成为存在主义者的三个理由

The existentialists asked the essential questions – and still have much to offer us today. Among them, Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were two of the most famous.

存在主义者提出了最基本的问题——时至今日，他们仍有很多可以提供给我们的东西。其中，萨特和西蒙娜·德·波伏娃是最著名的两位学者。

By day, in the subterranean jazz clubs of Paris's Left Bank, they hoped for a sighting of the legendary writers – Camus with his movie-star looks, De Beauvoir with her turban and attractively hooded eyes, and Sartre with his pipe, his dumpy form and his comb-over. Today, the whole scene seems drenched in nostalgia. Meanwhile, existentialist ideas about freedom and youthful rebellion have become so much a part of popular culture that we hardly remember how scandalous they once were.

白天，在巴黎左岸的地下爵士俱乐部里，人们希望能看到那些传奇作家——长相宛如电影明星的加缪，戴着头巾并拥有迷人的下垂眼睛的德·波伏瓦，还有拿着烟斗、身材矮胖、梳着光秃秃发髻的萨特。如今，整个场景似乎都沉浸在令人怀念的旧日光影中。与此同时，充斥着自由和年轻的反叛的存在主义思想已经成为流行文化的一部分，以至于我们几乎忘记这些思想曾经是多么令人羞耻。

I am convinced that existentialism should be seen as more than a fad, however, and that it still has something to offer us today. In a spirit of experiment, here are 3 possible reasons to be an existentialist – or at least to read their books with a fresh sense of curiosity.

然而，我相信存在主义不该仅仅被视为一种风尚，时至今日它仍然可以为我们提供一些东西。本着实验的精神，以下是成为存在主义者的3个可能的理由——或者至少让你带着一种新鲜的好奇心去阅读他们的书。

1 Existentialists are Philosophers of Living 

存在主义者是生活的哲学家

The philosophy that Sartre, De Beauvoir and many of their friends studied at school and university was an arcane discipline, much preoccupied with the question of how we can be 100% certain of anything. It's an important job, and someone has to do it. But Sartre and De Beauvoir tired of it and were more drawn to the 19th-century mavericks Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard, with their philosophies of individual existence and "life". They also discovered a new German method called "phenomenology", which tried to start with immediate experience rather than abstract axioms. "You see," said Sartre's friend Raymond Aron, who introduced the couple to the idea over cocktails in a bar during the winter break of 1932-33, "if you are a phenomenologist you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"

萨特、德·波伏娃和他们的许多朋友在学校和大学里学习的哲学是一门晦涩的学科，主要关注的是我们如何能完全认知一切事物。这是一项重要的工作，必须有哲学家去完成。但萨特和波伏娃对此感到厌倦，他们更喜欢19世纪特立独行的弗里德里希·尼采(Friedrich Nietzsche)和索伦·克尔凯郭尔(Søren Kierkegaard)的个体存在和“生活”哲学。他们还发现了一种新的德国方法，叫做“现象学”，它试图从直接经验而不是抽象的公理出发。“你瞧，”萨特的朋友雷蒙德·阿伦(Raymond Aron)说，“如果你是一名现象学家，你可以谈论这种鸡尾酒，并把它变成一种哲学!”他在1932年至1933年的寒假期间，在酒吧喝鸡尾酒时向萨特夫妇介绍了这个想法。

2 Existentialists Really Care about Freedom

存在主义者关注自由

Existentialists think that what makes humans different from all other beings is the fact that we can choose what to do. In fact, we must choose: the only thing we are not free to do is not to be free. Other entities have some predefined nature: a rock, a penknife or even a beetle just is what it is. But as a human, there is no blueprint for producing me. I may be influenced by biology, culture and personal background, but at each moment I am making myself up as I go along, depending on what I choose to do next. As Sartre put it: "There is no traced-out path to lead man to his salvation; he must constantly invent his own path. But, to invent it, he is free, responsible, without excuse, and every hope lies within him." It is terrifying, but exhilarating.

存在主义者认为，人类不同于其他生物的地方在于我们对自己的行动具有选择权。事实上，我们必须做出选择：我们唯一不能自由而为的事就是拒绝自由。其他实体有一些预先确定的性质：一块石头，一把小刀，甚至是一只甲虫，它仅仅是它自己。但作为一个人，没有制造我们的设计蓝图。人可能受到生物、文化和个人背景的影响，但在我前进的每一刻，我都在塑造自己，这取决于我下一步选择做什么。正如萨特所言：“没有一条道路可以指引人类走向救赎：人们必须不断创造自己的道路。但是，在创造道路的时候，人是自由的，肩负责任，抛去任何借口，而且内心充满希望。” 这听起来有些可怕，但也令人兴奋。

What would it mean for us today, if we truly believed this idea? For a start, we might be more skeptical about the simplified popular-science arguments suggesting that we are out of control of ourselves – that, when we speak, click on a button, or vote, we are only following unconscious and statistically predictable forces rather than deciding freely. What intrigues me is the eagerness with which we seem to seize on this idea; it is as though we find it more comforting than disturbing.

如果我们真的相信存在主义的观点，这对如今的人们意味着什么？首先，我们可能对简化的大众科学论点持更加怀疑的态度，这些论点认为我们失去了对自己的控制——当我们开口说话、摁下按钮或投票时，我们只是遵循无意识的、统计上可预测的力量，而不是自由地进行裁量。让我感兴趣的是，大家似乎被这个观点迅速吸引；觉得它更令人欣慰，而不是令人不安。

3 (Some) Existentialists have Interesting Sex Lives 

(一些)存在主义者拥有别具一格的性生活

Sartre and De Beauvoir applied their principle of freedom, above all, to their own partnership, a magnificently successful one that lasted half a century from its beginning in 1929 to Sartre's death in 1980. They wanted to share their lives but didn't want to accept conventional limitations, so they agreed to remain primary partners while indulging in polyamory with others. 

萨特和德·波伏娃将他们的自由原则应用到彼此的关系中，这是一个辉煌的成就，从1929年开始到1980年萨特去世，这种关系持续了半个世纪。他们想分享生活，但不想接受传统的限制，所以他们同意在耽于开放性关系的同时对彼此保持主要伴侣的身份。

One has to remember that their way of life was motivated by vehement rejection of the "bourgeois" conventions with which they had grown up, in a world that expected people to get married, acquire property and children, and observe traditional gender roles, while having hushed-up affairs on the side. Thus, if Sartre's and De Beauvoir's attitudes to sexuality led them to behave badly at times, it also led them to feminism and to bold declarations of LGBT rights at a time when few dared even to speak of such things.

人们必须记住，他们的生活方式的动机是强烈反对所谓“中产阶级”的习俗，在波伏娃于萨特成长的世界里，人们期望结婚生子、获取财产、遵守传统的性别角色、同时还隐瞒婚外情。因此，如果说萨特和德·波伏娃对性的态度会导致他们偶尔的行为不端，那也会将他们引向女权主义的道路并勇敢宣扬LGBT权利，那时大多数人对此噤若寒蝉。

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