415141

JCSXXX10.1177/1468795X11415141BaertJournal of Classical Sociology

Article

Jean-Paul Sartres positioning in Anti-Semite and Jew

Patrick Baert

Journal of Classical Sociology 11(4) 378397 The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1468795X11415141 jcs.sagepub.com

University of Cambridge, UK

Abstract This article is one of the first to employ positioning theory to analyse an intellectual product. After introducing the theory itself, it explores how Sartres book Rflexions sur la question juive enabled him to locate himself within, as well as intervene in, the socio-political and intellectual context at the time. Using the text, Sartre positioned himself as an authoritative public intellectual: that is, a generalist, drawing on his vast cultural resources to speak out about a wide range of important societal issues with moral conviction. He also positioned himself within the tradition of the Dreyfusard notion of the intellectual: that is, as an intellectual who engages with contemporary social and political issues and who is a defender of progressive Republican notions whilst remaining an independent voice with the qualification that he expressed disquiet about the French Republican notion of citizenship. Drawing on these insights, the article ends by discussing glaring omissions in Sartres Rflexions sur la question juive, making sense of them in the light of the sociopolitical context of the mid-1940s in France.The article shows the fruitfulness of positioning theory for analysing intellectual interventions, whether they are in the form of books, essays or articles.

Keywords
anti-Semitism, intellectuals, Jews, performativity, positioning theory, Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartres Rflexions sur la question juive (1954[1946]) has been a controversial text since it was published. Sartre was, of course, not a stranger to controversy, but by the mid-1940s his critics had come from specific groups: they were people associated either with the French Communist Party or with the extreme right. Reflexions sur la question juive was unusual in that it also attracted criticisms from his allies: that is, from progressive intellectuals and, crucially, from sections of the Jewish community itself, of which the text was meant to be supportive. Initially some French Jewish intellectuals were positively disposed towards Rflexions sur la question juive (Misrahi, 1999; Vidal-Naquet 1999)1 and its vivid depiction of anti-Semitism (a large part of the book is devoted to
Corresponding author: Patrick Baert, Faculty of Human, Social and Political Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RQ, UK. Email: pjnb100@cam.ac.uk

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this phenomenon). However, Sartre was quickly criticized for his stereotypical portrayal of the Jewish people and for the problematic distinction between the authentic and the inauthentic Jew (see, for instance, Rabi, 1947). The English translation, which came out two years later with the less provocative title Anti-Semite and Jew (1995[1948]),2 received even harsher criticisms than the original publication (see, for instance, Rosenberg, 1949). The English version also helped the book acquire a semi-canonical status and it is now considered a minor classic in social theory. Whether empirically or theoretically orientated, most writings on anti-Semitism acknowledge Sartres text and possibly engage with various points which Sartre made (see, for instance, Arendt, 1976: xv; Falk, 2008: 13). The authors might recognize the limitations of Sartres arguments or they might even openly express antagonisms towards them. Nevertheless, they feel that this book is so important that they ought at least refer to it, if not fully tackle some of the issues raised by Sartre. Considering the weight of Sartres book, it is necessary to raises the question of how we make sense of the text which, by todays standards, appears problematic. How can we account for its distinctive flavour, its inconsistencies and obvious omissions?

Performativity and positioning

While the main aim of this article is to account for Sartres book on anti-Semitism, it also provides the conceptual building blocks for what I will call a performative perspective. Performativity is associated with Austins speech act theory and his attention to performative utterances (Austin, 1962; 1970: 233252). These are utterances which are neither true nor false but which do something. If I promise one of my doctoral students that I will read and comment on one of the chapters of his or her Ph.D. within the next fortnight, then my utterance is a performative utterance insofar as it performs the promise that I will do this within the time period mentioned. Applied to the sociology of intellectual life, a performative perspective pays attention to what intellectual products do what they help to bring about. Intellectual products can range from intellectual movements or an authors oeuvre to a book, a passage, a sentence or a concept. From a performative perspective, intellectual products are seen, not so much as representations, but as interventions in the world. They help to create things. Some scholars have argued that the printing industry generated a collective consciousness or sense of togetherness (Anderson, 1991), and others have made equally broad claims about how the modern novel changed the cultural landscape (Caillois, 1942) or how orthodox economics helped to generate the economic system which it purportedly represented (Callon, 1998). In what follows, I am more interested in how specific intellectual products, like a particular novel or an essay, help to bring about things and intervene in the socio-political arena at the time. More concretely, how does Sartres Rflexions sur la question juive, with the help of various rhetorical devices, present Sartre as well as the politics and history of France? How can it in the process be seen as an intervention in the socio-political affairs of the day? In contrast to other contributions within the performative perspective (for example, Alexander et al., 2006), I want to pay attention to processes of positioning. Although

