:09:13
The reason why I refuse
to take existentialism...
:09:16
as just another French fashion
or historical curiosity...
:09:21
is that I think it has something
very important to offer us
for the new century.
:09:25
I 'm afraid we're losing the real
virtues of living life passionately,
:09:30
the sense of taking responsibility
for who you are,
:09:33
the ability to make something of
yourself and feeling good about life.
:09:38
Existentialism is often discussed
as if it's a philosophy of despair.
:09:42
But I think the truth
is just the opposite.
:09:45
Sartre once interviewed said
he never really felt a day
of despair in his life.
:09:50
But one thing that comes out
from reading these guys...
:09:53
is not a sense of anguish
about life so much as...
:09:57
a real kind of exuberance
of feeling on top of it.
:10:00
It's like your life
is yours to create.
:10:03
I've read the post modernists
with some interest, even admiration.
:10:08
But when I read them, I always have
this awful nagging feeling...
:10:12
that something absolutely essential
is getting left out.
:10:16
The more that you talk about a person
as a social construction...
:10:21
or as a confluence
of forces...
:10:24
or as fragmented
or marginalized,
:10:28
what you do is you open up
a whole new world of excuses.
:10:31
And when Sartre
talks about responsibility,
:10:34
he's not talking about
something abstract.
:10:36
He's not talking about
the kind of self or soul that
theologians would argue about.
:10:41
It's something very concrete.
It's you and me talking.
:10:44
Making decisions. Doing things
and taking the consequences.
:10:48
It might be true that
there are six billion people
in the world and counting.
:10:52
Nevertheless,
what you do makes a difference.
:10:55
It makes a difference,
first of all, in material terms.
:10:58
Makes a difference to other people
and it sets an example.