( 3 ) Comaraderie. Where each member views every other not as identical but as “the
same” in practical interest and concern; the power of members surpasses that of
a mere collection of isolated individuals.
( 4 ) Heightened sense of disalienation. Thereby overcoming the alienating status of
“serial alterity,” where each is mechanically related to the others as other to
other, like the TV-viewing audience or the individuals jostling for scarce seats on
a bus.
( 5 ) Distrust of party politics. The Party, even if it originates small groups (cells), does
so hierarchically and for its own interests; the Party wants power, not freedom.
( 6 ) Confidence in “direct action.” Since the unity of the group is practical not
theoretical; its goals are generated from the group itself; the group as it is
forming simplyisits goal.
( 7 ) A visceral dislike of authority. Which, as Sartre said elsewhere, is the “otherin
us.” With the organized group arises a self-imposed authority structure that,
Sartre believes, inevitably hardens into the institution – which is a phenomenon
of the practico-inert such as the Party or the state.
( 8 ) Violence. The basis of violence is interiorized scarcity; it will pervade society so
long as material scarcity infects it. The “sworn group” (e.g., those who took the
Tennis Court Oath in the French Revolution, which is Sartre’s paradigm case of
all of these features) introduced a relation of “fraternity-terror” that sustained a
Rousseauiansamenessvia the threat of mortal consequence for betrayal.
Though Sartre had often described the violence that qualified societies
of oppression and exploitation, as well as the “counter-violence” of the
oppressed and the exploited, only in theCritiquedoes he connect this to
the scarcity of material goods. This warrants his implicit reference to a
“socialism of abundance” where violence would presumably be rare,
if not excluded entirely. But the dyad “fraternity/terror” emerges to full
view at the apocalyptic moment of group formation. True, it has been
present, if not mentioned, throughout Sartre’s discussion of the political
and the social, but now, faced with the fact of interiorized scarcity,
it haunts Sartre’s thought to the point that he will finally admit that he
has still not been able to reconcile one with the other.^33
In the interview he gave to Michel Contat as he turned 70 , Sartre
remarked how it was Marxism as a philosophy of power that he rejected,
not several of its tenets such as the class struggle, surplus value and
the rest, that he continued to find valid. But he added: “We must develop
a way of thinking which takes Marxism into accountin order to go beyond
(^33) “But to tell you the truth, I still don’t clearly see the real relationship between violence and
fraternity” (Hope 93 ).
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