Sooner or later I shall in all probability return to chronology and pick up on the final stages of my career at UCL. But first I have a few more reflections arising directly from the last two fragments on: (a) writing and solitude, and (b) compromises and capitalism. It is a item triggered by reading Sartre and de Beauvoir. I have been fascinated by this ‘pairing’ since first encountering it as an undergraduate in, I think, 1969 (thanks to an engaging ‘oddball’ philosophy tutor at Surrey University, Irene Brennan). Why ‘fascinated’? After all, I’m no existentialist, being particularly antipathetic to the neo-Cartesian, transcendental phenomenological project. There are perhaps four reasons. The first is that existentialist philosophy conspicuously addressed the human condition, unlike pretty much anything on offer from the smart-arsed, introverted and anaemic ‘philosophy of language’ on offer from Oxford University in particular (Ayer once notoriously dismissed the philosophy of Heidegger as resting on a ‘misuse of the verb ‘to be’’). Whether in his novels, plays, short stories or philosophy, Sartre at least broached issues in the world we inhabit (though often circuitously and obscurely); and de Beauvoir was even more pointed – and moreover, independently of Sartre – in her Ethics of Ambiguity, her studies of ‘the second sex’ and ‘old age’ and in her novels (The Mandarins deservedly won the Goncourt Prize). Second, Sartre in particular provided a set of concepts – eg in his early existentialist phase, being-in-itself and being-for-others, and in his later Marxist phase, ‘groups-in-series’, groups-in-fusion’, and the practico-inert’ – that have retained resonance, not least for sociology. Third, this French duo lived a life of writing in cafes and bars, mostly in Paris, which is a Weberian ideal type to which I can only approximate in the cafes and pubs of Mickleham, Dorking and, of course, London (not that I would swap my marriage, four daughters and six grandchildren for their childless laser-focuses). Finally, Sartre and de Beauvior were philosophically and politically engaged writers.
My practice of solitary writing, albeit in busy, noisy settings, stands in sharp contrast to the millions of words emanating from the pens of the Parisian duo-cum-duet (together with their admix of collaborators, colleagues, friends, lovers, hangers-on and parasites). I am far less sociable. Yet I have this in common with Sartre and de Beauvoir: at best, I love writing; at worst, I ‘have to write’. Not that I’ve yet reached their level of addiction to the props of stimulants and spirits (they both destroyed their livers as a prelude to their deaths). But I understand them: I empathise with them. An old friend and colleague once told me that when he gave up smoking in his 20s he thought he would never write anything worthwhile again.
I’m aware of course that I don’t enjoy their talents or accomplishments as philosophers, writers and as intellectuals. But then few do. We have to make best use of what capabilities we have. This brings me to the contributions of Sartre in particular on engaged writing. To what extent does/can engaged writing neutralise or compensate for the (inevitable) compromises that capitalism demands of all its citizens? Towards the end of my time at UCL I wrote of and commended foresight and action sociology; but I have in my own assessment yet to convincingly practice what I preach (though I would want to insist that I am no ‘collaborator’).
So what did Sartre have to say about engaged writing? Bill Martin’s ‘The Radical Project: Sartrian Investigations’ is helpful here. Sartre was an intellectual, who for me is someone who develops and effectively projects a vision of an alternate society into the public sphere of the lifeworld and posseses sufficient integrity to maintain such consistency as is compatible with social change (I might personally aspire to be an intellectual but, like most academics, I do not pass muster). Where are today’s Sartres and de Beauvoirs? Where are those who speak truth to power with a power of their own? Ok, Chomsky. Maybe they have declined with the collapse of what Lyotard called ‘grand’ narratives.
I end with one further observation. When I started blogging post-retirement I felt – rightly or wrongly – that what, if anything, lent substance and garnered potential interest in them on the part of others was the fact that I had established a reputation of sorts in the none-too-easy world of academic publishing: I had survived decades of peer review which, for all its failings, nevertheless imposes a discipline on thinking and outputs.
Time now to return to my final years as UCL.