Literature, employing metaphor, parable and profoundly affective depictions of human life, is most effective for this; much more effective than philosophy. That's probably why there is a Nobel prize for literature and not for philosophy. Philosophy is limited to exposing and correcting errors of reasoning and creating schematic worldviews, with the former function being more useful in my opinion. (Although the latter is not without artistic interest). That's my two cents anyway. — Janus

When i read stuff like Hägglund’s This Life, Pinker’s Enlightenment Now, Peterson’s 12 rules, Spinoza’s ethics (as well as Hayes Get out of your mind and Nilsonnes Vem är det som bestämmer i ditt liv, great CBT psychologist books on mindfulness) -

Do I only read stuff, and reflect upon it , do I not sharpen my philosophical knives, do I not do Philosophy?

So to enhance the present we are supposed to eat stuff like Psilocybe semilanceata?

Scrolling through this thread briefly, friday nightish. Suppose it spins down to new ways attack the present, as opposed to the ways of mindfulness(to observe, describe, avoid judgements, act)

I understand that my comment piqued your curiosity concerning just how Derrida or Levinas were able to ‘justify’ Heidegger’s political choices. And make no mistake, what they offered has to be considered a type of justification. Why? Because they begin with the claim that Heidegger’s philosophy, although they critique it , stands as perhaps the most enlightened worldview( ethically as well as conceptually) of this era. Since they connect Heidegger’s
politics with his philosophy, one has to conclude that , from their vantage, if Heidegger could be drawn into such entanglements, then all of us in the West are as vulnerable to similar thinking, not specifically with regard to Jews , but to others that we feel
alienated from. — Joshs

Thing is, Sein und Zeit was one of the first ”difficult” books I read after coming in contact with philosophy 12 years ago (wish it was 35 years) and I was really surprised to later learn that Heidegger became a member lf the NSDAP. It’s a book which gives me a deep feeling of solitude and an ernest look on life, not in any way racist. The only thing I see that could give me a clue are the chapters towards the end of the 1st part when he quite openly looks down on bourgeoisie gossiping, those kind of social mechanisms. One might maybe see a germanic indivuality preference, whereas Sartre, allegedly inspired by Heidegger, brought up with the support of a wealthy family saw greater value in the contact with the other. Which in turn might be more in line with the mediterranean and arabian greater emphasis on family(hijo de puta do not have a Scandinavian counterpart, here you are just personally stupid). Thats my best and it seems very far-fetched. The Nazis were a highly collectivist bunch,and I cannot for my life see why an author og S und Z would want to have any kind of philosophical contact with Hitlers. One can see other reasons to join the party...

↪Ansiktsburk I didn’t mean to be rude. Am not sure how to answer your question without summarizing the whole of Heidegger’s philosophy.

(Although
Sorry, I have a daytime job and a family
— Ansiktsburk
did strike me as a little abrupt.) — Joshs

Well, my comment wasn’t exactly top class...but when people tell me to read original works, well my time is limited. I read a blog post by a academical philosopher, who said that one pros with his profession is to have the possibility to read on office time. I do not have such time. My time to read is very limited. So when I saw your suggestion on reading Levinas and Derrida, I suppose thats what guys in the academy say to each other...

“ Far from establishing a rational consensus about what is morally right, and about what the ground and meaning of this rightness is, moral philosophers have produced a perplexing array of possible moral systems—consequentialist, deontological, con- tractualist, virtue ethical, you name it—but no agreed method to decide which of these system is the sound one. Indeed, it is even controversial what ‘soundness’ here is tantamount to, whether moral judgments can be true in the same sense as factual judgments, and true independently of our affective or conative attitudes, or whether moral judgments are merely non-cognitive expressions of such attitudes.

If it had not been for the fact that moral philosophy is often too esoteric to be grasped by the public, the substantial disagreement that is raging among its practitioners might have had a deleterious effect on public morality. Philosophical disputes about the foundation and content of morality might have eroded the authority that common-sense morality has acquired over centuries as a result of the exposure effect, and weakened the motivation to abide by it.

