Sartre vs. Nietzsche: Will To Power, Platonism, and Pessimism
By: Craig Beam
University of Waterloo
Introduction
Although Sartre and Nietzsche have been grouped together as atheistic
existentialists, the idea that there are significant parallels between
them is by no means common. While Sartre has frequently been portrayed
as a derivative and syncretic thinker, it is the ideas of Descartes, Hegel,
Husserl, and Heidegger which he discusses, develops, and criticizes in
Being and Nothingness. While major continental thinkers like Heidegger,
Jaspers, Deleuze, and Derrida each wrote a book about Nietzsche and were
greatly influenced by his thought, Sartre virtually ignores Nietzsche
and refers to him only twice in Being and Nothingness. However, the question
of influence is one thing and that of intellectual parallels is another.
In the history of ideas it is not uncommon for thinkers to independently
arrive at the similar positions - especially if they are addressing similar
problems and living in similar times. Unfortunately, when a philosopher
like Sartre neglects the thought of a predecessor working in the same
domain, he may unknowingly follow some of the very same paths and he runs
the risk of stumbling into pitfalls that his predecessor shows us how
to avoid.
To begin with, there are some obvious general parallels between Nietzsche
and Sartre which few commentators would wish to dispute. Both are vehement
atheists who resolutely face up to the fact that the cosmos has no inherent
meaning or purpose. Unlike several other thinkers, they do not even try
to replace the dead God of Christian theology with talk of Absolute Spirit
or Being. In one of only two brief references to Nietzsche in Being and
Nothingness, Sartre upholds his rejection of "the illusion of worlds-behind-the-scene;"
that is, the notion that there is a Platonic true world of noumenal being
which stands behind becoming and reduces phenomena to the status of mere
illusion or appearance. 1) Both thinkers also insist that it is human
beings who create moral values and attempt to give meaning to life. Sartre
speaks ironically of the "serious" men who think that values
have an absolute objective existence, while Nietzsche regards people who
passively accept the values they have been taught as sheep-like members
of the herd.
When we attempt a deeper explanation of the ultimate source of values,
the relationship between Sartre and Nietzsche becomes more problematic.
Nietzsche says that out of a nation (or person's) tablet of good and evil
speaks "the voice of their will to power".2) For Sartre, the
values that we adopt or posit are part of our fundamental project, which
is to achieve justified being and become in-itself-for-itself. It appears,
therefore, that both thinkers regard man as an essentially Faustian striver,
and that it would not be unfair to group Sartre with Nietzsche as a proponent
of "will to power".
Clearly, Sartre would object to such a Nietzschean characterization
of his existential psychoanalysis. In Being and Nothingness he rejects
all theories which attempt to explain individual behaviour in terms of
general substantive drives, and he is particularly critical of such notions
as the libido and the will to power. Sartre insists that these are not
irreducible psycho-biological entities, but original projects like any
other which the individual can negate through his or her freedom. He denies
that striving for power is a general characteristic of human beings, denies
the existence of any opaque and permanent will-entity within consciousness,
and even denies that human beings have any fixed nature or essence.
Similarities: Sartre as a Proponent of 'Will to Power'
However, Sartre's criticisms of the will to power are only applicable
to popular misunderstandings of Nietzsche's thought. Like the for-itself,
Nietzsche's "will" should not be regarded as a substantive entity.
Although it is derived from the metaphysical theories of Schopenhauer
and is sometimes spoken of in ways which invite ontologizing, Nietzsche's
conception of the will is predominantly adjectival and phenomenological.
Its status is similar to that of Sartre's for-itself, which should not
be considered a metaphysical entity even though it is a remote descendent
of the "thinking substance" of Descartes. Thus, in Beyond Good
and Evil Nietzsche criticizes the unjustified metaphysical assumptions
which are bound up with the Cartesian "I think" and the Schopenhauerian
"I will".3) He says that "willing seems to me to be above
all something complicated, something that is a unity only as a word".
4) Although there are passages in the writings of both Sartre and Nietzsche
which can be interpreted metaphysically if taken out of context, it is
better to regard "nothingness" and "will" as alternate
adjectival descriptions of our being.
Although Nietzsche's use of the word "power" invites misunderstanding,
he clearly uses the term in a broad sense and has a sophisticated conception
of power. Most certainly, he is not claiming that everyone really wants
political power or dominion over other people. Nietzsche describes philosophy
as "the most spiritual will to power," 5) and regards the artist
as a higher embodiment of the will to power than either the politician
or the conqueror. Through his theory Nietzsche can account for a wide
variety of human behaviour without being reductionist. Thus, a follower
may subordinate himself to a leader or group to feel empowered, and even
the perverse or negative behaviour of the ascetic priest or resentful
moralist can be accounted for in terms of the will to power.
