Existentialism: a Philosophy of Hope or Despair?



Existentialism: Hope or Despair? 17
the enemy causes. If I do not send a Care package to the
starving millions of India then it is I, and not someone else,
who am responsible for the starving millions. Moreover, since
we are particularly concerned with relating existentialism to
its historical context, it is interesting to note the relevancy of
this highly moral, if not stoic, overtone of existentialist doc-
trine for Frenchmen, like Sartre and those of his circle, liv-
ing in Paris during the occupation. For the occupation had
the effect of placing an entire population in a like situation,
of posing to every citizen the same question and the same
alternatives: shall I seek freedom or shall I remain a slave?
No doubt, from an existentialist viewpoint, his deliberations
would run as follows : “If I am a slave I cannot say that it is
the fault of the enemy. On the contrary, it was he who merely
created the situation in which I must choose between being
a slave and being a free man. Tlierefore, should I remain a
slave, it is because I, and no one else, have chosen to be one.
Moreover, this is a choice I have made not only for myself
but for my compatriots as well. On the other hand, if I choose
to be free, my only course is to resist, and in doing so I place
myself in danger. I can, of course, seek to escape these alter-
natives by masking my liberty to myself, that is, by pretend-
ing that my enslavement is not my fault, but the fault of the
enemy, and therefore inevitable. And yet it
is my fault; other-
wise I would have chosen to resist. The point is that in either
case I choose freely, and my choice, whether of enslavement
or resistance, is a responsibility that I assume.”

By the same token, a Czech or a Hungarian living under
Communist domination who neither resists nor flees through
the iron curtain is as responsible for the moral and political
crimes of Communist Russia as a member of the Comintern.
For it is impossible to imagine a situation in which choice



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