It seems unlikely that this substantial disagreement will subside, for even though our moral responses must converge to some extent if we are to be able to live together in functioning societies—which is a pre-requisite of our evolutionary success—they are surely not so finely attuned that we should expect them to converge with respect to the manifold of fanciful scenarios that our philosophically trained cognitive powers could construct. — Brett

Cannot see the quote mark, so I don’t know if its all Persson or partly you.
But anyhow, reading this nice text reminds me of reading the dialogues of Plato. Seldom do they end up in consensus. A something is discussed, and a heap of arguments for and against are presented. And you end up in a kind of tradeoff situation. Isn’t it like that with all the isms, and with the life in society in general? All countries are ruled by a local mix of socialism, liberalism, conservatism and some other. And people born in rural parts will think one thing, hipsters in the city another. And isn’t that what philosophy kind of is? Getting a lot of info in an area and wisely finding the best possible tradeoff? If there is a simple answer to something, like a formula for something in physics, it’s not philosophically interesting, really?

And converging into something common, Its not really what we have seen in Washington, is it?

Do you have any cats? — Joshs

Why rude?

You may want to read Levinas’ Totality and Infinity. The whole book is essentially an attempt to show how Heidegger’s way of understanding Being lent itself to his political entanglements. Or Derrida’s “Heidegger and the Question” — Joshs

Sorry, I have a daytime job and a family. Can you give me a resume?

59% lefties... one would suppose that few were left or right, a person identifying oneself as a philosopher ought to see the world as a more complex place than so. But OK, the progressive left agenda is maybe too much of a good answer to the question ”what do I want to do with my life”, the above-daytimejob-classes favourite mantra during adolescence. To be resisted.

Splitting their philosophy off from their actions gives readers an excuse to avoid having to interpret their actions in a more complex way than just :’ Heidegger wrote Being and Time but he was a Nazi.’ — Joshs

Thats an interesting one. Where do you find Hitler in Sein und Zeit? I’m not ironical, I am seriously interested.

Heidegger snuggled up to the Nazis, Sartre treated young women as objects, Schopenhauer had a problem with Jews and looked down on women, Aristotle thought women were “deformed men”, Hume and Kant were racists, Nietzsche despised sick people, Rousseau abandoned his children, Wittgenstein beat his students, Mill condoned colonialism, Hegel disparaged Africans and Frege was anti-Semitic. (https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2018/07/17/responding-to-morally-flawed-historical-philosophers-and-philosophies/). — Brett

And all the scientists in say medicine and physics are good guys? Einstein asked Roosevelt to make nuclear bombs. He was quite a bad husband too. Pretty sure Fleming and Semmelweis were azzholes in some way too.

A lot of uninteresting petty details to answer the innate question in the thread start :
Do people that make the effort to inhabitate a philosophy forum, maybe also philosophy institutions, tend to be left leaning?

If so, why? My best guess is that my fellow countryman Martin Hägglund in his book This Life(Vårt enda liv) might give a clue as to why.

What a stupid comment. — Xtrix

Why stupid? How can a persons Utopia be stupid?
That is also a very rude thing to post.

So I suppose you support a socialist economic model with a jobs guarantee? — Garth

Good question. What I am pretty sure about, leaning on Rawls, Nozick and Marx, that there are some kind of feeling for justice in our DNA. Probably has been a good model since huntergatherer days. A good work should be rewarded. After all, grades in school is a fairly accepted system. Feminists strive for "equal pay for equal work". So there is - after all - some kind of feeling that good work should be rewarded. You may call it Meritocracy. Growing up in striving lower middle class, I got that in my upbringing as in my genes. Having done the class journey to a semi-wealthy academical environment it is NOT so obvious. Simply said, the concept of Property, paramount to libertarians do not exactly promote meritocracy, since Property primarely is inherited. Having a semi-successful father (who made the 2nd stage of our family's class journey) I have had some short cuts from that.

But yeah, I am not all that fond of this "liberty" thing. Nozick made a big case for capitalism being "organic", but a society that is not all that all about choices could be just as flexible, I think. My dream is - everyone does what one is supposed to do rather than want to do. Guys in my newer, richer neighborhood is running around trying to get gut feelings for what they "really want to do". I had a bit of that too, and that really just confused me.

Let me give you an Utopia: Everyone is born with personality traits. Parents dont fiddle around with that just gives their kids a lot of love, w/o pushing anyone in any direction. You enter school as a tabula rasa. Teachers, rather than stuffing info into kids, monitors the kids and nudge them in directions where the kids perform well and get energy from that subject. You don't care about class, gender, skin color or whatever, you end up in classes where people share the brain. And you specializes in that.