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the concept was initially used in marketing and military operations, social psychologists have increasingly explored how people in interaction position themselves and position or reposition others. Harr (Harr and van Langenhove, 1999a; Harr et al., 1999) first introduced the theory of positioning to account for face-to-face interaction, but I wish to extend it to other forms of interaction, including mediated interaction (see also van Langenhove and Harr, 1993). Positioning refers to the process by which people attribute to others or to themselves a set of characteristics; those attributions have a significant effect on how the attributed are perceived and therefore affect future interactions. Contrary to over-deterministic approaches, theorists of positioning use the concept to attribute agency and flexibility to the individuals involved. People are not seen as simply internalizing central values of society, nor are their actions explained exclusively in terms of roles or rigid rule following. Instead, individuals are seen as continually positioning themselves in relation to others, thereby also positioning the others who in turn affect their positioning. For instance, whilst promising to reduce substantially the deficit left by the previous government, a politician positions himself as diligent and responsible (ready to take tough decisions) and positions members of the opposition party as incompetent and reckless. Especially in the competitive intellectual arena, positioning is crucial and written texts are particularly well placed for intellectuals to position themselves and also to position intellectual allies and opponents. Positioning theorists focus on the positioning of individuals, but the notion of positioning can also be linked to other entities. A text, for instance, may position a group of other authors, a whole intellectual school, a social class or a nations history. As the purpose of this article is to explore how an intellectual product positions the author and others, it is useful to bear in mind the distinction between first- and secondorder positioning (see also van Langenhove and Harr, 1999: 2021). First-order positioning is implied and tacit, as in the case of a politician whose statements or actions implicitly position him or her on the left of the political spectrum. In contrast, secondorder positioning is explicit and discursive: for instance, a politician might explicitly use the label liberal or social democrat to refer to him- or herself, his/her vision and actions. Whilst in everyday life people tend to display tact which minimizes the frequency of second-order positioning, the latter is not uncommon in intellectual interactions because conflicts and power struggles in intellectual life often take place through explicit discussions and meta-discussions. These discussions involve reflexions on and articulations of what was previously taken for granted. To take intellectual products as performative also involves taking into account the various material and symbolic props and devices that help to bring about effectively the intervention or positioning. Not every intellectual product manages to bring about a significant intervention or positioning. The extent to which it does depends on a range of what I call performative tools: these are material and symbolic means that enable an effective intervention. For instance, the prestige and marketing strategies of the publisher of a book are performative tools that allow the book to have an impact, but so are the aura, authority and connections of the author and his or her rhetorical skills. Amongst the many performative tools that make possible effective positioning, narratives are worth further exploration (see, for instance, Moghaddam and Harr, 2010). Narratives are relatively coherent stories that accompany and make possible effective positioning.

