## Metadata - Author: [[Skye C Cleary]] - Full Title:: The Anguish of Choice - Category:: #🗞️Articles - URL:: https://aeon.co/essays/re-reading-sartres-lecture-existentialism-is-a-humanism - Read date:: [[2026-07-02]] ## Highlights > Sartre was challenging, in a serious way, the idea that the only viable response to the Second World War was nihilism. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kwhdfxt1x43p3a2vmmarkv4q)) > If existence precedes essence, then we’re responsible for creating our essence. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kwhdhqx4e5sevb57f0e60seh)) > If existence precedes essence, then ‘man is condemned to be free: condemned, because he did not create himself, yet nonetheless free, because once cast into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.’ ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kwhdj84xk0gym4p23kp7ct15)) > you’re making a statement about the value of that institution and what you think is the best option for yourself and for everyone else too: ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kwhdkys5gpame6ehxrepzz3v)) > This realisation is a major source of existential anguish ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kwhdm20r0pftmh7tqspf0cb8)) > We have no excuses. ‘I very much regret it should be so,’ Sartre explains, but ‘there has to be someone to invent values.’ That someone is each of us, which is why Sartre says: ‘Such abandonment entails anguish.’ ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kwhdn13ytbd8vx89wbphjjnc)) > Contrary to his reputation for individualism, Sartre argues that subjectivity is ‘not strictly individual’ ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kwhdpse3pfza35rwr03khyym)) > We discover ourselves through other people’s perceptions and demands, so much so that ‘we each attain ourselves in the presence of the other.’ ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kwhdpmmy7fmypgjq3074yrwe)) > ‘Tomorrow, after my death, men may choose to impose fascism, while others may be cowardly or distraught enough to let them get away with it. Fascism will then become humanity’s truth, and so much the worse for us.’ Sartre says, ‘In reality, things will be what men have chosen them to be.’ ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kwhdr7225wa2rade4qa24nhv)) > Despair is what’s left when you stop lying to yourself about what you can control, and then act without optimism or illusions. When you accept despair, you can stop waiting for the world to cooperate, and get on with life. Sartre says you have to commit anyway, because ‘[man’s] only hope resides in his actions and … the only thing that allows him to live is action.’ ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kwhdstryz7yt98ktdfprd6px)) > ‘[Man] is nothing more than the sum of his actions,’ Sartre declares. Blaming circumstances or claiming you deserve better is, for Sartre, self-deception. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kwhdt0tbxpvrfzjpcx5h5yex)) > You make yourself through what you do, not what you might have done. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kwhdt7xwmkqw3rw8nkzma7ex))