Nietzsche speaks of "power" in reaction to the 19th century
moral theorists who insisted that men strive for utility or pleasure.
The connotations of "power" are broader and richer, suggesting
that a human being is more than a calculative "economic man"
whose desires could be satisfied with the utopian comforts of a Brave
New World. Nietzsche's meaning could also be brought out by speaking of
a will to self-realization, (one of his favourite mottoes was "Become
what you are!") or by thinking of "power" as a psychic
energy or potentiality whose possession "empowers" us to aspire,
strive, and create.
In Being and Nothingness, Sartre presents himself as the discoverer
of the full scope of human freedom, contrasting his seemingly open and
indeterminate conception of human possibility with a psychological and
philosophical tradition that limits human nature by positing "opaque"
drives and goals and insisting on their universality. Such an image of
Sartre is widely held, although his insistence that consciousness strives
to become in-itself-for-itself gives his view of man a greater determinacy
than a cursory glance at some of his philosophical rhetoric and literary
works would suggest. For this reason, Sartre can profitably be related
to other theorists who argue that man is motivated by a unitary force
or strives for a single goal.
When evaluating such theories, the really essential distinction is between
those which are open, inclusive and empirically indeterminate, and those
which are narrow and reductionist. This could be illustrated by comparing
the narrow utilitarianism of Bentham to Mill's broader development of
the theory, or by contrasting Freud and Jung's conception of the libido.
While Freud was resolutely reductionist and insisted that "the name
of libido is properly reserved for the instinctual forces of sexual life,"
Jung broadened the term to refer to all manifestations of instinctual
psychic energy. Thus, Sartre appears revolutionary when he contrasts himself
with Freud although he cannot legitimately claim that his view of man
is more open or less reductionist than that of Nietzsche.
Most likely, Sartre and many of his commentators would take issue with
the above conclusion, and from a certain perspective their criticisms
are justified. Unlike Nietzsche, Sartre is intent on upholding man's absolute
freedom, rejecting the influence of instinct, denying the existence of
unconscious psychic forces, and portraying consciousness as a nothingness
which has no essence. In comparison even with other non-reductionist views
of man, then, it would seem that the radical nature of Sartre's thought
is unmatched.
However, in a more fundamental respect Sartre's ontology limits human
possibility by (1) declaring that consciousness is a lack which is doomed
to vainly strive for fulfilment and justification, and by (2) accepting
important parts of the Platonic view of becoming as ontologically given
rather than merely as aspects of his own original project. It is in this
way that Sartre's philosophy becomes shipwrecked on reefs which Nietzsche
manages to avoid.
For Sartre, "the for-itself is defined ontologically as a lack
of being," and "freedom is really synonymous with lack".
6) Along with Plato he equates desire with a lack of being, but in contrast
with Hegel he arrives at the pessimistic conclusion that "human reality
therefore is by nature an unhappy consciousness with no possibility of
surpassing its unhappy state".7) In other words, the human condition
is basically Sisyphean, for man is condemned to strive to fill his inner
emptiness but is incapable of achieving justified being. This desire to
become in-self-for-itself, which Sartre also refers to as the project
of being God, is said to define man and come "close to being the
same as a human `nature' or an `essence'".8) Sartre tries to reconcile
this universal project with freedom by claiming that our wish to be in-itself-for-itself
determines only the meaning of human desire but does not constitute it
empirically. However such freedom is tainted, for no matter what we do
empirically we cannot avoid futile striving nor achieve an authentic sense
of satisfaction, plenitude, joy, or fulfilment.
In Part Four of Being and Nothingness, Sartre describes how consciousness
attempts to make up for its lack of being by striving to appropriate and
possess the world. With a somewhat reductionistic vehemence, he explains
a variety of human behaviour in terms of the insatiable desire to consume,
acquire, dominate, violate, and destroy. Sartre says that knowledge and
discovery are appropriative enjoyments, and he characterizes the scientist
as a sort of intellectual peeping Tom who wants to strip away the veils
of nature and deflower her with his Look.9) Similarly, He says that the
artist wants to produce substantive being which exists through him, and
that the skier seeks to possess the field of snow and conquer the slope.
