Original sin is the fact of existing among others.
Evidence
It is from this singular situation that the notion of guilt and of sin seems to be derived. It is before the Other that I am guilty. I am guilty first when beneath the Other’s look I experience my alienation and my nakedness as a fall from grace which I must assume. This is the meaning of the famous line from Scripture: “They knew that they were naked.” Again I am guilty when in turn I look at the Other, because by the very fact of my own self-assertion I constitute him as an object and as an instrument, and I cause him to experience that same alienation which he must now assume. Thus original sin is my upsurge in a world where there are others; and whatever may be my further relations with others, these relations will be only variations on the original theme of my guilt. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1009
Categorization
- XREF: Retranslates the Eden story through the look; echoes his earlier account of shame under the Other’s gaze and maps onto the ‘fall from grace’ of the for-itself. — connects to: The situation is constituted from Others’ meanings rather than from being itself — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 444; Individual freedom is grounded in meanings others have already established. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 75; Others constitute the situation that gives individual freedom its concrete content — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre: The Riddle of…, 453 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- The situation is constituted from Others’ meanings rather than from being itself
#expands(0.85) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 444 - Others constitute the situation that gives individual freedom its concrete content
#expands(0.85) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 453 - Individual freedom is grounded in meanings others have already established.
#expands(0.80) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 75