This brief essay offers a summary of Sartre’s concept of anguish, which he calls the “immediate given” (B&N, 82) of our freedom—that is, given our consciousness of freedom. To borrow a phrase from Kierkegaard, anguish [anxiety] is the dizziness of freedom. Sartre distinguishes three forms of anguish: 1) anguish in the face of the past; 2) anguish in the face of the future; and 3) anguish in the face of nihilism [ethical anguish]. I will offer a description of each form of anguish, followed by an account of how we may respond to anguish, given its apparent unavoidability, in the sense of “being-in-order-not-to-be” (B&N, 85). Due to space constraints, we must assume some familiarity with Sartre’s disintegrated picture of the human psyche (essence/in-itself vs. for-itself) and what it implies for him with respect to freedom and bad faith. Having said that, let us begin with anguish in the face of the past.
Sartre argues that anguish in the face of the past is the self’s apprehension of being cut off from its essence [what has been] by a nothingness. This form of anguish would be present in the case of a recovering alcoholic who resolves never to drink again. Despite countless resolutions she’s made in the past, those resolutions which she is in her essence, she may nevertheless still have a strong desire to drink, and nothing prevents her from stopping at the bar or party store on the way home—nothing except a reflective consciousness of her past resolutions and the reasons for them, any/all of which she could freely disavow at any moment—and a part of her wants to do just that. So when she places herself in the ‘plane of reflection’ (B&N, 75) in relation to her past resolutions, Sartre argues that a nothingness is thereby placed between her and her resolutions, the latter of which can then be put ‘out of play’ (B&N, 64) by her freedom insofar as they become merely objects for her consciousness; for in self-conscious reflection she detaches herself from and makes herself not be her past resolutions which she is in her essence. So according to Sartre, this consciousness of her freedom with respect to her past, of her possibility of renouncing her past for the sake of her desire to drink—this is her anguish. Let us now turn toward the future.
There is also anguish in the face of the future, according to Sartre, whereby a person apprehends being separated from their future not only by time but by their very freedom, which is “instigated and bound by nothing” (B&N, 73). Time and freedom constitute the nothingness between my present being and my future, and my anguish in the face of the future “is precisely my consciousness of being my own future, in the mode of not-being [my future]” (B&N, 68)—that is to say, nothing strictly (causally) determines the self I am going to be. To illustrate, consider a person standing on the roof of a skyscraper, who apprehends his freedom’s possibility of hurling himself over the edge. This consciousness of his freedom is experienced in anguish, which is differentiated from fear in that fear has its origin outside of freedom—he may inadvertently trip over something as he approaches the edge, for example, or be carried off by a strong gust of wind—in either case, his fate would have its origin outside of his freedom, and this is his fear. But his anguish is before himself, Sartre argues, before his own consciousness of his freedom and its possibilities, wherein he apprehends that nothing prevents him from ignoring his fear of death, from taking a suicidal plunge into the busy streets below—for “all the barriers, all the guard rails collapse, nihilated by the consciousness of [his] freedom” (B&N, 69). His comprehension of his freedom on the roof, of the possibility of taking a deliberate leap off the edge as his possibility—this is his anguish. With that, let us now turn toward the ethical form of anguish.
Ethical anguish is experienced before oneself in the very heart of self-consciousness, wherein one apprehends one’s freedom in relation to meaning and value. As a being who reflects on his values, Sartre argues that I am in anguish insofar as my reflecting on value x (for example) puts the value of x into question; for my self-conscious reflection nihilates x (or any other object) in relation to me and places it in a neutral space, between being and non-being (B&N, 58), where it becomes merely an object for my consciousness—whereupon the possibility of renouncing x becomes my distinct possibility, and in anguish I comprehend my freedom with respect to this possibility. Moreover, I am further anguished in apprehending that my freedom is the foundation of all value and meaning in the world, despite being without any foundation of its own—in Sartre’s words, “my freedom is anguished at being the foundation of values while itself without foundation” (B&N, 76). Whether I choose to reaffirm or renounce x, absolutely nothing outside of my groundless freedom justifies my doing so, and “in anguish I apprehend myself at once as totally free and not being able to derive the meaning of the world except as coming from myself” (B&N, 78). Sartre argues that any value or meaning in the world must come from me, from my freedom, even though nothing justifies my freedom in embracing/rejecting this or that value, in seeing meaning in this or that thing/activity—alas, “as a being by whom values exist, I am unjustifiable” (B&N, 76). Here it seems we are faced with the threat of nihilism, and with a decision to make with respect to the meaning and value we will/will not confer on our being and our world—“I have to realize the meaning of the world and of my essence; I make my decision concerning them—without justification and without excuse” (B&N, 78). But anguish abides in the face of nihilism, always lurking in our being, and thus we are left to respond to anguish as authentically as we can.
Sartre argues that anguish is an inherent aspect of our freedom, and thus “it is certain that we cannot overcome anguish, for we are anguish” (B&N, 82). So how are we to respond to anguish, given his claim that we cannot overcome it, cannot hide it, cannot expel it from our consciousness, and cannot even flee it without at the same time being conscious of it? Our natural response, he argues, is an attempt to flee anguish—but isn’t that an attempt to flee ourselves, to look away from and deceive ourselves? Indeed, he argues this is our bad faith with respect to ourselves, that we are “anguish in order to flee it” (B&N, 83). When Sartre claims that I am anguish in order to flee it, I take him to mean that I must be aware of that which I wish to flee, for “I can in fact wish ‘not to see’ a certain aspect of my being only if I am acquainted with the aspect which I do not wish to see” (B&N, 83). I am in anguish regardless of whether or not I am cognizant as such, but I cannot ‘look away’ from something I am oblivious to. Therefore, in order to flee anguish, I must be keenly aware of its presence within me, and “think of it constantly in order to take care not to think of it” (B&N, 83). By this I understand Sartre to mean that I must know not only that I am anguish, but also ‘where’ it is in my consciousness—that is, be indirectly aware of its presence—for only then can I know where not to turn my direct attention, and where I can turn to avoid it. As Sartre says, all knowing is consciousness of knowing. Of course, this still leaves us in bad faith; but insofar as our bad faith is unavoidable, let us at least be honest with ourselves and take responsibility for our bad faith, and perhaps call that our good faith.
Works Cited:
Sartre, Jean-Paul, and Hazel Estella. Barnes. Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology. New York: Washington Square, 1992. Print.