Feudalism is an abstract structure surpassed by individual projects, not the sum of relations.

Evidence

Thus when the For-itself affirms itself in the face of the Other-as-object, by the same stroke it reveals techniques. Consequently it can appropriate them—that is, interiorize them. But suddenly there are the following consequences: (1) By employing a technique, the For-itself surpasses the technique toward its own end; it is always beyond the technique which it employs. (2) The technique which was originally a pure, meaningful conduct fixed in some Other-as-object, n6w, because it is interiorized, loses its character as a technique and is integrated purely and simply in the free surpassing of the given toward ends; it is recovered and sustained by the freedom which founds it exactly as dialect or speech is sustained by the free project of the sentence. Feudalism as a technical relation between man and man does not exist; it is only a pure abstract, sustained and surpassed by the thousands of individual projects of a particular man who is a liege in relation to his lord. By this we by no means intend to arrive at a sort of historical nominalism. We do not mean that feudalism is the sum of the relations of vassals and suzerains. On the contrary, we hold that it is the abstract structure of these relations; every project of a man of this time must be realized as a surpassing toward the concrete of this abstract moment. It is therefore not necessary to generalize in terms of numerous detailed experiences in order to establish the principles of the feudal technique; this technique exists necessarily and completely in each individual conduct, and it can be brought to light in each case. But it is there only to be surpassed. In the same way the For-itself can not be a person—i.e., choose the ends which it is—without being a man or woman, a member of a national collectivity, of a class, of family, etc. But these are abstract structures which the For-itself sustains and surpasses by its project. It makes itself French, a man of a southern province, a workman to order to be itself at the horizon of these determinations. Similarly the world which is revealed to the For-itself appears as provided with certain meanings correlative with the techniques adopted. It appears as a world-for-the-Frenchman, a world-for-the-worker, etc., with all the characteristics which would be expected. But these characteristics do not possess Selbständigkeit. The world which allows itself to be revealed as French, proletarian, etc., is before all else a world which is illuminated by the For-itself’s own ends, its own world. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1228

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines how collective/historical structures (feudalism, nationality, class) stand as abstract moments that individual free projects necessarily surpass rather than instantiate.
• XREF: Connects directly to Beauvoir’s ethics of ambiguity showing individual choice against historical situation; also evokes Marx’s ‘men make history but not under circumstances chosen by themselves.’ — connects to: Structure is a historical stage of group self-making, not a timeless property. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 532