Bad Faith and Class Consciousness
As Sartre explains, to be in bad faith involves either the clinging onto facticity - the denial of one’s ability to transcend - or the escape into transcendence - to detach, to disconnect from material reality. This imbalance between material reality and the human freedom’s ability to work around it is calling to mind Marx’s concept of class consciousness, and the reification of Capitalism.
According to Marxist theory, the nature of capitalistic economy includes its propensity to become reified. When the means of production are transposed from the labourers to the capitalists, the product of labour seems alien to the worker. The worker does not use his/her labour to produce useful product. Rather, the worker produces valuable product, product that the capitalist takes and sells. Thus, not only does the worker not work for his/her sake, but the products the worker produces is then assigned an exchange value and sold back to the workers. All in all, this form of economic production and exchange seems external and separate from reality; it by design makes the worker feel powerless, that s/he has no control.
But in reality, this economic system is a very real product of human construction. Though it was implemented long before any of us were born, our complicity keeps it running. We are all assigned essential role’s in the capitalist machine, and therefore, our disengagement from the system would actually dismantle it. This concept, that one becomes aware of one’s crucial role in the perpetuation of capitalism is class consciousness. Moreover, class consciousness is - according to Marx - that which should enflame a revolutionary spirit; once one becomes aware of either his/her being exploited, or his/her being used to exploit others, one would not likely be very pleased with Capitalism.
Thus, the relation - or contradiction - of class consciousness and bad faith is clear. Under Capitalism, one is born into bad faith inasmuch as one is conditioned to believe either a) one’s material conditions are a product of nature (one is poor because one deserves to be, or conversely, one is rich because s/he is superior) and therefore cannot be transcended, or b) one’s material conditions have no affect on reality (the myth of social mobility). But it is when one harmonises facticity and transcendence that one achieves class consciousness. It is the realisation of one’s material conditions, and its effects of one’s trajectory in life, but intertwined with the knowledge that if we stand in solidarity against Capitalism, if we disengage, the system will be suffocated, starved, and will bleed out.
Very interesting take on the reading for Sartre. Knowing that Sartre was a Marxist (to what degree I am not certain) it seems probable that he had Marx's analysis of class consciousness in mind when he was developing his own theory. However, I am not sure if we are thrown into bad faith from our birth, I believe that capitalism (or any economic structure for that matter) is what one can be thrown into, but it seems to me that in order to be in bad faith, one must already have made some kind of personal development. While it is easier to fall into bad faith when one distracts themselves with the notions of "I need to find work", "I need money", "I am a waiter", etc., to say that one is born into bad faith from the get go seems to skip the important process of personal growth.
ReplyDeleteBoth interesting ideas--I actually found myself comparing Marx's idea of alienation to bad faith myself. Chris has a point in that I also think that claiming "I HAVE to be this way--I am a waiter" presupposes the subconscious understanding of oneself as a FREE being and therefore feels the NEED to declare that statement to him/herself and others. An inkwell, even if it could speak, would have no NEED to explain why it is acting as an inkwell. Relating this to Marx, it is important to note Schaeffer's term "conditioned" when he points out how workers in capitalism are apt to be in bad faith. The fact that people must be CONDITIONED to feel themselves as either naturally determined by economic situation or not defined by it at all suggests that there is most basically a person feeling the need to freely explaining his/her position in society.
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