Then, when ready you do not search for a job. Your search for a place to live. Then, the guys who during school have shown a talent to coordinate people will assign you a job that you do. That is in line with your personality and education. Some jobs, highly specialized, like medical doctors, those jobs will be for the guys that had the best personality to do that job, they will be doctors. Or other specialized professions that require one to build up competence for just that. But there is a heck of a lot of jobs that the right guy learns in no time.

And then, you get paid as you get rewarded in school or in a large organization. Someone rate what you have done and you get paid for the job done rather than the result.

I suppose this vision is far closer to Socialism than the Invisible Hand... so yeah, I suppose I do support some kind of socialism. But a daughter or son in an academic home envisioning their life´s meaning to be a SJW would not thrive in this environment. This is more a Chinese or Stalin like system.

BLM, BLM-supporters, Environment activists, Senate Invaders

Same shite kind of people. Persons that due to too much or too little money in their families focuses energy on other stuff than their daytime 9-5 work.
— Ansiktsburk
Why do you assume that they have a daytime 9-5 work?

Have you seen the stats for unemployment these days during the pandemic? — ssu

I assume that the toomuch people never envisioned a 9-5 job, rather making plans on "what they want to do with their lives". The toolittle people, well, question is if they feel they CAN get a 9-5 job. Tougher to be in that position, granted. But still...
Protests of this kind did not start with the virus. And guys doing this kind of hullabaloos dont seem to care about the virus being spread. Social distancing does not seem to be the name of the game in "protests"

You ain't much if you ain't Dutch (or Norwegian, Swedish, Finish, Danish or German). All these countries have far superior, functional democracies, welfare, happiness, legal systems etc. than the US could ever achieve. And they're still problematic in a lot of areas. — Benkei

Scandinavain and aint so sure about that.

What 'ya doin' hangin' around PF, get to work! — Tobias

And you?

BLM, BLM-supporters, Environment activists, Senate Invaders

Same shite kind of people. Persons that due to too much or too little money in their families growing up focuses energy on other stuff than their daytime 9-5 work.

Everyone thinks, and people of intellectual professions - such as engineers and managers - can think their way through certain kinds of problems better than most. Philosophers are specialists too. They are better than most at solving certain kinds of intellectual problems (most of which are, like chess, games of their own invention). They are not all head and shoulders above everyone else in any intellectual task that you throw at them. I wouldn't trust a random Plato scholar with making decisions about lockdown, I would want people with relevant skills and experience. — SophistiCat

As a matter of fact, I am an Engineer and do from time to time work as a manager. I am also a family father. I do take a lot of decisions that is NOT scientifically grounded.
Those are however small decisions. There are much larger decisions, Covid strategy, Global warming handling.
And OK, lets say that the random Plato scolar might not be the best to decide Covid strategy for a country - Isn't it still a question that should be handled as wisely as possible? These are questions where science give NO answer on how to act. One scientist say this, another that, and you have the complexity of people living their lives.
How to do this best, solve large questions where there are no nice little truths around virtually philosophical questions? Isnt the issue here - how to be wise?

So let me counter the random Plato Scolar with a philosophical department, where the members are the most prominent philosophers from the country, highest paid in the country, giving up all their personal political beliefs, just there to think as good as possible on the most difficult and urgent problems.
Can you give me an example of people better suited than philosophers? Is it better now, in states with democracy, going this or that way, Having an Obama, then a Trump, and the US situation is way better than in my Scandinavian home country.

One might say that "our culture" does do pretty well. Consumer products are all over the place, Megacities all over the world look like little (or rather, large) Manhattans, more an more people speak english and you can get chummy with almost anyone. Sure, what guys saw for 2020 when reading "End of History" when it was published wasn't probably the situation we have now. Thing is, the spreading of the culture has kind of eaten its children. Most prominently jobs going away from the western countries, but also one might say that the global warming is a product of our culture spreading. At the same time, the global warming and the virus as well as jobs going away seems to have given a rise to some kind of increased sense of responsiblility among citizens. Being a super leftist by US standards, I still like the concept of MAGA, and countries coming together to fight the Virus. Globalization might have it's merits, but a national state is a construct that definitely does have theirs too. Trump (I think, as the leftist I am) might not have been in my opinion much of a president, but he did touch on things that I think are hoasome for a western national state to thrive, and consequently for the western civilization.

Not being a philosopher but an engineer of education, and a manager by employment as well as a family father, I am in the position of making decisions without having all the facts at office and at home. These choices are often not easy. But they often have a significant impact on people around me. The choices are often important. Kierkegaard like.

