it's not about suicide, it's about determined activity in the anti-war movement, exposing the class interests of instigators, the interests of armed corporations, for which war is an chance for horrendous profits.
From Sartre’s perspective, the Russians cannot be absolution either. They accepted the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of an oligarchic state, with oligarchic interests, with an oligarchic army, with an oligarchic way of command, with oligarchic methods of combat (orders and doing business even during a peculiar military operation) etc. Most Russians do not participate in the elections and support the ruling authorities. The Russians first rejected "serial socialism", and later themselves began to live with resentives for the achievements and position of the USSR. So they gave their support and elected the president of the man who expressed public expression to these large-Russian sentiments. Vladimir Putin He put Russia's destiny at stake in this war...
Parades and oligarchs
In Russia, the full army became able only to parade, all military education was brought to a minimum, the arms manufacture was privatized and mostly liquidated. The country has been mostly deindustrialised. The mechanical engineering manufacture was mostly scrapped. The Oligarchy, which owned the sources of natural materials, was not curious in the improvement of another economical departments, its economical policy for decades, made the economy dependent on abroad trade. present there are voices in Russia that the "V column" does not let to win, they ask why western arms supplies for Ukraine are not blocked, why communication nodes are not destroyed. The answer seems simpler: it is no ‘V column’, it is the Russian, Ukrainian and Western European oligarchy, so it is not possible to block exports of strategical natural materials by Ukraine... During the peculiar military operation of the 8 erstwhile Deputy Prime Ministers and the erstwhile Prime Minister of Russia fled abroad, many erstwhile ministers and deputy ministers, hundreds of erstwhile governors and their deputies, central-level officials, carrying with them the memory of Russia's secrets. And 3 erstwhile Deputy Prime Ministers and 1 present have dual citizenship... In the erstwhile and this year, the Russians break records in purchasing property abroad, erstwhile Putin appeals to oligarchs for voluntary donations to lead the war.
Russians who were deceived by Putin, Ukrainians who believed peaceful promises Volodymyr ZelenskiWhether the Americans who have trusted Joe Biden, present they reap this fruit, so they have the kind of war the strategy and the politicians choose. They all have the leaders they deserve – and the destiny of this war.
Co-operation
When reading Sartre's text, 1 should realise that the essence of the substance is that most "grey people" let themselves to be attitude blind consumer, beneficiary, sometimes bored observer, seldom only a fan of election games and individual auctions, is without simple awareness of the co-operation of this paradoxical war situation, due to the fact that in passive form, without a sense of work – but she complains about what she herself gave consent to. This “grey mass” treats war either as “my country hut, what the hell” or as an act of God, or as a field of glory (after utilizing the “patriotic” drug, just like the eve of the war of empires).
This all explains the mediocre scope and resonance of peace defence movements (not only those radically pacifist) in Poland, talks a lot about our society. What is happening now (collective silence, or ostentatious and fanatical support of Ukraine) is not amazing erstwhile we remember how many people and groups opposed Polish participation in American fights in Afghanistan and Iraq. And with what service they accepted lies about this matter, to which the governments of the United States and large Britain later admitted. And the SLD government supported these aggressions and lied about secret prisons in Poland, even erstwhile the U.S. government had already published these secret documents. However, restrained reasoning in terms of the state's rations, the national interest surveyed by geopolitical, geostrategic, integral sovereignty (because besides cultural), in terms of political realism and pragmatism, does not fall within the Polish standard of sheep's momentum, herd conformism, pathetic patos displays, heroism and "power" of the ratler.
Infantils
The same distaste is caused by common hypocrisy, and sometimes any evidence of infantilism, childish naivety in ideas of the imperative of solidarity and support for Ukraine. aid you without asking, without setting any conditions, without wondering if mutuality and sincerity are the answer. Not a word about how the politics of today's "hero-leader elite" Ukraine has led to this war, to the implementation at the expense of its own nation of American games, and to how these “democrats” from Kiev treated workers' rights, freedom of speech, freedom of political associations and the rights of national minorities (in the celebrated language law and in the practice of administration). Volyn? "Now is not the time for this," responds the ruling and opposition that went down to the dogs.
