Sartre's philosophy of why you hate people (Sartre's No Exit explained)

you remember all we were told about the torture chambers the fire and brimstone the burning Mall old wives tales there's no need for red hot pokers hell is other

people this line is spoken near the end of Jean Paul S play No Exit where three people are trapped in a room together and told that this is hell and they will be staying in one another's company forever there is no torturer and there

is no demon they are to drive one another insane for eternity contained within these pages are some of the greatest insights both of the immense value and the immense risk in getting close to other people here I will

explore how it does this and what we can learn from it but first we must set the scene there is an ornate living room and a man and two women are sat upon different sofas the man gasan was shot for deserting the Army and has a deep

insecurity about being seen as a coward he has also spent years mistreating his wife and has had endless Affairs one of the women inz had an affair with her cousin's wife who then killed herself and inz by leaving the gas on overnight

the final woman Estelle had an affair and killed The Offspring of that Affair by throwing her into a lake these are their sins and why they're uniquely placed to torture one another for

eternity so the stage is set let's get started one we are all secretly Hypocrites when our unfortunate protagonists first arrive in the room all betz hides what they've done to be

there both garan and Estelle immediately leap to protect their perceived moral virtue but far from keeping them safe this clinging to a veneer of respectability torments them inside and

this forms a key part of their torture whereas sees herself in the light of day fully conceding what she did was cruel and underhanded to her cousin the other two attempt to reconcile their shameful actions with the internal perception

that they are somehow good people despite it all gasan hides his perceived cowardice behind principles of pacifism but he himself seems to know that this is just a justification later applied to

an act of fear Estelle likewise clings to her outward appearance as a helpless young woman who is at the whims of the world around her despite the fact that she killed a child both Gan and Estelle want to maintain their pristine moral

character despite their actions and this turns them inside out almost immediately not only do they have to continue existing knowing what they've done but they face the additional cognitive dissonance of simultaneously trying to

think of themselves as moral people inz is the only one free of this burden and so she has one fewer layer of suffering to go through and satra here tells us something about the way morality operates in society that inadvertently

makes us miserable let's think about what morality is for ultimately it serves to control the actions of people in society we don't want people stealing stuff all the time so we call it wrong and we socially and legally condemn

those that do it the trouble is that humans are not perfect we've all done things that most would consider wrong we might have indulged in some shoplifting in our younger years or lied to our friends or not stuck by our principles

when some personal gain was at stake and our system of morality prevents us from owning these prior actions we have to shuffle them away into a dark corner in our mind so that we can continue to think of ourselves as good we fear the

moral condemnation of others so we torture ourselves with this continual cognitive dissonance SRA is obviously not saying that we should do away with morality entirely but his play nicely illustrates one downside of our moral

system we are not perfect but to a certain extent we have to pretend that we are and if you want more on philosophy and the art of learning then sign up to my email list the link is in the description two the gays of the

other have you ever been lost in the flow of social conversation or being out in public or just enjoying life in a pleasantly unselfconscious way only to be suddenly conscious of what you're doing how you're walking or how you're

dressed where do you have a spot on your face or whether your hair is a mess what was a wonderful moment turns into a sudden burst of anxiety this is the effect of seeing yourself Through The Eyes of an imagined other in Hell the

characters are condemned to constantly be watched by one another the play is explicit about there being no mirrors in hell and the only way the characters can tell what they look like is by asking one another they are damned to constantly see themselves through the

Gaze of other people and are subject to their judgments both about their appearance and their character this is a big part of what slowly drives them mad in a particularly poignant moment of the play inz offers to be Estelle's mirror

and tell Estelle what she looks like this is all well and good at first and inz Begins by admiring Estelle but when she perceives Estelle as judging her she tells Estelle that there's an ugly spot on her chin which greatly upsets her

Estelle cannot check whether anes is lying or not because there are no mirrors no independent judge of her appearance likewise trapped in a room with just two people gasan is forced to rely on the Judgment of Estelle and ANZ

to determine his self-worth he begs them to recognize him as a brave man and not a coward who deserted his duty though he does convince Estelle inz will not budge and this throws gasan into a frenzy he

cannot help but crave the approval of VZ someone who openly hates him and holds him in contempt just like Estelle he has no one to turn to to give him an honest appraisal of his character nor is he given enough Solitude that he can rescue

his own self-image he is stuck looking at himself Through The Eyes of other people and is constantly Miserable as a result and how different is our situation from theirs really unless you currently reside in a monastery you

probably crave the attention approval and affection of others in some way this is not unusual it is a Cornerstone of human existence SRA is pointing out that most of the time we only see ourselves as reflected in the judgments and

opinions of others through their warped mirror can you truly conceive of yourself as Brave if You' never been told that by another person can you think of yourself as beautiful if everyone else disagrees with you SRA

thinks that for the most part the answer is no at least not at the moment and as long as this is true social interaction will always carry an element of fear or misery because at each turn we are looking to be reassured in the eyes of

other people that we are who we say we are which incidentally brings us nicely onto our next point three other people are essential this is both the bitter and the sweet of sra's analysis of our

