Careerist opportunism is the opposite of true adventure, not a variant of it

Evidence

First of all, it should be noticed that the adventurer’s attitude is not always pure. Behind the appearance of caprice, there are many men who pursue a secret goal in utter seriousness; for example, fortune or glory. They proclaim their scepticism in regard to recognized values. They do not take politics seriously. They thereby allow themselves to be collaborationists in ‘41 and communists in ‘45, and it is true they don’t give a hang about the interests of the French people or the proletariat; they are attached to their career, to their success. This arrivisme is at the very antipodes of the spirit of adventure, because the zest for existence is then never experienced in its gratuity. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 59

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: The collaborationist-communist opportunist pattern echoes the arriviste type seen in other mid-century accounts of intellectual/political turncoats.