Renunciation has meaning only when serving a genuine human aim

Evidence

Sacrifices and renunciations have meaning only in the light of an aim, a human aim; and aims that go beyond singular love or personal happiness can only exist in a world that recognizes the price of both love and happiness; the “shopgirl’s morality” is more authentic than hollow phantasms because it is rooted in life and reality, where great aspirations can spring forth. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 495

Categorization

• DEFINE: Beauvoir’s criterion here — transcendence/surpassing requires a positive human aim — is key analytical apparatus for the whole book, defining what authentic action looks like against false mysticism.
• XREF: Contrasts with the ascetic renunciation paradigms in the religious traditions she critiques elsewhere; also echoes the phenomenologist emphasis on intentionality — every act points at an aim. — connects to: Bourgeois renunciation means surviving only by sacrificing full happiness — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 63; Renunciation only appeals when performed by someone with plenty to renounce; Patience counts as a virtue only when practiced independent of circumstance

Broader Connections

• Renunciation only appeals when performed by someone with plenty to renounce #contradicts (0.85)
• Patience counts as a virtue only when practiced independent of circumstance #qualifies (0.78)