Self-deceiving freedom is the most deeply human condition

Evidence

In our attempt to reach to the heart of freedom we may be helped by the few observations which we have made on the subject in the course of this work and which we must summarize here. In the first chapter we established the fact that if negation comes into the world through human-reality, the latter must be a being who can realize a nihilating rupture with the world and with himself; and we established that the permanent possibility of this rupture is the same as freedom. But on the other hand, we stated that this permanent possibility of nihilating what I am in the form of “having-been” implies for man a particular type of existence. We were able then to determine by means of analyses like that of bad faith that human reality is its own nothingness. For the for-itself, to be is to nihilate the in-itself which it is. Under these conditions freedom can be nothing other than this nihilation. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1075 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

In construction, as in rejection, it is a matter of reconquering freedom on the contingent facticity of existence, that is, of taking the given, which, at the start, is there without any reason, as something willed by man. A conquest of this kind is never finished; the contingency remains, and, so that he may assert his will, man is even obliged to stir up in the world the outrage he does not want. But this element of failure is a very condition of his life; one can never dream of eliminating it without immediately dreaming of death. This does not mean that one should consent to failure, but rather one must consent to struggle against it without respite. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 145 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Anguish is rare despite freedom being a permanent human structure.; Freedom is the for-itself’s permanent ability to nihilate its own being — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1075; The inescapable residue of failure is the very condition of living freedom — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 145

Broader Connections

• Freedom is the for-itself’s permanent ability to nihilate its own being #qualifies (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1075
• The inescapable residue of failure is the very condition of living freedom #corroborates (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 145