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Narratives may refer to the authors themselves, as in autobiographies, but they may also refer to other people or entities: by positioning itself as a resistance novel, for instance, a book may invoke a narrative of a defiant, cohesive nation or of an exploitative, treacherous class. Positioning depends not just on what the narrative explicitly states, but also on what it implies and, crucially, what it leaves out. In performative terms, the strength of a narrative often depends on what is not said (see also Berman, 1998). Narratives often involve recollections and reconstructions of the past, ranging from individuals trajectories (see also Harr and van Langenhove, 1999b) to societal pasts (see also Berman, 1999). The latter might involve claims about cultural trauma: that is, about the nature of past wrongdoing, its severity and significance for today, and the identity of the perpetrators and the victims (see Alexander et al., 2004). Narratives may also include references to the future. For instance, they may present a blueprint for a new beginning be it a new life or a more just society or they may depict the future as closed and contained in the past. Sociologists of intellectual life often assume that people have a relatively stable habitus or self-concept, engrained in them at an early stage, which shapes their intellectual taste, beliefs and decisions, providing a general direction to their work. As such, they find it difficult to make sense of the shifting positions intellectuals take, how they sometimes compromise or reinvent themselves. For example, in his biographical account of Richard Rorty, Neil Gross (2008) argues that Rortys self-concept tied in with the progressive American pragmatism of his parents, but Gross actual account of Rortys academic work focuses on his academic trajectory until the late 1970s, during most of which he acted as a mainstream analytical philosopher not as a politically engaged progressive pragmatist. So, ironically, the case study of Rorty shows the limitations of the notion of self-concept rather than its applicability or explanatory power. Anna Boschettis Bourdieu-inspired account of Sartre and existentialism provides another example (Boschetti, 1985): she explains Sartres success by referring to his upbringing and habitus, which provided him with the right cultural resources to operate successfully in different fields (journalism, philosophy, literature and drama). But her perspective does not explain why Sartre was virtually unknown to a larger public until the end of the war. It was around 19441945 that Sartre managed to reinvent himself as a politically committed writer just as he would reinvent himself at various points later on. Positioning and repositioning seem to be stronger explanatory notions than habitus. I mentioned earlier that in contrast to static perspectives, the theory of positioning recognizes an element of agency and fluidity in social life: people are seen as able to reposition themselves and in the process possibly reposition others. There are, of course, limitations to this fluidity, but, contrary to Bourdieu or Gross, I am more interested in the sociological limitations that reside outside the individual. Particularly crucial to the stability of performances is the consistency axiom, which applies to both self-positioning and the positioning of others. Political parties or politicians, for instance, cannot constantly reposition themselves without losing credibility with the public. Neither can they so easily reposition their opponents or alter their narrative about socio-political matters without losing standing and authority. The consistency axiom applies especially to the intellectual realm, where peoples identities are tied up with particular genres, intellectual traditions and positions, relying on many years, if not decades, of formative training

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and established intellectual networks. Intellectuals use the criterion of consistency to judge the work of each other, not just within each text, but also between texts, so intellectual repositioning involves costs and risks and is therefore not as frequent as in everyday life. If it occurs, it needs to be accompanied by extensive justification. The more known and the more visible intellectuals are, the more likely shifts in position will be noticed and will need to be explained. Drawing loosely on these concepts from social psychology and cultural history, I propose to read Sartres text in a new way, which I hope will make sense of some its idiosyncrasies, omissions and imperfections. In the process, it should become clear that the performative perspective can in principle be applied to other classical texts as well and that it is therefore a productive way forward for the sociology of intellectual life.

Sartres position and positioning in the mid-1940s

Rflexions sur la question juive was published by Paul Morihien in 1946, but the first part, entitled Portrait dun antismite, was published in the journal Les Temps modernes in December 1945. There is no evidence as to when precisely Sartre wrote the text, but the large bulk of it must have been in the later stages of 1944 (see, for instance, Walzer, 1995: vvi). So it is important to elaborate on the peculiarities of Sartres position in the intellectual and socio-political climate of the mid-1940s. Who was Sartre at that time, and how was he positioning himself? Was he known to the public, and if so, in what capacity? I will focus on Sartres positioning within the French context because both Portrait dun antismite and the larger Rflexions sur la question juive were written in French and were addressing a French public and French concerns. Although there is some value in reading the text in the context of Sartres 1945 trip to America (see, for instance, Hollier, 1999a) notably in the way in which Sartre occasionally compares the situation of Jews in Europe and black people in America (see, for instance, Sartre, 1995[1948]: 146, 152) the French context is undoubtedly more important (see also Schor, 1999: 107ff .; Walzer, 1995: vxx). Before the war, Sartre had made his mark in the literary scene with two publications: La Nause, his key novel, in 1938, and Le Mur, a collection of short stories, in 1939. During this period he also published a number of philosophical works of a technical nature, influenced by German phenomenology. These philosophical reflections culminated in his philosophical treatise Ltre et le nant which appeared in 1943. Besides this philosophical work, Sartres output during the war comprised, amongst other things, publications in clandestine resistance journals and two plays staged in Paris: whilst Les Mouches, in 1943, used Electra, a Greek myth, as a thinly disguised critique of the German occupation, the now better known Huis clos, staged in 1944 just before the liberation, was a quintessentially existentialist tale about how individuals sense of self is derived from others. Important in the context of this discussion is that by early 1944 Sartre was virtually unknown to a wider public. Because of his previous publications, he was known by a small group of elite writers and philosophers; he was respected by them and they saw him as an increasingly influential figure in the literary and intellectual scene. But he remained unknown to a broader audience beyond this elite group.

