Distraction is consciousness fleeing anguish by disowning its own possibilities
Evidence
Distraction. An act by which consciousness in order to flee anguish forces itself to look on certain of its own future possibilities as if they were actually possibilities of someone else. Distraction as regards the Past tries to view the Self as a fully constituted personality and to hold that acts are free when in conformity with this Essence, thus avoiding a free, new choice of Being. More generally distraction is any act by which consciousness determines itself not to see certain of its own reactions. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1473
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines distraction as a species of bad faith — a mechanism for fleeing anguish by treating one’s own possibilities as another’s or as fixed essence.
- XREF: Directly parallels bad faith and anticipates Beauvoir’s account of how the serious person flees freedom. — connects to: Anguish reveals the double nihilation that suspends the world in nothingness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 213; Anguish is consciousness of being one’s own future in the mode of not-being — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 239; Anguish arises when consciousness sees itself cut from its essence by nothingness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 246 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Genuine attention is centripetal distraction, bending thoughts back
#complicates(0.80) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 503 - Reflection splits consciousness in a split never completed
#expands(0.75)