SARTRE AND STRAITJACKETS

Jean Paul Sartre compares behaving as required by social roles to wearing a straitjacket. In fact, a person should not be defined by the job he is doing, by the status he is in, by his name in the society. People cannot be limited to these.

When we define ourselves with only one role; e.g; when we accept roles such as waiter, musician, car mechanic and the like, Sartre accuses us of "bad faith", which is one of the basic principles of the philosophy of Existence. “Are you a musician? What are you actually?” he asks. Even if the answer you give is something you've never been, it's the life you've been dreaming of and your free thinking, and it's your true identity. This is freedom at the core of the person. Otherwise we become social caricatures, which according to Sartre is a terrible sin.

Sartre gave birth to this philosophy at Cafe De Flore in Paris St Germain, which is said to be the first place of French kissing, where he had to go because he could not afford the heating expenses of his house. He wrote his work “Being and Nothingness” here. He had his most romantic moments with the love of his life, Simon De Beauvair, here. Sartre proved that even when performing the simple act of sitting in a cafe, we have the freedom to do more than that.

If what we want to be but cannot be is our most important feature that defines us according to the philosophy of Existence, then there is no harm in behaving like the "us" we imagine. Years before Sartre, when Freud was developing his theories of psychology, he said that what we dream about happens in dreams. When we look at the essence of the matter, when we cannot act like the person we want to be because of the straitjacket of society, we silently create dreams in our subconscious.

Sartre has removed this from being a dream, calling it, where we get used to the roles we set for ourselves, a "bad faith", and elevated our dreams to the next level as the features that define us.

People who refuse to fit into a mold and act outside the roles assigned to them are in the conservation area of the philosophy of Existence… A poetic kebab chef, a dancer car mechanic… Why not? If you have a dream other than what you are doing, you also have the freedom to be more.

According to Sartre, the problem lies in reducing our life to a single role as we grow up, even though we are born with endless possibilities. For example, being a waiter is perceived as never being a philosopher, while the social order makes all kinds of plans to get us into these strait-shirts. Sartre said this. “A daydreaming grocer is seen as someone who has insulted the customer because then he is not exactly a grocer. Society wants to limit that person's function in life to the grocery store."

In accordance with Sartre's statement I mentioned above, we can derive many true stories from life. I want to reference and exemplify myself before I go too far. This is a story about the reaction of my sales manager when he saw the musical instrument I left next to my desk at a sales firm I worked for years ago. He had a long meeting with me, saying my life consisted of entertainment. To him, I was just a salesman. And he said I should act like a salesman! Apparently, even the music activities I performed outside of working hours bothered him. That was the day I started to adopt the principle of acting outside of social patterns. You see, society systematically applies this pressure to everyone.

I am emulating Sartre by writing most of this article in the subway. Because what defines us is what we imagine.

Of course, it would be an exaggeration to think that we can be anything we want. But this philosophy is useful because it shows us, when allowed we can be more complex beings than we seem. Despite the modern philosophy that says we can be defined by our past, appearance and social status, it is an important intellectual achievement to remind us that we still continue to change, develop and act. We owe a lot to Sartre for his philosophy that gave us a chance to loosen our straitjackets a little.

In honor of the days when we'll be rid of those straitjackets forever.