Avoiding choice through victimhood excuses constitutes inauthentic existence

Evidence

Sartre does not deny that the need to keep making decisions brings constant anxiety. He heightens this anxiety by pointing out that what you do really matters. You should make your choices as though you were choosing on behalf of the whole of humanity, taking the entire burden of responsibility for how the human race behaves. If you avoid this responsibility by fooling yourself that you are the victim of circumstance or of someone else’s bad advice, you are failing to meet the demands of human life and choosing a fake existence, cut off from your own ‘authenticity’. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 37

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘authenticity’: owning one’s choices as though choosing for all humanity, rather than disclaiming them as circumstances.
• XREF: Authenticity as acceptance of complete responsibility anticipates the concept developed further elsewhere in existentialist literature. — connects to: Absurdity means the choice grounds all reasons and reasons-for-being; Denying one’s sex as category is an inauthentic flight from situated reality — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 51; Women denied beauty or happiness may choose victimhood as a persona — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1806 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Bad faith is making excuses from circumstance rather than acknowledging one’s own freedom #epitomizes (0.90) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 507
• Women denied beauty or happiness may choose victimhood as a persona #exemplifies (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1806
• Denying one’s sex as category is an inauthentic flight from situated reality #exemplifies (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 51
• People self-sabotage to preserve excuses that protect self-esteem #expands (0.80) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 247