[QUOTE=roger thornhill]
[QUOTE=Rune]
Sartre argued passionately for murdering whites.
I want a cite on the former, esp. one where Sartre argues for killing “whites” because they are white.
That difference is exactly the difference Sartre means, then. The self knowledge that one may be better, and the sel determination to be better.
But I think the issue is not whether a person with a moral sense would agree with this (we all would), but with what constitutes the “bad” belief systems that need to be made “better”.
We would be agreed that anyone that said others were stupid for preferring Cab Sav to Merlot was wrong, we would be agreed that anyone that said blacks were inferior to whites was wrong, but we would not be agreed that anyone that said that homosexuality was a sin was wrong. We would, on the other hand, be agreed that anyone who said that homosexuals were diseased were wrong.
At least, I hope so.
For wrong above, read bad, if preferred. I don’t want this to descend into an argument about words.
Ok. Not quite as I remembered it.
In the foreword of the book The Wretched of the Earth by the fascist Frantz Fanon, which include passages like “Violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect.’’” Jean-Paul Sartre wrote “To shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone, to destroy an oppressor and the man he oppresses at the same time: there remain a dead man, and a free man; the survivor, for the first time, feels a national soil under his foot.”. So right. Boilerplate leftist blotty revolution romanticising nonsense. Not passionate argument for killing whitey, but killing Europeans. Makes little difference to me. Sartre should have killed himself, made the world a better place. He was a thoroughly contemptible man. Dogmatic. Polemic. Overrated as a philosopher. Sartre also had much good to say about totalitarian communist regimes, about whose methods he thought intent triumphed all. And became increasingly at odds with his old friend Albert Camus whom, unlike Sartre, could not accept the deportations of dissidents to Socialist concentration camps in Siberia and the left’s support for Stalin. To which Sartre replied he was political naïve. He ridiculed Soviet refugees and their account of Stalinist atrocities. Urged the Soviet to attack the US, even at the risk of nuclear war. His dealings with Simone de Beauvoir is a chapter all for itself. Etc. Which, naturally, does not mean his works should be discounted out of hand. Any intellectual or artistic piece of work must be judged on its own merit without considerations of the creator.
Your OP talks of “disagree”. That doesn’t sound very radical to me. Not like wanting to send homosexuals to concentration camps or stand them against the wall or anything. Surely one can mildly disagree with the lifestyle of homosexuals without being termed evil. How is this more wrong that wanting to classify a whole group of people (those disagreeing with homosexuality) as having severe character flaws – that sound more bigoted to me. On the other hand if one thinks all homosexuals should be shot at dawn, there’s definitely something wrong. Anyway opinions, and character flaws both, are like assholse. Everybody’s got one. And not terrible interesting unless acted upon.
I think in context Satre’s comments make perfect sense in context. He was talking about colonialized and oppressed people liberating themselves. He was not talking about random killing of Europeans. You can agree or disagree, but I at least agree with his comment that such violence is “the story of mankind.”
But discussing Sartre is rather off topic anyway. I’m only interested in one point he made, and we should stick to that one.
“Disagreeing” with homosexuality is insane. And it does lead to oppressing innocent people. Whether or not they are carted off and shot (I’ve heard people say they should be, and the sentiment is probably not as far from the surface as you might think), if they are not allowed equal rights (in the language of the bigot, “special priveleges”) then you mere opinion is an instrument of oppression. You disagree, you vote, you oppress. Many have conceded voting for war because they are so filled with “disagreement.” Now they have authorized killing because the man who wanted to step on gays also wanted to kill, and they saw it as an unfortunate but necessary compromise. They have a right to their opinion, which supercedes the rights of others to live and to be happy. I think it’s a character flaw, and a rather deep one.