A physical defect shaped Sartre’s life course and later addictions

Evidence

Sartre’s eyes had in fact saved his life several times over. First they exempted him from front-line combat, then they saved him from forced Nazi labour; now they gave him his ticket out of the Stalag. This blessing came at a cost in the long term: exotropia can cause a degree of tiredness and difficulty in concentrating that may have contributed to his destructive tendency to self-medicate with stimulant drugs and alcohol in later times. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 463

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the biographical claim pattern seen in the author’s portrait of Heidegger’s temperament — how a body’s quirks steer a philosopher’s path. — connects to: A childhood haircut exposed Sartre’s damaged eye and later defined his self-image — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 376; Sartre’s two normal male escapes from embodiment—peer groups and the father—were both barred — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 133