presaging his abandonment of literature for more direct political involve-
ment: “A day comes when the pen is forced to stop, and the writer must
then take up arms” (WL 69 ).
A treatise on violenceWhat are the relationships between ends and means in a society based
on violence?” (WL 192 ). Sartre devotes pages 170 – 215 of theNotebooks
to a mini-treatise on violence. That violence bears a striking resemblance
to the violence Sartre experienced in the 1930 s and 1940 s, namely what
we might call “fascist” violence. He admits that he is describing “the
universe of violence,” namely “the universe as it appears when violence
is taken as an end. The extreme case” (NE 178 ). This is the world of the
person who is in bad faith, the one who subscribes to the maxim that
the end justifies the means, indeed “any means whatsoever.”^22 Else-
where, Sartre has mitigated this claim by appeal to counter-violence,
structural violence and especially a degree of violence that would destroy
the very goal for which it was employed. In the last instance, we are no
longer dealing with “the extreme case.”
In opposition to the authentic ethic just described, “the violent
man prefersbeingto doing” (NE 182 ). “The goal and final justification
of violence is always unity[being-in-itself]” (NE 186 ). Accordingly,
Sartre can rise to the macro level of his analysis and proclaim: “The
Hegelian dialectic [with its tragic universe] is the very image of violence
because he has described the negation of negation and is confident about
a whole that will make the positive spring forth from this negation of
negation” (NE 184 ).
For an example of what I have labeled “fascist” violence, consider the
principles of what Sartre calls “theethic of force(which is simply an
ethics of violence justifying itself)” (NE 186 ). Listed among its fourteen
“commandments” are: ( 1 ) the victor is always right; ( 2 ) the principle of
harshness; ( 3 ) love for the struggle; ( 4 ) the value of evil that cleanses
and purifies like a fire;...( 13 ) the beauty of pessimism. Violence and
(^22) NE 172. Ronald Santoni offers a careful argument in defense of “The Bad Faith of Violence –
and is Sartre in Bad Faith Regarding it?,”Sartre Studies International 11 , nos. 1 / 2 ( 2005 ):
62 – 77.
274 Ends and Means: existential ethics