The Communists, following Hegel, speak of humanity and its future as of some monolithic individuality. I was attacking this illusion. - Simone de Beauvoir

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Engraved portrait of Simone de Beauvoir, facing right

The Communists, following Hegel, speak of humanity and its future as of some monolithic individuality. I was attacking this illusion.

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About Simone de Beauvoir

Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French author and existentialist philosopher. She is now most famous for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex [Le Deuxième Sexe], a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism, and her long personal relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Moshe Milner (CC BY-SA)

Also Known As

Pen Names: Le Castor
Alternative Names: Simone-Lucie-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir Castor

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In particular those who are condemned to stagnation are often pronounced happy on the pretext that happiness consists in being at rest. This notion we reject, for our perspective is that of existentialist ethics. Every subject plays his part as such specifically through exploits or projects that serve as a mode of transcendence; he achieves liberty only through a continual reaching out towards other liberties. There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future. Every time transcendence falls back into immanence, stagnation, there is a degradation of existence into the ‘en-sois’ – the brutish life of subjection to given conditions – and of liberty into constraint and contingence. This downfall represents a moral fault if the subject consents to it; if it is inflicted upon him, it spells frustration and oppression. In both cases it is an absolute evil. Every individual concerned to justify his existence feels that his existence involves an undefined need to transcend himself, to engage in freely chosen projects.

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