[lit-ideas] Re: Mailer on Sartre (was: Faith)
- From: "Veronica Caley" <vcaley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 17:39:20 -0400
Andy:
Mailer isn't making
a huge amount of sense here.
I agree. The western conception of God is that he, yes, he is omnipotent,
omniscient and benevolent. At least that's what most of us older persons
were taught. If one reads the Bible however, one gets the God that is
exactly like us, which makes perfect sense, since gods are anthropomorphic
creations of people.
So, we actually do have a God that Mailer thinks Sartre should have
introduced into his philosophy. This God is capricious, unpredictable,
cruel, murderous and sometimes even a little kind. Which is why many
people reject Him, It, whatever.
And so did Sartre.
Veronica Caley
Milford, MI
> [Original Message]
> From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 5/21/2005 2:00:53 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Mailer on Sartre (was: Faith)
>
> Mailer is saying philosophy is irrelevant except for those in search of a
> hereafter, i.e., a God, and existentialism needs a "God who, no matter His
> or Her > cosmic dimensions, (whether larger or smaller than we assume),
> embodies > nonetheless some of our faults, our ambitions, our talents and
> our gloom." He's saying Satre failed because he couldn't find a man-god
> to worship, otherwise known as theological relativism. Mailer isn't
making
> a huge amount of sense here.
>
>
> Andy Amago
>
>
>
>
>
> > [Original Message]
> > From: Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxx>
> > To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Date: 5/20/2005 10:29:20 PM
> > Subject: [lit-ideas] Mailer on Sartre (was: Faith)
> >
> >
> > On Sartre's God Problem
> >
> > Norman Mailer
> >
> > This year marks the centenary of the birth of Jean-Paul Sartre, the
great
> > philosopher of existentialism and a definitive model of the
intellectual
> > engagé. The Paris-based daily Libération asked a group of writers to
> > comment on the philosopher's legacy. Norman Mailer was among the
> > contributors. His remarks are reprinted below. --Adam Shatz
> >
> >
> > I would say that Sartre, despite his incontestable strengths of mind,
> > talent and character, is still the man who derailed existentialism, sent
> it
> > right off the track. In part, this may have been because he gave too
wide
> a
> > berth to Heidegger's thought. Heidegger spent his working life laboring
> > mightily in the crack of philosophy's buttocks, right there in the
cleft
> > between Being and Becoming. I would go so far as to suggest Heidegger
was
> > searching for a viable connection between the human and the divine that
> > would not inflame too irreparably the reigning post-Hitler German
> mandarins
> > who were in no rush to forgive his past and would hardly encourage his
> > tropism toward the nonrational.
> >
> > Sartre, however, was comfortable as an atheist even if he had no
> fundament
> > on which to plant his philosophical feet. To hell with that, he didn't
> need
> > it. He was ready to survive in mid-air. We are French, he was ready to
> say.
> > We have minds, we can live with the absurd and ask for no reward. That
is
> > because we are noble enough to live with emptiness, and strong enough
to
> > choose a course which we are even ready to die for. And we will do this
> in
> > whole defiance of the fact that, indeed, we have no footing. We do not
> look
> > to a Hereafter.
> >
> > It was an attitude; it was a proud stance; it was equal to living with
> > one's mind in formless space, but it deprived existentialism of more
> > interesting explorations. For atheism is a cropless undertaking when it
> > comes to philosophy. (We need only think of Logical Positivism!)
Atheism
> > can contend with ethics (as Sartre did on occasion most brilliantly),
but
> > when it comes to metaphysics, atheism ends in a locked cell. It is,
after
> > all, near to impossible for a philosopher to explore how we are here
> > without entertaining some notion of what the prior force might have
been.
> > Cosmic speculation is asphyxiated if existence came into being ex
nihilo.
> > In Sartre's case--worse. Existence came into being without a clue to
> > suggest whether we are here for good purpose, or there is no reason
> > whatsoever for us.
> >
> >
> > All the same, Sartre's philosophical talents were damnably virtuoso. He
> was
> > able to function with precision in the upper echelons of every logical
> > structure he set up. If only he had not been an existentialist! For an
> > existentialist who does not believe in some kind of Other is equal to
an
> > engineer who designs an automobile that requires no driver and accepts
no
> > passengers. If existentialism is to flourish (that is, develop through
a
> > series of new philosophers building on earlier premises), it needs a
God
> > who is no more confident of the end than we are; a God who is an
artist,
> > not a law-giver; a God who suffers the uncertainties of existence; a
God
> > who lives without any of the pre-arranged guarantees that sit like an
> > incubus upon formal theology with its flatulent, self-serving assumption
> of
> > a Being who is All-Good and All-Powerful. What a gargantuan
> > oxymoron--All-Good and All-Powerful. It is certain to maroon any and
all
> > formal theologians who would like to explain an earthquake. Before the
> > wrath of a tsunami, they can only break wind. The notion of an
> existential
> > God, a Creator who may have been doing His or Her artistic best, but
> could
> > still have been remiss in designing the tectonic plates, is not within
> > their scope.
> >
> > Sartre was alien to the possibility that existentialism might thrive if
> it
> > would just assume that indeed we do have a God who, no matter His or
Her
> > cosmic dimensions, (whether larger or smaller than we assume), embodies
> > nonetheless some of our faults, our ambitions, our talents and our
gloom.
> > For the end is not written. If it is, there is no place for
> existentialism.
> > Base our beliefs, however, on the fact of our existence, and it takes
no
> > great step for us to assume that we are not only individuals but may
well
> > be a vital part of a larger phenomenon that searches for some finer
> vision
> > of life that could conceivably emerge from our present human condition.
> > There is no reason, one can argue, why this assumption is not nearer to
> the
> > real being of our lives than anything the oxymoronic theologians would
> > offer us. It is certainly more reasonable than Sartre's ongoing
> > assumption--despite his passionate desire for a better society--that we
> are
> > here willy-nilly and must manage to do the best we can with endemic
> > nothingness installed upon eternal floorlessness. Sartre was indeed a
> > writer of major dimension, but he was also a philosophical executioner.
> He
> > guillotined existentialism just when we needed most to hear its howl,
its
> > barbaric yawp that there is something in common between God and all of
> us.
> > We, like God, are imperfect artists doing the best we can. We may
succeed
> > or fail--God as well as us. That is the implicit if undeveloped air of
> > existentialism. We would do well to live again with the Greeks, live
> again
> > with the expectation that the end remains open but human tragedy may
well
> > be our end.
> >
> > Great hope has no real footing unless one is willing to face into the
> doom
> > that may also be on the way. Those are the poles of our existence--as
> they
> > have been from the first instant of the Big Bang. Something immense may
> now
> > be stirring, but to meet it we will do better to expect that life will
> not
> > provide the answers we need so much as it will offer the privilege of
> > improving our questions. It is not moral absolutism but theological
> > relativism we would do well to explore if our real need is for a God
with
> > whom we can engage our lives.
> >
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