Thus art, science, and play are all activities of appropriation, which
either wholly or in part seek to possess the absolute being of the in-itself.
10) Destruction is also an appropriative behaviour. Sartre says that "a
gift is a primitive form of destruction," describes giving as "a
keen, brief enjoyment, almost sexual," and declares that "to
give is to enslave".11) He even interprets smoking as "the symbolic
equivalent of destructively appropriating the entire world".12)
Aside from the sweeping and somewhat one-sided nature of Sartre's claims,
the most striking aspect of this section is the negativity of its account
of human beings. Not only are we condemned to dissatisfaction, but some
of our noblest endeavours are unmasked as pointless appropriation and
destruction. One is reminded not of Nietzsche's will to power, but of
Heidegger's scathing criticism of the "will to power" (interpreted
popularly) as the underlying metaphysics of our era which embodies all
that is most despicable about modernity. For Heidegger, it is such an
insatiable will which is embodied in our quest to subjugate nature, mechanize
the world, and enjoy ever-increasing material progress.
However, while Sartre speaks of consciousness as nothingness or a lack
- a sort of black hole in being which can never be filled - Nietzsche
associates man's being with positivity and plenitude. His preferred metaphor
for the human essence is the will - an active image which allows striving
and creativity to be reconciled with plenitude. It enables him to see
activity and desire as a positive aspect of our nature, rather than a
somewhat desperate attempt to fill the hole at the heart of our being.
For Nietzsche, all that proceeds from weakness, sickness, inferiority,
or lack is considered reactive and resentful, while that which proceeds
from health, strength, or plenitude is characterized in positive terms.
For instance, at the beginning of Thus Spoke Zarathustra he likens Zarathustra
to a full cup wanting to overflow and to the sun which gives its light
out of plenitude and superabundance.13) Later, he contrasts the generosity
of the gift-giving virtue with the all-too-poor and hungry selfishness
of the sick, which greedily "sizes up those who have much to eat"
and always "sneaks around the table of those who give".14)
Differences: Sartre's Failure to Overcome Platonism and Affirm the World
An even sharper contrast can be drawn between Nietzsche and Sartre's
attitudes towards Platonism. While both reject the transcendent realm
of perfect forms, Sartre fails to realize that a denial of the truth-value
of Platonic metaphysics without a corresponding rejection of Platonic
asperations and attitudes can only lead to pessimism and resentment against
being. The inadequacy and incompleteness of Sartre's break with Platonism
can be brought out by examining it in terms of William James conception
of the common nucleus of religion. James says that the religious attitude
fundamentally involves (1) "an uneasiness," or the "sense
that there is something wrong about us as we naturally stand," and
(2) "its solution".15) Sartre vehemently rejects all religious
and metaphysical "solutions," but he accepts the notion that
there is an essential wrongness or lack in being. Not only does he regard
consciousness as a lack, but in Nausea, Sartre condemns the wrongness
of nature and other people in terms which are both Platonic and resentful.
Just as Plato admired the mathematical orderliness of music and looked
down upon nature as a fluctuating and imperfect copy of the forms, the
central contrast of Nausea is between the sharp, precise, inflexible order
of a jazz song, and the lack of order and purpose of a chestnut tree.
Roquentin enjoys virtually his only moments of joy in the novel while
listening to the jazz, but experiences his deepest nausea while sitting
beneath the tree. He regards its root as a "black, knotty mass, entirely
beastly,"16) speaks of the abundance of nature as "dismal, ailing,
embarrassed at itself," and asks "what good are so many duplications
of trees?".17) Nothing could be a more striking blasphemy against
nature. Trees are one of the most venerable and life-giving of all organic
beings, providing us with oxygen and shade. Many ancient peoples regarded
trees as sacred, and enlightenment (from the insight of the Buddha to
Newton's discovery of gravitation) is often pictured as coming while sitting
under a tree. Roquentin too, experiences a sort of negative epiphany while
he is beneath the chestnut tree. He concludes that "every existing
thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies
by chance".18) In contrast to the pointlessness of the tree and other
existing organic beings, Sartre says that a perfect circle is not absurd
because "it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment
around one of its extremities".19) In such a Platonic spirit, he reflects:
If you existed, you had to exist all the way, as
far as mouldiness, bloatedness, obscenity were concerned. In another world,
circles, bars of music keep their pure and rigid lines.20)
In Nausea, Sartre reveals a contempt for human beings which surpasses
his contempt for nature and even rivals the misanthropy of Schopenhauer.
