resolution might equally be achieved by taking to heart the message of
the third play just mentioned,The Devil and the Good Lord.^32
The Devil and the Good Lord: an exchange of dialectics
This is acknowledged as a clearly autobiographical work as, one can argue,
is Sartre’sSaint Genet, produced a year later. Both texts depict concretely
the dilemma of someone trying to live authentically in an inauthentic
world. Gone is the option of simply changing oneself rather than one’s
situation – a solution appealing to “Stoic,” or what I called “noetic”
freedom inBN. In both cases, we have suspended the presumably defining
mantra of vintage existentialism: “A man can always make something out
of what is made of him” (BEM 35 ). Set in the time of the peasant rebellion
during the reformation in Germany, this tale recounts the conversion of
its hero, Goetz, from the pursuit of Absolute Evil to that of Absolute
Good. It appears that the destruction of human lives is inevitable in either
case. But the plight of the priest, Heinrich, underscores the same problem
from another angle. As Sartre explains: “Nowadays, we know there are
some situations that corrupt an individual right into his inmost being.”
One such is the moral dilemma facing Heinrich:
If he sides with the poor, he betrays the Church, but if he sides with the Church, he
betrays the poor. It is not sufficient to say that there is a conflict in him: he himself is
the conflict. His problem is absolutely insoluble, for he is mystified to the marrow of
his bones. Out of this horror of himself he chooses to be evil. Some situations can be
desperate.^33
Two morals are set forth from this story: first, that even the best of
choices leave us with “Dirty Hands,” the play thatThe Devilis said to
complement; and second, that in the choice between the human and the
absolute, between man and God, the option for man will do less harm.
We shall call this Sartre’s mitigated or chastened humanism.
As we move to a more explicit consideration of the political stream of
Sartre’s thought, let us ease the transition with reference to violence
(^32) The Devil and the Good Lord, trans. Kitty Black (New York: Knopf, 1960 [ 1951 ]) (Lucifer and
33 the Good Lordin Great Britain).
Interview withSamedi-Soir, a mass-circulation weekly (June 2 , 1951 );ST 229.
The Devil and the Good Lord 281