Reflexões sobre o Racismo

by Jean-Paul Sartre, J. Guinsbourg (Translator)

I - Reflexões Sobre a Questão Judaica
II - Orfeu Negro

Genres: Philosophy

149 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology). His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution."
Sartre held an open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both lifestyles and thought. The conflict between oppressive, spiritually destructive conformity (mauvaise foi, literally, 'bad faith') and an "authentic" way of "being" became the dominant theme of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant, 1943). Sartre's introduction to his philosophy is his work Existentialism Is a Humanism (L'existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946), originally presented as a lecture.

Reviews

[Luís · Rating 3 out of 5]

In "Reflections on Racism" by Jean-Paul Sartre, the philosopher develops a psychological analysis of anti-Semitic prejudice that allows us to understand some relevant aspects of the development of prejudiced feelings. Through a deconstruction of the behavior and psychological stance of the anti-Semitic type, combined with an analysis of relevant aspects of the recent history of Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, Sartre attempts to prove the incoherence of racist ideas against the Jewish people. Sartre's analysis goes beyond the racist pamphlet debate, as in the case of the apocryphal libels (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion) and the ideological register, and enters a territory of "psychological" analysis of the anti-Semite. Sartre's ideas, especially in the interpretative core of the text, are not those of a specialist in the subject of the history of anti-Semitism. His text falls more within the essayistic classification than the result of a lengthy investigation into the subject. However, it leads us to important questions that can, in my opinion, be applied to all types of racism and thinking predisposed to hatred and xenophobia.