He particularly despises the organic, biological aspect of our nature.
He speaks of living creatures as "flabby masses which move spontaneously,"21)
and seems to have a particular aversion for fleshy, overweight people.
He mocks at "the fat, pale crowd,"22) describes a bourgeois worthy
in the Bouville gallery as "defenseless, bloated, slobbering, vaguely
obscene,"23) and recalls a "terrible heat wave which turned men
into pools of melting fat".24) Sartre also feels that people are somehow
diminished while eating. Roquentin is glad when the Self-Taught Man is
served his dinner for "his soul leaves his eyes, and he docilely
begins to eat".25) Hugo thinks that Olga offers him food because "it
keeps the other person at a distance," and "when a man is eating,
he seems harmless".26) Sartre also takes a negative view of sensuality.
Roquentin says of young lovers in a cafe that they make him a little sick,
and his account of sex with the patronne includes the fact that "she
disgusts me a little" and that his arm went to sleep while playing
"distractedly with her sex under the cover".27) Perhaps his attitude
toward sensuality is most uncharitably manifested when he thinks of a
woman he had seen dining, remembers her as
"fat, hot, sensual, absurd, with red ears,"
and imagines her now somewhere - in the midst of smells? - this soft throat
rubbing up luxuriously against smooth stuffs, nestling in lace, and the
woman picturing her bosom under her blouse, thinking "My titties,
my lovely fruits."28)
Indeed, throughout Nausea the narrator's attitude toward people is uncharitable,
judgemental, and resentful. Like the somewhat hostile Other of Being and
Nothingness, Roquentin transcends and objectifies other people with his
Look. He sits in cafes observing and passing judgement on people, and
seems to particularly enjoy dehumanizing others by focusing on their unattractive
physical features. He sees one fellow as a moustache beneath "enormous
nostrils that could pump air for a whole family and that eat up half his
face," while another person is described as "a young man with
a face like a dog".29) He treats the Self-Taught Man (whom Sartre
uses to caricature humanism) coldly and condescendingly and does not even
deem him worthy of a proper name. His attitude toward the eminent bourgeois
portrayed in the Bouville gallery is an almost classic example of ressentiment.
While looking at their portraits, he felt that their "judgement
went through (him) like a sword and questioned (his) very right to exist".30)
Like Hugo in Dirty Hands, he senses the emptiness of his own existence
and feels inadequate and abnormal before the Look of purposeful and self-confident
others who unreflectively feel that they have a right to exist. However,
he manages to transcend their looks by concentrating on their bodily weaknesses
and all-too-human faults. Thus, he overcomes one dead worthy by focusing
on his "thin mouth of a dead snake"31) and pale, round, flabby
checks, and he puts a reactionary politician in his place by recalling
that the man was only five feet tall, had a squeaking voice, was accused
of putting rubber lifts in his shoes, and had a wife who looked like a
horse.32) Roquentin hates the bourgeois, but for him virtually all the
people of Bouville are bourgeois:
Idiots. It is repugnant to me to think that I am
going to see their thick, self-satisfied faces. They make laws, they write
popular novels, they get married, they are fools enough to have children.33)
Although Sartre is more insightful than the unreflective and self-satisfied
"normal" people whom he judges so uncharitably, he seems unaware
that his own thought fails to escape the ancient reefs of Platonism and
metaphysical pessimism. Even the upbeat ending of Nausea is somewhat tentative
and half-hearted, and does not question or overturn any of the ontological
views expressed earlier in the book.
On the other hand, although Nietzsche shares many of the same philosophical
premises as Sartre, his view of life and nature is much less bleak because
he thoroughly rejects the Platonic world-view and all metaphysical forms
of pessimism. First, throughout his writings Nietzsche vehemently opposes
the Platonic prejudice that puts being above becoming, idealizes rationality
and purpose, and despises the disorderly flux of nature and the organic
and animalistic aspects of the body. He admires Heraclitus rather than
Parmenides, denies that there is any "eternal spider or spider web
of reason," and declares "over all things stand the heaven Accident,
the heaven Innocence, the heaven Chance, the heaven Prankishness".34)
Unlike Sartre, he had a high regard for the vital, superabundant, and
non-rational aspect of nature, and loved music for its ability to express
emotional depths and Dionysian ecstasy rather than as an embodiment of
reason, order, or precision.
