The Provocation of Levinas by Bernasconi Robert; Wood David;

Author:Bernasconi, Robert; Wood, David; [ROBERT BERNASCONI & DAVID WOOD]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2011-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

Sadism and Masochism are the revelation of the Other. They have sense— like the conflict of consciousness—only before conversion. Once we assume the fact that we are both free and an object for others (for example the authentic Jew) there is no longer any ontological reason to remain in the domain of conflict. (Cahiers, p. 26)

Overall, Sartre’s analyses of relations with the Other are immeasurably more positive in the Cahiers. The Other is described as he who recognizes me (Cahiers, p. 76). He is an unpredictable freedom (Cahiers, p. 128) through whom I make myself ‘I create myself by giving myself to the Other’, ‘So I must lose myself to find myself (Cahiers., p. 136). True freedom is a gift, not a demand; it is a recognition of the freedom of the Other (Cahiers, p. 146). It is evident that qui perd gagne has penetrated and transformed Sartre’s analysis of human relations. An extreme example of this is given in one of his notes for a plan: ‘The for-itself and the Other: self-giving [le Don]. In sacrifice I am, and I prefer the Other. I prefer what I do not prefer. But I am my gift to the Other—Joy’ (Cahiers, p. 156). Sartre acknowledges that L’Être et le néant was criticized for neglecting the affirmative aspect of life, and argues that it was not so much denied as envisaged as dependent on the negating power of consciousness (Cahiers, pp. 155–6). The Cahiers will redress the balance.

It is probably in his analysis of love that Sartre’s evolution is clearest. Without denying the sado-masochistic element described in L’Être et le néant, Sartre recognizes the incompleteness of his original analysis: ‘There is no love without deep recognition and reciprocal understanding of freedom: this is the dimension lacking in Being and Nothingness’ (Cahiers, p. 430). He will even describe the classless society in terms of mutual love:

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