Existentialism
The existentialist tradition has influenced European political thinkers in
various ways since at least the 18th century. Its most recent significant
manifestation is in French political thought, with the existentialism of Jean-
Paul Sartre (1905–80) and Albert Camus (1913–60). It is unclear whether there
are any specific doctrines in existentialism that actually have a direct political
consequence, and the philosophy is, in any case, one that Anglo-American
culture always found difficult and obscure. Most probably, the political
influence of existentialism has more to do with the milieu of left-wing cafe ́
society, or, as in Camus’s case, radical anti-colonialism, in which it was
espoused than with such logical connections as one might find normally
between a philosophical tradition and a political doctrine. Sartre himself was
for some time a follower ofMarxismas well as existentialism, and his political
positions derived rather more obviously from this. The nearest one could safely
come to describing the politics of existentialism is to suggest that the philo-
sophy speaks to those who see modern societies as dominated by bureaucrats,
characterized byalienationand dehumanization, and to those who would
wish to destroy these aspects of state power. Indeed a general distaste for
organized power, an opposition to being forced to choose between limited
alternatives in terms of organized left- and right-wing parties, and a feeling that
individual autonomy and creativity are being destroyed by politicians runs
through Sartre’s work. Especially in his famous four-volume novel of French
life from the Spanish Civil War to the fall of France in 1940,The Roads to
Freedom(1945–49), Sartre certainly paints a perceptive emotional analysis of
the corruption of the FrenchThird Republic, and it may well be that it is in
the not strictly philosophical literature that the political theory is to be found.
This would apply equally to other modern existentialists, especially Camus,
who had grown up in French Algeria and developed a hatred for the colonial
mentality. In the end there is little more than a politics of despair and a fear of
power to be found as theoretical doctrine in the existentialist works. One
might well link this political reaction to the politics of Kafka’sThe Trial. This is
not to deny the genuine influence on many in political circles, especially
among fringe left-wing groups and militant students, and many serious critics
of political theory might well wish to claim a more clear-cut political con-
sequence for existentialism. What would probably not be denied is that its days
of influence have been, at least temporarily, over since the 1960s, largely to be
replaced by more recent French radical philosophy in the guise of various
versions ofpost-modernism.
Existentialism