Sartre and Responsibility

      In "Existentialism is a Humanism", Sartre argues that existence precedes essence. Sartre wants to disprove the idea that people are predestined to be a certain way or have predetermined projects. I personally agree with this idea that the individual is in control of their own lives and are able to determine their own works. Sartre also talks about the effect that predestination, especially by the hand of God can have on a person and society. When a person believes that they are predestined to do something especially by their God, they lose a sense of responsibility in the matter, because they can attribute their actions to something else. This has the tendency to have very negative repercussions in society and I think that this idea was linked to Sartre's own experiences with people not taking responsibility for their actions.
      Sartre wrote this work in 1946, one year after the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany. Sartre himself was in the French military during the beginning of WWII and later the underground French Resistance. Sartre would have witness first hand one of the greatest atrocities in history, the Holocaust. Being in the French Resistance he would have worked to secretly evacuate Jewish families into either Spain or across the channel to England. After WWII was over he would have been able to see the photographs and news reals of the death camps and the extent that the Nazis when to exterminate Jews. Sartre must have looked at this and wondered how people would be capable of doing these things to other humans. I think this is an instance where responsibility was absent due to a couple reasons. The first reason was that Hitler had tied promotion of the Arian race and extermination of the Jewish faith to Gods will and that it was their duty. Secondly during the war crimes tribunals when asked why they committed these horrific acts many answered that they where simply following orders. This is a prime example of what can happen when responsibility is taken away and individuals can defer their accountability to a higher rank, wether that be a general or God. I think that Sartre believed that a lot that is wrong with society is that there is not enough accountability and sometimes this can manifest itself in extremely destructive ways.