However, we are all trapped in a situation typical of polarization, which always reduces divisions and differences to 1 dimension in the scheme: “Who with us and who with them, that is, against us” where there is no area for any “but” and “why”, for separate voices, or even for refusing to make specified a choice either-or. They do not scare the majority of mainstream journalists and parliamentary politicians, hundreds of thousands of victims in Ukraine, full mountains of human dreams and life plans, hectolitres of human tears shed, do not see the work to compose anything another than propaganda text. At the same time, the silent majority was most likely filled with so many illusions and hopes that even fact is not a cognitive goal. As individual erstwhile said: even the certainty in mathematics would be changed if they denied human interests. And in front of our eyes, you can't see the end of these changes. People want to see “for us” – and my view is different. The problem is not just about Russia and Ukraine, the guilty are a full lot of people.
Dr Edward Karolczuk
Freedom and work
(Jean-Paul Sartre)
The crucial consequence of our erstwhile remarks is that man, being doomed to be free, bears on his shoulders the weight of the full world: he is liable for the planet and himself, as he is simply a certain way of being. We usage the word “responsibility” in the common sense of “awareness of being the undisputed perpetrator of an event or object”. In this sense, the work of being-for-self is overwhelming, due to the fact that it is the entity by which the existence of the planet occurs, and besides due to the fact that it is the entity that makes it [gui se fait firm]; therefore, regardless of the situation in which it would not be found, being-for-self must take work for this situation, with its appropriate opposition factor, even if it were unbearable. She has to take on this situation, with a arrogant awareness of being her perpetrator due to the fact that the worst inconveniences or worst threats that can scope my person, make sense only in relation to my task and appear in the background of the commitment that I am. reasoning about complaining is so pointless, due to the fact that what we feel, what we live or who we are, is not decided by anyone but us. This absolute work is not an acceptance: it is simply a simple logical request for the consequences of our freedom. What happens to me happens to me through me and can neither contact me nor rebel against it, nor surrender it. After all, everything that happens to me is mine; it should be understood first of all that as a man I am always at the tallness of what happens to me, due to the fact that what happens to a man through another people or through himself can only be human. The most terrible situations of war, the worst torture does not make an inhuman state of affairs: there are no inhuman situations. Only through fear, flight, and recourse to magical behaviour do I constitute what is inhuman; but this provision remains human and I bear full work for it. Furthermore, the situation is mine due to the fact that it is simply a image of my free choice of myself and everything that it presents to me is mine due to the fact that it represents and symbolizes me. Isn't it me who decides the opposition origin of things, and even their unpredictability by deciding myself? Thus there are no cases in life; the social event which abruptly explodes and pulls me in does not come from outside; if they call me into the army, to war is my war, it is in my image and I deserve it. I deserve it first due to the fact that I could always avoid it by committing suicide or deserting – these final possibilities should be present in us whenever the situation is assessed. Without avoiding the situation, I choose her. This may be due to the weakness of character from cowardice before the public, erstwhile I place any another values above the refusal to participate in the war itself (esteem of relatives, household honour, etc.). Anyway, it's a choice. This choice will consequently be renewed continuously until the end of the war. It should so be signed under J. Romains. "There are no innocent victims in the war". For if I have put war before death or shame, everything is as if I were entirely liable for this war. No uncertainty anyone else has spoken and tempted to think of me as an average associate. But this notion of compassion has only legal meaning; here it does not fit. due to the fact that it was up to me whether this war for me and through me would exist, and I decided it would exist. There was no coercion due to the fact that coercion cannot affect someone's freedom; I had no excuse, due to the fact that – as we have already said and repeated in this work – the property of human reality is precisely that nothing explains it. So all I gotta do is request this war. But too that, war is mine, due to the fact that already by the fact that it emerges in the situation that I create, and due to the fact that I can discover it in this situation only by my commitment to it or against it, I can no longer separate myself and by the choice of war – surviving this war is the choice of myself through it and choosing it, made by my choice