the remark is appalling. It leads to such paradoxical corollaries as the
claim that “The Jew is not yethistorical, and yet he is the most ancient of
peoples, or nearly so” (Anti-Semite and Jew 84 ). Of course, Sartre is
describing the anti-Semite’s view of the matter at this point. But it is
curious that he fails to cite as a counterexample the deep religious and
cultural tradition of the Jewish people, especially when describing
the Jew’s “situation.”^30 His erstwhile friend Raymond Aron offers the
following explanation of these omissions: “[Re ́flexions sur la question
juive] is a fine book, but Sartre was not knowledgeable about Jews. He
thought that all Jews were like his schoolmate, Raymond Aron, who
was totally unreligious, thoroughly French, who largely ignored Jewish
tradition, and thus, only Jewish because others called him Jewish.”^31
Turning to the major claim of this chapter and the source of the most
controversy, Sartre offers us his most complete description of authenti-
city thus far.^32 Regarding the exercise of freedom within the limits of a
situation, he argues that it may be considered asauthenticorinauthentic
according to the choices made in the situation. Authenticity, he claims
“consists in having a true and lucid consciousness of the situation, in
assuming the responsibilities and risks that it involves, in accepting it
in pride or humiliation, sometimes in horror and hate” (Anti-Semite and
Jew 90 ). He goes on to list “courage and more than courage” as necessary
conditions for authentic action. Though he does not parse these com-
ponents, it is clear that truth or better “truthfulness” and courageous
acceptance of the possibility of risk and the resultant responsibility are
part of this moral category. So too is the affective dimension with which
one lives it. Indeed, already in Being and Nothingness, true to the
existentialists’ regard for the emotions as revelatory of our world,
Sartre had remarked that consciousness of choosing ourselves
(^30) Facing this objection in his extended interviews with Benny Le ́vy, Sartre explains: “I was
thinking of history in a certain well-defined sense – the history of France, the history of
Germany, the history of America, of the United States. In any case, the history of a sovereign
political entity that has its own territory and relations with other states like itself ”
31 (Hope^103 ).
Raymond Aron,The Committed Observer: Interviews with Jean-Louis Mussika and Domique
Walton(Chicago, IL: Regnery, Gateway, 1983 ), cited by Jonathan Judaken in hisJohn-Paul
32 Sartre and the Jewish Question(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,^2006 ),^123.
A precautionary note: An earlier and equally important analysis of “authenticity” occurs
passiminWD(see index, s.v. “authenticity”) and inCarnet IofCDG-F, esp. 68 – 69 and
138 – 139.
246 Existentialism: the fruit of liberation