We have our freedom but we can never have it fulfilled. We don’t justify our living by saying it will allow us to fulfill our freedom. At least, this is what Beauvoir claims. And she explains this with two interesting examples.
One is with art. Think about the art the Egyptians made, or the art in the Middle Ages, or the art during the Renaissance. The people who made these works of art knew it was art. They called it art–not ancient art or Renaissance paintings. They did not create something with the hope that something similar would eventually be created in the future and it would be called art.
Likewise, there is science. The science Galileo carried out versus the science of Einstein were both science to both men. There was not a question to either of whether they were touching on something that would be called science–to them it was science. Beauvoir does mention the important caveat that there is a component of reflection within science. Science looks at itself at every stage to make sure that it is accurately describing the universe. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be science if it didn’t follow something like the scientific method.
And such is our freedom. We who do not deny our freedom act freely. We say we have freedom. We do not live out our lives hoping that once we have died that we will have fulfilled our freedom. Talking about the knowable finite versus the unknowable infinite in our existence, Beauvoir explains that living freely is an act of interacting with the infinite. That scary prospect of looking out into the infinite is all we do when we say we have freedom in our lives.
I particularly like Beauvoir’s examples that help illuminate this line of reasoning. It links past, present, and future so poetically. Mankind has done so many things in the past which we say resemble what we have in the present. Yet during the present of mankind’s past, mankind described what they did based on what they were actually doing–not based on what we in the present describe it as now.
Furthermore, the future holds this same idea for us now. Think of how history textbooks describe events which occurred in the late 20th century. This is well within the lifetime of the majority of people on earth. Yet we say 70s, 80s, 90s music, fashion, and media. But none of that was done 50, 40, or 30 years ago with the hope that it would be fulfilled into what people thought they were trying to do; it was entirely what they thought they were trying to do.
What we place in large categories in the present is what ties together the history, the creations, the ideas, the characteristics of mankind through millennia. For us to partake in each of them by living in the present, without caring about the past or future, is freedom.
