One of the most famous (and most obnoxious) observations of the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre concerns a waiter in a cafe, whose bearing is somehow a bit too, well, waiterish. “He comes toward the patrons with a step a little too quick. He bends forward a little too eagerly; his voice, his eyes, express an interest a little too solicitous.” He seems to be playing a part, with a surfeit of enthusiasm.
Why? To deceive himself, Sartre concludes. The waiter throws himself into the role because he wants to persuade himself he has no choice – that he’s “some kind of automaton”, whose very essence condemns him to be a waiter. That’s more comfortable than facing the truth, which is that he’s choosing to be a waiter and is free to make a different choice – though you can’t help wondering how Sartre, who basically lived in cafes, would have coped had the waiters of Paris all acted on his advice.
I thought about Sartre’s waiter the other day when I read an article in the magazine Fast Company, which offered tips on using meditation to cope with the stress arising from watching the closing episodes of Game Of Thrones. It’s slightly mean to single it out, given that stories with gratuitous Westeros angles have been such a staple of the last eight years. Still, it seemed to capture something essential about life in 2019. Since you had to watch Game Of Thrones, the article implied, and since the final season had been so infuriating and/or emotionally draining, didn’t it make perfect sense to find time in your schedule for a little calming meditation? To be sure, there was a more elegant solution to this problem: not watching Game Of Thrones. But, as with Sartre’s waiter, the possibility of that choice didn’t even seem to arise.
In reality, I doubt many people felt truly obliged to watch Game Of Thrones. But most of us do make this error in some domain or other. Digital technology offers an obvious wealth of examples. We persuade ourselves that something is a non-negotiable aspect of modern life – being on Facebook, carrying a smartphone, being reachable on email at weekends, keeping up with the news – then figure out ways to deal with the downsides, rather than stopping to wonder if it’s even necessary in the first place.
The tricky part is that some things are obligatory: any given person’s situation genuinely might oblige them to be (say) reachable at weekends or be on Facebook, or to work as a waiter when they would rather not. But the same economic forces that constrain our choices like this also want us to believe that our choices are more constrained than they really are.
The truth is that, however little choice you have, you almost certainly have more than you believe. These days, were he to accuse a waiter of failing to appreciate the full range of his options, Sartre would be told to check his privilege, and fair enough. But it wouldn’t follow that he was wrong. Maybe you actually don’t need to keep doing the thing you tell yourself you have to keep doing. Maybe you could turn on your heel and walk out of the cafe, oblivious to the philosopher snapping his fingers for another espresso.
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Sarah Bakewell peers through the Parisian cigarette smoke to bring Sartre’s insights to life in her vivid history, At The Existentialist Cafe