And for a country to shut down all schools, all restaurants.... This is a heavy decision, that mean life or death for a substantial part of the communities where the choices have to be made.

Now, why should not the people best suited to THINK make significant contributions to that? And who is more suited to think, than philosophers? Philosophers actually created science. Philosophy - is that not what comes closest to investigate a difficult task and try to come up with the best possible answer? Reasoning?

In the TS Humanism is given an explanation. Thats pretty bold IMHO. What humanism is, is up for the grabs even more than misantropy. Some fluffy benelovent feelings toward people in general. The wealthy left do have kind of kidnapped the term for the moment, but "work together" does not seem to cover that contemporary version. Or any version I have heard about.

But common for the two, Humanism and Misantropy seems both to want to construe a simplified, holistic view of the world, to escape from the messiness world have.

I can say that Sweden, my home country had a development like that from say 1920 up til 2010 after which globalization issues with a very large immigration and unstable job market has caused a very unstable poltical landscape and a lot of frictions.
— Ansiktsburk
So... nothing dramatic happened until 2010???

Even if off the topic, I'd argue that a lot has happened in Sweden before that. Perhaps starting from the huge influx of Finns, half a million, coming over in the late 60's and early 70's to your country. Half a million is still a large number. We tend to overemphasize the changes of the present. — ssu

I'm not saying that nothing happened. Of course it did. But in a slow, structure'sconservative kind of manner. A slow, steady move left until the 60s. Then towards the end the madness that has struck the western world - rich young people going left - destabilized things. That was probably the biggest stir politically, but the effects wasnt all that dramatic. The immigration from finland was people seeking jobs, people with basically the same culture as the swedes. Gradually, people from southern europe came as work immigrants, The left/right positions wasnt all to affected by that.

Then, of course, effects of globalization and automation struck hard against the working classes, jobs going to low salary countries, and immigration took off dramatically, notably since 2015, people with a totally different culture than the northern europe individual and work ethic moral.

The politics, therefore, consists of a big ultranational party with nazi roots having 20-25% of the votes, and the right and left trying to manoever within that landscape. The last elections have been a total catastrophy.

A lot of the problems are, of course, due to the globalized world, not much to do about that, but also on the policies of the rich, theoretial left wing of the socialistic and environmental parties. There is a lot of flower power dreams that makes the very successful slow developments in our country fail. Not much have been done right the last 10 years.

By definition, they're in favor of the status quo and those whom it benefits; changes away from the status quo to benefit others is definitionally progressive.

The same is true of e.g. states' rights, where when that's a state's right to keep things the same and entrench existing power structures, conservatives are in favor of that, but as soon as it's states' rights to do new things that disrupt those power structures, conservatives are all in favor of federal intervention to stop it. — Pfhorrest

Thats depends on how you define ”conservative”. In a version of conservatism I highly adept to, probably called Structure Conservatism in English, the status As Is is appreciated. Changes are appreciated but introduced slowly and carefully. This naturally requires that the current state is generally accepted. I can say that Sweden, my home country had a development like that from say 1920 up til 2010 after which globalization issues with a very large immigration and unstable job market has caused a very unstable poltical landscape and a lot of frictions.

In a more traditional conception of Conservatism, that, say, USA 1958 is what was end of history, conservatives would not mind revolutions to quickly reinstall that preferred state

its so weird to hear the woman, it could be me speaking upto a point slightly more than halfway through the video where she suddenly starts talking about “pro-life”, conservative genders views and stuff, in a kind of hesitantly religious way. Did not sound good. First part with schooling I was with her but towards the end she lost me completely.

Voting for Biden or Trump seems like chosing between the plague and the cholera, to use a Scandinavian saying.

Seeing this slightly viral video
https://youtu.be/flp7gKg5G4E

Do you have to be conservative to be a republican? A Scandinavian asks.

Aint old yet, I suppose, at 58. My dad is, at 83. But apart from his having some medical conditions we seem to have some stuff in common, that referring back to the OP seem to give us some plus in comparison with my tween aged kids. Or with the the self of say ´87. coolest thing is memory. Looking at old documentaries from the mid 80´s it now looks like WW2 movies you saw as a kid. And I was there, remembering it as a grown-up. For kids and youngsters, stuff like Neil Armstrong on the moon is like some fluffy stuff for me like say Kennedy being shot(of which I have no memories, though born). And the Berlin wall, 9/11 and so on. The complete web development. To actually have living memories of stuff is cooler than I thought it would be.