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All this changed in a remarkably short period of time. Between early 1944 and late 1946, Sartre gained immense popularity, as did Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir (Cohen-Sohal, 2005: 247298; Leak, 2006: 6579). Their rising status in the public realm went hand in hand with the spread of existentialism well beyond the contours of the small intellectual elite in which it arose. Sartre and his fellow existentialist travellers introduced the notion of politically engaged writing and portrayed it as central to the resistance and liberation of France. The trials of collaborationist authors like Robert Brasillach emphasized the significance of writing and the immense responsibility that accompanies it, thereby not only elevating the status of writers like Sartre who were associated with the resistance but also feeding into the frenzy of existentialism and its attendant notion of individual responsibility (Kaplan, 2000). Sartres journalism towards the very end of the war helped the rise of his profile, but Sartre and existentialism became particularly prominent in the fall of 1945, partly because of the launch of the journal Les Temps modernes on 1 October and because of his famous lecture Lexistentialisme est un humanisme, which took place on 29 October in Paris. The spread of existentialism was not limited to France. For instance, in 1945 and 1946 Sartre made two long trips to the United States which received considerable media attention, helping Sartre and existentialism break into the American cultural market (Cohen-Sohal, 2005: 269279). By 1946, Sartre had already become a trans-national public intellectual, catering for different audiences. It follows that by the time Sartre published the first part of Rflexions sur la question juive, he was in the process of becoming a major public figure. From the viewpoint of positioning theory, it is important to clarify how he located himself within the intellectual and cultural landscape. What type of public intellectual was he at the end of the war? Two interrelated but analytically distinct features stand out. Firstly, Sartre positioned himself as what Alan Shipman and I have called elsewhere an authoritative public intellectual (see Baert and Shipman, 2012: 188189). Authoritative public intellectuals not only possess high cultural capital but also exhibit charisma and character. Although they might be formally educated in a high-status discipline like philosophy, they tend to be generalists whose interventions have a strong moral component and who thrive on taking an outsider position. Secondly, in contrast with the period before the war, during which Sartres political involvement was minimal, by the mid-1940s he presented himself as a politically engaged intellectual in the Dreyfusard tradition (Collini, 2006:164). By Dreyfusard intellectuals I am referring to writers who use their accomplishments within their field to speak out about political issues, who position themselves clearly at the left of the political spectrum and who are suspicious of the state and authority. Three features in particular characterize Sartre as a public intellectual in the Dreyfusard tradition. Firstly, although Sartres political agenda remained nebulous during this period, he was sympathetic towards progressive political agendas, siding with the political causes of the working class and promoting a more just and meritocratic society. This was different from the period before the war, when he was generally a-political. Secondly, consistent with his period before the war, Sartre located himself as an independent public voice: that is, he was keen to emphasize his independence not only from the government but also from any political party. Only at a later stage would he help to set up a political party of his own, which was short-lived (Cohen-Sohal 2005: 298311). Although in the

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mid-1940s he was broadly sympathetic towards the political causes of the left-leaning political parties, including the French Communist Party, he emphasized his autonomy. It was only between 1952 and 1956 that he became more aligned with the Communist Party, but even then he kept his independence and never became a member (Birchall, 2004: 123143). Thirdly, although often drawing on abstract philosophical terminology, Sartre set out to comment on issues of contemporary social and political relevance. In contrast with Gides notion of art for arts sake, Sartre emphasized that writers had a responsibility to tackle social and political issues of the day, as can be inferred from the remit (and indeed the title) of the journal Les Temps modernes (see also Sartre, 1948[1945]).