In response to Schopenhauer and several religious traditions, Nietzsche
refutes metaphysical pessimism. He denies that life or nature is essentially
lacking or evil, or that any negative evaluation of being as a whole could
possess truth-value. This is in keeping with his skeptical position, which
denies that the thing-in-itself is knowable and insists that all philosophical
systems reflect the subjectivity of their author and are "a kind
of involuntary and unconscious memoir".35) If Nietzsche were to speak
in the language of Being and Nothingness, he would insist that the desire
to achieve the complete and justified being of the in-itself-for-itself
is simply Sartre's original project, not an ontological given which condemns
every person to unhappy consciousness.
One of the central themes of Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the overcoming
of pessimism and despair through the will. Zarathustra says that "my
will always comes to me as my liberator and joy-bringer. Willing liberates:
that is the true teaching of will and liberty".36) At the end of `The
Tomb Song,' he turns to his will to overcome despair, referring to it
as something invulnerable and unburiable which can redeem his youth and
shatter tombs.37) Although the will to power is often associated with striving
for the overman (not to mention those who wrongly link it with domination
and conquest), it is also essential to such Nietzschean themes as amor
fati, eternal recurrence, and the affirmation of life. In order to affirm
his existence, Zarathustra says that he must redeem the past by transforming
"the will's ill will against time and its `it was'" into a creative
"But thus I will it; thus shall I will it".38) It is out of such
reflections that the project of embracing eternal recurrence emerges.
In keeping with his desire to affirm life, Nietzsche's attitude toward
other people is more charitable and less negative than that of Roquentin
and many of Sartre's other literary heroes. Admittedly, Nietzsche makes
many nasty remarks about historical figures, but these are often balanced
by corresponding positive observations, and most of his polemical fury
is directed against ideas, dogmas, and institutions rather than individuals.
For instance, Zarathustra says of priests that "though they are my
enemies, pass by them silently with sleeping swords. Among them too there
are heroes".39) While some of his comments on the rabble are comparable
to Sartre's comments on the bourgeois, Zarathustra also criticizes his
"ape" who sits outside a great city and vengefully denounces
its inhabitants, for "where one can no longer love, there one should
pass by".40)
Conclusion
Of those modern thinkers who resolutely face the fact that God is dead
and the universe contains no inherent meaning or purpose, Sartre and Nietzsche
are among the most important. However, although they begin from somewhat
similar premises, Sartre is both a less radical and less life-affirming
thinker than Nietzsche. It is particularly ironic that he puts so much
emphasis on freedom, and yet refuses to grant consciousness the power
to overcome its insatiable yearning to be in-itself-for-itself, and fails
to question his own Platonic prejudices against nature and becoming.
Endnotes
1) Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel Barnes (New
York: Washington Square, 1956), p. 4.
2) Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Walter Kaufman
(New York: Viking, 1954), I:15.
3) Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth,
Middlesex: Penguin, 1973), p. 16.
4) Ibid., p. 19.
5) Ibid., p. 9.
6) Being and Nothingness, p. 722.
7) Ibid., p. 140.
8) Ibid., p. 724.
9) Ibid., p. 738.
10) Ibid., p. 747.
11) Ibid., p. 758.
12) Ibid., p. 761.
13) Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue:1.
14) Ibid., I:22.
15) William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Viking-Penguin,
1982), p. 508.
16) Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea, trans. Lloyd Alexander (New York: New Directions,
1964), p. 127.
17) Ibid., p. 133.
18) Ibid.
19) Ibid., p. 129.
20) Ibid., p. 128.
21) Ibid., p. 24.
22) Ibid., p. 45.
23) Ibid., p. 89.
24) Ibid., p. 177.
25) Ibid., p. 106.
26) Ibid., p. 132.
27) Ibid., p. 59.
28) Ibid., p. 134.
29) Ibid., p. 20.
30) Ibid., p. 84.
31) Ibid., p. 89.
32) Ibid., p. 93.
33) Ibid., p. 158.
34) Thus Spoke Zarathustra, III:4.
35) Beyond Good and Evil, p. 6.
36) Thus Spoke Zarathustra, II:2.
37) Ibid., p. 158.
38) Ibid.
39) Ibid.
40) Ibid.
Bibliography
- James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Viking-Penguin,
1982.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. R.J. Hollingdale. Harmondsworth,
Middlesex: Penguin, 1973.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Trans. Walter Kaufmann.
New York: Viking, 1954.
- Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. Trans. Hazel Barnes. New York:
Washington Square, 1956.
- Sartre, Jean-Paul. Nausea. Trans. Lloyd Alexander. New York: New Directions,
1964.
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