Childhood bullying in La Rochelle taught Sartre about contingency and violence

Evidence

His mother married again, to a man Sartre didn’t like, and they moved to La Rochelle, where he was bullied by bigger and rougher boys. It was a great crisis in his childhood: later he said that being a loner in La Rochelle had taught him all he ever needed to know ‘about contingency, violence, the way things are’. Again, however, he would not be cowed. He got through it, and he blossomed again when the family moved to Paris and he was sent to a succession of good schools, culminating in the École normale supérieure. From being a pariah, he became the leader of the most fashionable, anarchic and formidable clique in the school. He always remained a sociable, alpha-type person, riddled with hang-ups, yet never hesitant about dominating a circle. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 377

Categorization

• XREF: Sartre’s later concept of ‘contingency’ (freedom amid facticity) is rooted in this biographical experience the reader is charting through the chapter. — connects to: Sartre’s childhood bullying shaped his adult attitudes toward violence — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 872

Broader Connections

• Sartre’s childhood bullying shaped his adult attitudes toward violence #corroborates (0.92) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 872