Sartre as an authoritative intellectual

As explained above, by the mid-1940s, Sartre was positioning himself as a public intellectual, in particular an authoritative public intellectual. I contrast authoritative public intellectuals with professional public intellectuals (see also Baert and Shipman, 2012: 188194). Professional public intellectuals draw on their expertise and on the authority derived from this expertise to speak out about socially and politically relevant issues. In the French context, Michel Foucault, for instance, presented himself predominantly as a professional public intellectual when the publication of Surveiller et punir was accompanied by his involvement in the Grouped Information sur les Prisons (Boullant, 2003). So did Pierre Bourdieu when his sociological research into the effects of the erosion of the welfare state formed a social scientific platform for his increasing political involvement in the fight against neo-liberalism (Swartz, 2003) In contrast, authoritative public intellectuals, like Sartre, are generalists; they might be formally educated in a certain discipline but they rely on their vast cultural resources and charisma to speak out about a wide range of topics well beyond their area of expertise. The cultural and intellectual climate of the 1940s in France made it still possible for authoritative public intellectuals to thrive as it was only in the course of the 1950s and 1960s that the social sciences took centre stage in France and became fully professionalized and institutionalized (Braud and Coulmont, 2008; Clark, 1973; Masson, 2008). For example, sociology and political science were institutionally weak and lacked public visibility shortly after the war. Therefore, there was space within the cultural landscape at the time for what appears, from a contemporary angle, to be an amateurish and unmethodical analysis of social and political issues. This accounts partly for why, again from todays perspective, Rflexions sur la question juive is such an unusual text in that it sets out to analyse social and political phenomena anti-Semitism and the position of Jews in modern society without remotely investigating them empirically as social scientists would do. It also partly explains why the English version of the book received a particularly hostile reception in the United States, where the professionalization and visibility of the social sciences were more advanced. Indeed, the relative popularity and methodological rigour of The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al., 1950) which came out two years after AntiSemite and Jew and dealt with aligned phenomena is testimony to the different status which the social sciences had acquired there and the extent to which they had managed to carve out a niche protected from philosophy and the humanities.

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Two issues spring up: firstly the position of literature in Sartres text, and secondly his relationship to the social sciences and, in particular, sociology.

The role of literature

Sartres Rflexions sur la question juive is a quasi-literary and impressionistic account of a social phenomenon. Sartre did not attempt to provide a comprehensive historical account of the issues involved, nor did he rely on a systematic sociological analysis, whether through surveys or properly conducted in-depth interviews. Sartre acknowledged subsequently that his knowledge of Jewish culture and history was extremely limited and that he did not carry out any further research (Sartre and Lvy, 1991: 6576). His research was in his own words phenomenological, referring to sporadic interviews which he conducted with Jewish friends, most of whom were integrated and secular intellectuals, and with a hundred people with an anti-Semitic disposition (Contat and Rybalka, 1970: 140; Rybalka, 1999: 166; Sartre, 1954[1946]: 1112; 1995[1948]: 10 11).3 His depiction of the authentic Jew was probably based on his friend Raymond Aron (Aron, 1981: 108; Birnbaum, 1999: 98; Vidal-Naquet, 1999: 18-19). In many respects, Sartre positioned himself as a literary writer rather than a social scientist. As Michael Walzer (1995: viiviii) points out, the four ideal types in the book the anti-Semite, the democrat, the inauthentic Jew and the authentic Jew appear like characters in a play, and Sartre devoted more attention to their psychological dispositions and complexities than to the sociological dimensions of their being. Besides the people he interviewed, Sartres referred extensively to literary writers and literary works. Some of the literary works to which he referred go beyond the French context. For instance, his theory of the anti-Semitic psyche drew on the depiction of the Jewess not only in Drieu la Rochelles Gilles but also in Sir Walter Scotts Ivanhoe (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 59; 1995[1948]: 49). Likewise, he used Kafkas The Trial to convey that the public achievements of the Jews in society today, especially the rewards and honours bestowed on them, do not protect them against persecution but actually hide their true vulnerability (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 107108; 1995[1948]: 88). But most of his literary references were French and often involve his contemporaries. For instance, when he defended French Jews against the anti-Semitic view that they can never be properly French, he chose Jewish literary figures like the poet Andr Suars and the philosopher and novelist Julien Benda (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 100; 1995[1948]: 81). More significantly, Sartres description of the anti-Semite was based to a large extent on his impressions of the lives and works of French literary writers like Louis-Ferdinand Cline, Charles Maurras and Edouard Drumont (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 28, 49, 54; 1995[1948]: 24, 41, 45). These literary references in Rflexions sur la question juive should be seen in the context of the Second World War and its aftermath. Between 1940 and 1944, resistance and pro-Nazi writers had been involved in vitriolic exchanges, with the former writing in clandestine publications and the latter in charge of high-profile journals like La Nouvelle revue franaise (Sapiro, 1999). Most of the collaborationist authors like Brasillach were explicitly anti-Semitic. Sartre wrote the large bulk of Rflexions sur la question juive when the trials of the collaborationist writers were under way. Sartres portrayal of the anti-Semite drew heavily on the views expressed in their writings, so the text can be seen