relationships to others they are essential to our experience in the world and this is both for good and for ill it is not just that we're forced to Bear the judgments of others and see ourselves through their eyes but that we actively want to hear that judgment so

that we can change their mind if it's a negative judgment and feel happy if it's a positive one SRA says that we recognize other people as free agents and this is both immensely edifying and deeply terrifying since we recognize

other people as free that means we're not alone we have people to share the world with to experience things with without this we would no doubt be depressingly lonely but on the other hand this freedom is terrifying after

all we cannot control other people every time we come to care for them or respect their opinion we are opening ourselves up to being disappointed or rejected we need other people and we need to be vulnerable with them but this

vulnerability comes with great risk and and this is what no exit highlights perfectly at my favorite moment of the play gasan has decided he's had enough of the company of ANZ and Estelle and he frantically tries to leave the room to

his surprise the door swings wide open he is free to go he pauses for a second and then he decides to stay until ANZ has conceded that he's not a coward think about that for a second the door to hell is wide open and gasan can leave

but he instead chooses to stay because as much as he seems to hate other people he needs them to validate him as he puts it no no I could not leave you here gloating over my my defeat with all those thoughts about me running around

in your head this is a really telling line because it shows us the torturous Dynamic we can have with others we need their approval and their validation and this need seems to grow ever stronger the more they disapprove of us but a certain extent of recognition and

judgment by others seems necessary if we're going to become fully rounded humans after all if we stayed in Blissful ignorance of what we were like Through The Eyes of other people then we would be deprived of many of the cues that we need to develop and grow as a

person and to take part in society for SRA a person cannot exist in isol they're created by the friction the tension and the interplay that exists between the society at large and the agent themselves think about it this way

while you would probably learn not to throw yourself into fires from the bare pain stimulus of burning you would not learn that it's a good thing to help others if it were not for the fact that other people rewarded you when you did and condemned you when you did not a lot

of people claim that sra's view on societal constraints and morality was pessimistic that he would rather have us as fully independent agents but I think sra's opinion is more complex than that I think he recognizes that other people

are essential for our development as persons but at the same time this comes with a lot of suffering and that suffering is worth acknowledging he elsewhere says that it's in our interactions with others that we learn of our freedom and to take

responsibility for our actions so I doubt he thinks that other people are wholly bad he just thinks that it is complicated and we cannot have all the benefits of living in a society without incurring some drawbacks but what do we

do about it SRA does not provide an opinion on this in no exit but if you'll allow me to speculate I would like to do some philosophizing of my own four the ego takes the if we look at the suffering of the characters in no exit

we notice immediately that they're not going through any physical pain there's no torture devices and nothing that is in itself harmful the only pain they experience is the pain of being viewed and judged by other people and how this

conflicts with their self-image but this is only painful if they have a static self-image that can be attacked if gasam Was Not So Married to the idea of not being a coward then he wouldn't worry what inz thinks he is if Estelle did not

cling to the idea that men find her beautiful she would not spend so much time and energy attempting to seduce gasa if the character's egos did not take up so much space in their minds then they would be naturally not as

self-conscious and they would suffer less as a result there are parallels to be drawn here with some Buddhist ideas many of the Buddha's teachings are about minimizing the human tendency to place their flag on a hill and go this is what

I am and this is what I will always be in other words the aim is to dismantle the development of a static ego upon which one's emotional state relies instead many Buddhists recommend not identifying with the aspects of you that

change so they would advise Estelle to not identify so strongly with her looks because although they might might have served her in the past they will not last forever and if she does not let go of her attachment to them she will be forever scared of losing them and

forever seeking the validation of others to reassure her that they're still there they might take gasan aside and let him know that even if he acted out of cowardice the suffering he undergoes stems from his identity as a man who's Brave in every situation this sort of

Declaration is a recipe for unhappiness as virtually no one is brave in every situation they might takeen as aside and let her know that her hatred for gasa stems from him having something she wants the admiration of Estelle but that

Estelle's behavior is not hers to control and as long as she tries to she will suffer for it to press this point further we could appeal to some basic concepts from psychoanalysis we can ask our main characters to truly examine their thoughts and ask them what

unconscious emotional need their egos are fulfilling what is it about his less than Stellar track record with bravery that torments gasar so disproportionately why is it that Estelle and ANZ so need the attraction

and approval of others Beyond any sort of reasonable degree we cannot answer these questions on the character's behalfs but we can certainly ask it of ourselves what are our egos doing for us and when do they cause us to suffer

unnecessarily what unconscious fears and desires do we have that are manifesting in this corrupted self-image these are not easy questions to answer and are even harder questions to ask and it is not that the answers to these questions

will immediately alleviate our suffering but we will better understand why it is that the judgments of other people hurt us so much we will understand which parts of our self-concepts are vulnerable to attack from the outside and how much of our egos are doing us

more harm than good eventually we will come to realize that although it may seem like other people are making us suffer with their eyes and evaluations that we are volunteering to suffer by maintaining an ego that is bound to

burst on the first sign of judgment so perhaps hell is other people but hell is also ourselves when we mistake our egos for our souls I hope you enjoyed this video and let me know what you think in the comments and stick around the

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