And of course, one grows in wisdom in several different ways. One has done the stupid things, one has learned. Apart from the mirror, as the old lady in Titanic reflects, having changed somewhat I cannot say that much stuff has gone worse. More things have gone better.

Eternity is not a good place for the human brain to dwell at

Rape victims reportedly seem to regard the act of being killed as the worst consequence of being attacked. I think the OP seem to lack an ability to position oneself in another persons place, as it is written. There aint an abundance of thing more important than living.

But well, we celebrate soilders for taking the lives of others, so killing as such is not a total no-no in most cultures including the western one.

This is playing with fire, guys. Serious fire and I am not joking.

In other words, Popper is not dong motive questioning: he is not saying "Booh booh Marx was a communist, how dare he". He is instead comparing Marx and Hegel's historical theories with practice, using his criteria of falsifiability, and showing it's pure BS. Those guys essentialize history as some grand necessary trajectory that has nothing to see with reality. — Olivier5

He¨s not throwing them aside as BS. What he says is that capitalism can be controlled, with institutions in a nation, limiting the possibilities for the market to ursurp the citizens, with laws and regulations. He specifically mention social democraties in western Europe to be successful examples.

And to call Marx totally "German" is not totally correct. Hegel had his adepts in the UK, and Marx did base many of his studies, as Popper mentions, on the conditions for workers in English industrial towns, which were awful. He also spent like half his life as a Bourgeoise Londoner. Also, at the time when Marx developed most of his ideas there were no such place as Germany. Just a mishmash of areas earlier conquered by Napoleon.

Now, The Open society was written half a century ago, things have changed a lot since then. The markets are global, automatization has been developed further, work resources can be bought cheap from any country. Things are more messy now.

Heidegger suggest repetitively -if not claims- that Aristotelian-Cartesian concept of time is "theoretical" against his "authentic" concept of "temporality". This is false. His concept is as theoretical as Aristotelian. In the fact he himself recognizes it. He affirms that his interpretation has to "violate" the common sense of time. ("When violences are done in this field of investiga­tion..." B&T: 326/374). It wouldn't be so grave if he were able to give some reason of this "violence" as he pretends. He is not. — David Mo

We have here in Scandinavia something called “summer program” in the most prominent radio channel, people still listens to the radio here. As podcasts on their Iphones. Have been running since the 50’s. The idea is that, everyday during the summer, some famous person will have 13:00-14:30 free to speak about pretty much what he or she wants to in small chunks, and play music of own choice in between. Hugely popular and I do listen to most. It might be their life’s story or some cause they root for. Whatever.

Anyhow, I’ve been listening to literary hundreds of those programs since the 80’s. Now, me and missus was talking about two different persons having had those programs years ago. I guessed their programs were like 10 years apart, but it turned out they talked almost the days consecutive.

When I read those parts in S und Z I kind of understood it as H was trying to formalize the feeling You get when “thinking of time”. Time as it appears to the dasein. Augenblick and all that. But I am no pro.

My personal opinion is that no one can really interpret Heidegger clearly without at least 6 months or so of reading. — Xtrix

I’ll be back when I’m retired.

indeed — “oliver5

Wonder who. Probably more than 1k posts and short ones,

Then I suspect he will be slapped on the wrist by some here if he ever posts from hell. — Olivier5

Maybe he is, its only nicks here. But I wouldn’t try, I dont like to be wristslapped, the probable outcome .

I think a serious problem in philosophical discourse is that individuals feel like their intelligence is being attacked when their belief is being attacked. In my experience Analytical Philosophers are exceedingly intelligent, most especially in terms of comprehension. I would think all of the people I have had extended discourse with on this Forum are smarter than me, but that doesn't mean their program is one of relevance or that their beliefs are accurate. We all have to continually challenge our beliefs in this sense. I think there's a good rule here, where there is pain and psychological defensiveness, that's usually the direction we need to go. — JerseyFlight

Where does imagination and creativity fit in with analytical philosophy? I find it so boring to read that I really do not know it , other from a popular pow. Will an Ayer, a wittgenstein or a Quine say stop dreaming? Or is it like a gauge to measure the correctness of what pops up?

For example, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Derida have done more harm than good to society with their thinking, in my view. Because their thinking was wrong and yet people adhered to it.