of myself. It cannot be considered to be “four years of vacation” or “distortion” or “break-up in a meeting” due to the fact that the essence of my work focuses elsewhere – in any married, household or professional life. In the war I chose to choose myself from day to day and make it my own, making myself. If it's going to be 4 empty years, it's my responsibility. Finally, as we have pointed out in the preceding paragraph, each individual is an absolute choice of himself, coming from a certain planet of cognition and methods which this choice takes on itself and explains at the same time. Each individual is an absolute utilizing a certain time and being completely unthinkable at another time [à une authore date]. So it is useless to wonder what would have happened if this war had not broken out, due to the fact that I chose myself as 1 of the possible meanings of the times that undetected led to war; I do not separate myself from those times, no 1 could decision me to any another time without contradictions. In this way, I am the war that narrows and limits and is an explanation of the period that preceded it. In this sense, to the conviction quoted just now, that "there are no innocent victims," 1 should add this: "We are getting the war we deserve." And so, being completely free, not different from the time I decided to be, as profoundly liable for the war as if I had said it, not being able to experience anything unless I included it in my situation, unless I am totally active in it and seal it, I cannot feel remorse or regret, just as I have nothing to defend myself, due to the fact that since I have been born into being [surgissment à l’ętre] I carry the weight of the planet myself, and nothing or anyone can relieve me of it.
However, this is simply a very circumstantial kind of responsibility. individual will say to me, “I have not asked for this world”, which is simply a naive way to emphasize our reality. I am actually liable for everything, but my own responsibility, due to the fact that I am not the foundation of my own existence. So everything happens as if I were forced to take responsibility. I was left in the world, not in the sense that I would be abandoned and passive in a hostile universe, like a part of floating board on the water, but on the contrary, in the sense that I find myself abruptly alone and without help, engaged in a planet for which I have full responsibility, without the possibility—whatever I would do—to get free of this work even for a moment, due to the fact that I am already liable for my desire to escape responsibility. If I become passive in the world, if I refuse to influence things and others, then I will inactive choose myself, and suicide is simply a way, 1 of many, to be-in-the-world. However, I find absolute work in the fact that my actuality, that is, in this context – the fact of my birth, is straight elusive and even unthinkable, due to the fact that this fact of my birth never appears to me as a harsh [brut], but always through the pro-yetting [pro-jetant] reconstruction of my being-for-me; I am ashamed of my birth or amazed at them, or, by trying to take my own life, I confirm that I live and accept this evil life. This choice in itself is entirely saturated with reality, due to the fact that I cannot neglect to choose; but this fact will appear only due to the fact that I will exceed it towards my goals. And so the reality is everywhere, although elusive; I always encounter only my responsibility, so I cannot ask "Why have I been born?", to curse the day of my birth or to declare that I have not asked for this world, due to the fact that these different attitudes towards my birth, that is, to the fact that I realize in the planet a certain presence, are nothing but ways of taking on this birth with full work and making it my own. Here I inactive meet only myself and my projects, so that yet my leaving, that is, my reality, is simply that I am sentenced to complete work for myself. I'm a being that's as a being that his being is all about being. And this "is" of my being is as if present and elusive.
Under these conditions, since all event in the planet can only appear to me as an chance (the chance used, ignored, etc.) or, I will say more, since everything that happens to us can be considered as an chance [une Chance], that is, it can only appear to us as a means of realising this being that we are meant to be, and since others, being transcendents-transcended, are besides simply opportunities and only opportunities, the work of being-for-you extends to the full world, understood as the human planet [monde-peuplé]. This is how he understands himself in fear, that is, being specified a being that is neither the foundation of his being nor the being of another, nor the making-up planet of being-in-self, must decide the meaning of being in him and everywhere outside of him. He who realizes in fear his condition of being thrown into a work that turns to his abandonment, has no more remorse, no more regret, no more explanation; he is only a freedom, full discovering himself, and his existence is in the very discovery. But, as we noted at the beginning of this work, we mostly flee from fear of bad faith.
Jean-Paul Sartre