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as his commentary on the views, motives and personality of the collaborationist writers, thereby contributing to their verdict and implicitly approving of the puration. But Sartre stood out in the way in which he highlighted the anti-Semitic dimensions of collaborationist writings; these were largely ignored in the heated discussions at the time. The prosecution of collaborationist authors generally ignored the anti-Semitism of the authors on trial, focusing instead on whether or not collaborationist writers committed treason or the lesser crime of national indignity (Assouline, 1986; Lottman, 1986; Watts, 1998). In this sense, Rflexions sur la question juive was an important corrective to the puration, which largely ignored crimes against humanity (see also Watts, 1998: 2425). Although Sartre did not mention the trials explicitly, they loomed large in the text, especially when he started off with a scathing attack against the depiction of anti-Semitism as a mere opinion (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 7ff.; 1995[1948]: 7ff.). At the trials, lawyers defending collaborationist authors argued precisely that anti-Semitism was an opinion, which, like any other, ought to be respected. Hence Sartres sarcastic line that in the name of democratic institutions, in the name of freedom of expression, the anti-Semite asserts the right to preach the anti-Semite crusade everywhere (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 8; 1995[1948]: 78)

The role of the social sciences

In the context of these numerous literary references, it is not entirely surprising that Sartre was dismissive of social scientific approaches that study anti-Semitism as the result of external causes, and that, according to him,
are prone to neglect the personality of the anti-Semite. They succeed in revealing a strictly objective situation that determines an equally objective current of opinion, and this they call anti-Semitism, for which they draw up charts and determine the variations [and which] appears to be an impersonal and social phenomenon which can be expressed by figures and averages, one which is conditioned by economic, historical, and political constants. (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 9; 1995[1948]: 89)

Sartres preference for a literary genre ties in with both his particular methodological take on the subject and his general philosophical position. From the viewpoint of his philosophy of existence, to account for anti-Semitism in terms of external factors is to ignore that it is ultimately a free and total choice (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 19; 1995[1948]: 17). Further, to account for the history of the Jews in terms of historical facts or social facts is to ignore the extent to which the anti-Semite depiction of the Jew creates the Jew. It is this idea of the Jew which affects history not the historical fact that supposedly determines the idea (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 1319; 1995[1948]: 1217). Sartre identified a vicious circle whereby, throughout history, the Jewish people have had to react and adjust to various forms of anti-Semitism, with these behavioural adaptations fuelling more antiSemitism (see also Sartre, 1954[1946]: 156160; 1995[1948]: 126129). Put simply, Sartre thought that the anti-Semite creates the Jew, and subsequent critical commentaries focused on this dictum.

