The Possibility of Collective Authenticity in Early Sartrean Works

An initial reading of early Sartrean works will reveal the nonexistence of a possibility of collective authenticity. This is due to the fact that Sartre's early thought is preoccupied with how the Other contributes to my demise. We recall that Sartre considers the Other as a threat to my freedom since the freedom of the Other limits mine. Moreover, the gaze of the Other becomes an occasion for my acting in bad faith since such look tend to objectify me and I do find security and escape in such objectification. As William Barrett observes:

This relation to the Other is one of the most sensational and best-known aspects of Sartre's psychology. To the other person, who looks at me from the outside, I seem an object, a thing; my subjectivity with its inner freedom escapes his gaze. Hence his tendency is always to convert me into the object he sees. The gaze of the Other penetrates to the depths of my existence, freezes and congeals it.

However, a rereading of early Sartrean works, especially the An Existential Ethic and the Anti-Semite and Jew will reveal that even in his early thought, Sartre has already a budding conception of collective authenticity. We find, for example, Sartre arguing in An Existential Ethic that the freedom of one is the freedom of all:

Freedom as a definition of man does not depend on others, but as soon as there is involvement, I am obliged to want others to have freedom at the same time that I want my own freedom.

Sartre's assertion of the necessity of upholding others' freedom in the same manner that we attempt to uphold our own is visionary of the imminent transformation of his focus from individuality to collectivity.

The possibility of collective authenticity is more comprehensively laid down in the Anti-Semite and Jew. There, Sartre argues that the solution to the Jewish problem can only be solved through a common fight against the ideal that tend to suppress the reality of the Jews. However, since such thought will be elaborated in detail in the following subsection, this researcher feels that it would be better to discuss the possibility of collective authenticity vis-à-vis the discussion of the struggle towards collective authenticity.

This said, it must likewise be pointed out that while there may be few instances in early Sartre where he explicitly talks about collective authenticity, the fact stands that his pessimistic discussion of individual authenticity eventually laid down the foundation for a more comprehensive treatment of collective authenticity in his later works. We find, for instance, Jacob Golomb stating that such pessimism made Sartre argue for the abandonment of "the impossible dream of being an ideally authentic being and embrace the more realistic goal of living authentically in a humanly possible manner." Golomb further asserts that "the 'useless passion' is not completely useless: the art of authenticity is to achieve authenticity by art or creative activity."