Sartre spot-on

"Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself." -Jean-Paul Sartre (Fiero 76)

Most philosophers for hundreds of years have been blaming actions and choices on external forces. They all compel you to look back at your childhood or the bible for answers, many stating that the things you do you cannot control. This is why Jean-Paul Sartre is so interesting to me. After doing some research on Sartre, i was ultimately faced with two questions.. "How had i not heard of this man before?" and "Which way is he looking?" Despite his squirrelly eyes, Sartre produced a very valid ontology.

I would have to say I admire Sartre more than any other philosopher I've studied. Instead of placing the blame, he realizes that the blame is ours. Many would like to deny this fact, wanting a way out. With cries of "The devil made me do it," or "He triple-dog dared me!" there are few people who will take responsibility for their own actions. Sartre says that we have no predetermined nature, we act free and independently in our choices, and we create our nature and values as a result of these choices. You may think, what if you grow up with a horrible childhood, completely outside of your control? Sartre would suggest that you must take what you can from your experience and make the choice to learn what not to do and how not to live your life. This takes away all outside forces, leaving us with the bed we made, and the choice to lie in it, or do what we can to change it.

Of course Sartre realizes that this much responsibility would certainly impact humans. He says that it instills anxiety and despair. The anxiety being from the thought that we are responsible for every one of our choices with nothing else to blame. The despair comes from seeing the world around us that we cannot control, realizing that it is determined and that we hold little to no power in changing the external world. We are  restricted to only what is in our control.

So what keeps us from going out and stealing or anything else for personal gain? Sartre explains that when choosing our human nature, we choose what we would like to see in the world. The old "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" applies. We know that, if everyone chose to act in an undesirable manner, the world would be chaos. Instead, we act as we should in society so everything operates smoothly. Sartre's philosophy is one of the only ones, in my opinion, that is really worth believing in.