'Man Is Condemned To Be Free'

World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia © 2001 by World Book, Inc.Ivan Soll, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

"The existentialists conclude that human choice is subjective, because individuals finally must make their own choices without help from such external standards as laws, ethical rules, or traditions. Because individuals make their own choices, they are free; but because they freely choose, they are completely responsible for their choices. The existentialists emphasize that freedom is necessarily accompanied by responsibility. Furthermore, since individuals are forced to choose for themselves, they have their freedom — and therefore their responsibility — thrust upon them. They are'condemned to be free.'

For existentialism, responsibility is the dark side of freedom. When individuals realize that they are completely responsible for their decisions, actions, and beliefs, they are overcome by anxiety. They try to escape from this anxiety by ignoring or denying their freedom and their responsibility. But because this amounts to ignoring or denying their actual situation, they succeed only in deceiving themselves. The existentialists criticize this flight from freedom and responsibility into self-deception. They insist that individuals must accept full responsibility for their behavior, nomatter how difficult. If an individual is to live meaningfully and authentically, he or she must become fully aware of the true character of the human situation and bravely accept it."
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Some quotes of Jean-Paul Sartre:

"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."
"The existentialist says at once that man is anguish. "
"One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one's death, one dies one's life."
"It is only in our decisions that we are important."
"Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you."
"Hell is other people."
"Life has no meaning the moment you loose the illusion of being eternal."
"He was free, free for everything, free to act like an animal or like a machine...he could do what he wanted to do, nobody had the right to advise him...He was alone in a monstrous silence, free and alone, without an excuse, condemned to decide without an excuse, condemned to decide without any possible recourse, condemned forever to be free."
"Man does not exist in order to be free subsequently. There is no difference between the being of man and his being-free."
"Existentialism is a Humanism."

More: about Existentialism, about Sartre.
Related films: my favorite two -
American Beauty(1999), Fight Club(1999)