John Gerassi, author of Jean-Paul Sartre: Hated Conscience of His Century, writes,

“Sartre thought that my spontaneity in politics meant that, like a woman, first I reacted, then I acted, and only then did I try to justify. To most readers trained by bourgeois rationalizers to “think before you act,” what I’ve just said will appear to disparage both me and women. But it would not appear so to Sartre, who —at least toward the end of his life—viewed logic as a tool of the ruling class.

“It is always those who have power who say ‘calm down, let’s talk rationally, let’s be sensible,” he once explained to a couple of my students.

“It is always those who have power who insist that being emotional is being weak.

“In the home, the powerful are the male. That’s why the best way* for a housewife to argue against her calm rational ‘provider’ is to throw the plate of rice in his face!”

—

*Note: So Sartre, like his intellectual protege and “open relationship” bed partner, Simone de Beauvoir*, helped “liberate” millions of women from the home — which was portrayed as an oppressive prison instead of a nest —and so from their husbands and children. He and de Beauvoir sold them instead to Walmart bosses where doubtless women workers can be themselves  —-until the robots discard them.

Ironically few lived a more bourgeois life than Jean Paul Sartre who (he said, wink, wink) wished to destroy the bourgeoisie. —SH

** de Beauvoir was accused of sexually abusing young female students. Sartre reportedly sometimes joined in.

John Gerassi, was professor of political science st the Graduate Center and Queen’s College of the City University of New York. He was an activist of the New Left.   From 1956 to 1966 he was a journalist for Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, and Inter-press Service. He was a long time personal friend of Jean-Paul Sartre.

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— History of Philosophy. The Dr. Arthur Holmes Lectures Online

— The U.S. Antiwar Left Died in May (Glenn Greenwald)

Updated

— The Jerusalem Post wonders too