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Jean-Paul Sartre

21 June 1905-15 April 1980

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Abandonment is the state of man in a world where God does not exist, giving him no excuses and condemning him to make of himself and his morals what he wants in this world with no rules.

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Anguish is the profound sense of responsibility tied to the fact that when man commits himself to anything, he is at the same time deciding for all men.

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Anthropology is a discipline which seeks to define the essence of man and the human condition, in contrast to psychology which does not set out to define and limit (a priori) the object of its research.

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The Antisemite is one who wishes to destroy the Jew as a man and leave nothing in him but the Jew (i.e. The pariah, the untouchable). Interestingly, the liberal ultimately comes at things from the other end and ultimately wishes to destroy him as a jew and leave nothing in him but the man, the abstract and universal subject of the rights of man and the rights of the citizen.

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Antisemitism is a free and total choice of oneself, a comprehensive attitude that one adopts not only towards Jews but towards men in general, towards history and society... it is at one and the same time a passion and a conception of the world.

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Antisemitism is a representative of bad faith, in that the anti-semite believes that there is nothing he has to do to merit his superiority, and neither can he lose it. It is given once and for all. It is a thing. He attributes to himself a character so complete and totalizing that he 'chooses the permanence and impenetrability of stone'.

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Antisemitism is an idea which, in effect, constructs the Jew as a stereotype and then poisons him by making him live in fear that his act will correspond to it.

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Antisemitism is at root, fear... fear of everything, in fact, 'except' the Jew. It is a fear of the human condition: Man's of himself, of his own consciousness, of his liberty, of his instincts, of his responsibilities.

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Antisemitism is bad faith in that the anti-semite denies his human agency and instead thinks of himself as naturally, innately good, powerful and pure. His self-identity is predicated on a contrast with the jew, who is naturally, innately vicious, weak and corrupt.

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Antisemitism is not caused by external factors. It is a passion and an all-encompassing choice of both oneself and the world.

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Antisemitism is not just a prejudice that arises from mediocrity, but rather, one embraces anti-semitism to be a member of a community of the mediocre.

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Bad faith is a form of internal denial, of denying to oneself that something is happening, and the happening is a choice I make. For example, 'I can't stop and talk to you because I have to do x' or 'I can't spend time with my family because I have to work long hours to bring in the money' count as refusals to recognize the choices that are open to me.

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Bad faith is the attitude whereby we try to flee from anguish by attempting to understand ourselves from the outside as an other or as a thing.

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Being is an impossible goal which forms a self-estrangement that is part of the human condition (whereas for heidegger being is a constantly receding origin from which we are estranged).

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Being is and non-being is not because being is logically prior to non-being and non-being exist only as a negation of being, as a borrowed being.

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Being is fundamental and does not depend on anything else for its being, whereas non-being, the negation of being, is entirely dependent on being for its borrowed existence.

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Being is that which man, as he is born into a material universe that precedes him, is inserted into.

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A Choice is nothing other than an invention. There are no rules, and no signs are vouchsafed in the world.

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The City is an ensemble of 'indirect gatherings,' defined by relations of alterity, dominated by serial behavior, serial feelings, and serial thoughts.