They might have been very polite, so if you judge by that, they were good guys, but their words did some damage nevertheless, in my judgment. — Olivier5

Wittgenstein was probably the least polite philosopher you’ll ever encountered but he was bloody well not wrong. As no philosopher who has survived the decades was. Noone is totally right, but Wittgenstein was probably more right than you and me. An asshole, though.

Ok, A lot of like BLM talk here last pages. Explain to a fellow on other side of the big waters, what has been the story for the african american(I abbreviate AA) community, generally speaking, since the days of the civil rights movements in the 60`s? I remember the death of MLK vaugely as a young kid. Then during the 70’s and earlier 80`’s one heard vaguely about poor comditions and criminality in the cities but anyhow, a vague feeling of things going in a good direction for the AA. But everything very vague.

My home country was among the poorest around 1900, I do myself come from those families, about 80% of my fellow countrymen did, many emigrated to the US. But there was a strong social democrat movement during, well, most of the 1900’s and the poor people became ... stable.

One wonder, is there such a way for the AA people in the USA? To come from poor conditions and criminality to a stable life? Supposedly a decent percentage of AA do have found the way, but seemingly, very many do remain in the lowest classes.

I come from a country no less with predjudices against different people, and I did for sure did not enter adulthood without racial predjudices. But then working multinationally for 20+ years changed all that. If you are well educated and come to a workplace the color of your skin matter for like 24 hour, and then its obvious if you are an asset or a hindrance to the team you are working with, and you will find that you have more in Common brainwise with someone from China or Eritrea than the people from your own neighbourhood.

But if you grow up where things are shit you will be shit. I am not without it, growing up in a humble suburb where everyone worked daytime or was unemployed. No slum but also no dreams.

I did good in school and in work, and landed in a rather posh area. My wife, my kids, all my neighbours have those dreams. And frankly, I am worse than them, even though I may score higher in work, our equivalent ov SAT and stuff. I am more dishonest, more greedy, tougher to my kids, pretty much like the mean father in Dead Poets Society. Not anything like Robin Williams teacher of dreams.

And well, living in the slum will probably do not do you better. Thats nothing racist, thats class. So - if a big part of the AA are Heidegger way thrown into the slum, how can they get out of it?

Because - if a lot of AA are in the slum, a lot of those guys will be bad people and that will increase racist feelings among middle class white people - with good reasons. So you do have to kind of break that evil circle in some way.

One thing - I dont think the gangsta culture do much to improve stuff. We see it here, amongst immigrant kids. I recognise it from my own childhood. Being tough gave kudos. But its to its root bad. Understandable but bad. Naively but still true - To contribute to society should be the only thing that gave kudos.

No paradox here. The complexity and unpredictacility of the human brain is enough for conversations or games with oneself. Chess is boring though. Writing novels and depicting combattants is no problem. You never know who’s gonna win. This sounds more like a ultra extrovert with no inner life.

Read Les Mots (in english), partly because I am thrilled with the guy, and partly because Sartre and Beauvoir was in the forefront for the academical left. It gave me few answers to my heading question, but I want to cite Jean-Pauls last words in his oeuvre :

”What I like about my madness is that it has protected me from the very beginning against the charms of the "elite": never have I thought that I was the happy possessor of a "talent"; my sole concern has been to save myself—nothing in my hands, nothing up my sleeve—by work and faith. As a result, my pure choice did not raise me above anyone. Without equipment, without tools, I set allofmetoworkinordertosaveallofme.If I relegate impossible Salvation to the proproom, what remains? A whole man, composed of all men and as good as all of them and no better than any”

This gives som clues , after all.
Hey Jean-Paul! Being brought up at the Schweizers you ARE elite, and will never be anything else. Sitting in cafés daytime weekdays people from humbler backgrounds seldom do.
And hey, If you have talent or not - you will never know. Living in a house with a personal library and only attending an elite school in Paris...

what I should want to know - the years in La Rochelle, and the years as a teacher - what did that contribute with. A bit like Wittgenstein after having solved all earthly problems and heading for the alps. I sincerely believe Sartre was a h*ll of a much better teacher. But what do they know about having talent and being raised in a daytime job area?

I think, their greatest hommage should be to those kids. But what Sartre was striving for was a country where the talented kids from the villages and banlieus had as much hell as possible. And his own elite free space to fulfil their dreams.