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Sartres literary stance made him also more susceptible to anti-Semitic stereotypes, or at least remarkably ill equipped to combat or refute them effectively. This is particularly striking in a passage early on in the text where he wanted to unpick the repeated allegation against Jews that they have acted in a cowardly way in war situations, especially as soldiers. Sartre seemed unaware that there was empirical research available at the time that refuted this claim (see, for instance, Birnbaum, 1999: 9495). Given this apparent lack of knowledge, one would then have expected him to point out that there is no empirical evidence available to support this portrayal. Interestingly, Sartre reasoned quite differently and argued that if people believe there is proof that the number of Jewish soldiers in 1914 was lower than it should have been, it is because someone had the curiosity to consult the statistics (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 15; 1995[1948]: 14) So instead of questioning the empirical assertion, Sartre implicitly assumed that the statistics can be interpreted as confirmation of the fact that, at the beginning of the First World War, the proportion of Jews amongst the soldiers was smaller than the proportion of Jews in the general male population. Note that Sartre did not argue that the statistics confirm the underrepresentation of the Jews in the army (this would be even more outrageous), but that they can be read as such because data are open to different interpretations. This explains why he continued his peculiar reasoning with a defeatist attitude towards historical research according to which the information that history gives on the role of Israel depends essentially on the conception one has of history4 (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 16; 1995[1948]: 14) He thereby not only belittled the validity of historical and social scientific data and overstated the power of interpretation, but he also regarded historical and social research as potentially pernicious in that they can be used to fuel and justify anti-Semitic beliefs. Rather than forming the basis for a critique of racist attitudes, they can be complicit in them. Needless to say, this position made it also difficult for Sartre to denounce anti-Semitic views, because any appeal, in this fight against anti-Semitism, to historical or social scientific data could, according to his own perspective, be challenged. Devoid of social scientific criteria, it is not surprising that, as Suleiman (1995) points out, Sartre ended up reiterating anti-Semitic views himself, such as when he wrote that he will not deny that there is a Jewish race (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 73; 1995[1948]: 60), or when he described Jews as critical (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 141; 1995[1948]: 114), rational (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 142; 1995[1948]: 115), exhibiting lack of tact (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 153; 1995[1948]: 124) and having a special relationship to money (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 156; 1995[1948]: 126). This is not to say that Sartre always shied away from sociological reasoning. But when he invoked a sociological logic, his argumentation faltered. Theoretically, he combined Durkheims views about the transition from mechanical to organic solidarity (for example, Sartre, 1954[1946]: 3536; 1995[1948]: 2930) with Tarde and Le Bons theory of crowd behaviour (for example, Sartre, 1954[1946]: 2526; 1995[1948]: 22), blissfully unaware of the methodological incompatibility of the two perspectives (see also Birnbaum, 1999: 101). Empirically, Sartres sociological claims were generally crude, with little evidence, and he was often wrong or at least overstated his case. This is particularly striking when he discussed the relationship between social stratification and anti-Semitism, depicting the latter as an overwhelmingly middle-class or lower-middle-class phenomenon (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 2930, 43; 1995[1948]: 25, 36). Without presenting any evidence, he asserted that many anti-Semites the majority, perhaps belong to the lower middle class of the

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towns; they are functionaries, office workers, small businessmen, who possess nothing (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 2930; 1995[1948]: 25). This is followed by the unequivocal statement that we find scarcely any anti-Semitism amongst workers (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 42; 1995[1948]: 35). The first of the two assertions, even in its vagueness, reflects his earlier contempt of the middle classes and provides a supposedly empirical basis for his psychological account of the anti-Semite. However, social research into this matter fails to corroborate this alleged correlation and refutes the second quote, namely the proposition that the working classes tend to be immune to anti-Semitism.5 Sartres cavalier attitude towards the study of social facts and the opportunism with which he referred to those facts when it suited him are indicative of his self-positioning as an authoritative public intellectual: that is, a generalist, steeped in philosophy and the humanities and willing to speak out about social and political phenomena without a proper empirical investigation.

Sartre as a Dreyfusard intellectual

I mentioned earlier that Sartre positioned himself as an intellectual in the Dreyfusard tradition. I will now disentangle this notion of the intellectual in the context of Rflexions sur la question juive. Firstly, I show how Sartre positioned himself as politically engaged: that is, developing a progressive political stance, whilst sceptical of authority. Secondly, Sartre operated within the Dreyfusard tradition in that he used this analysis of anti-Semitism and the Jewish question to demonstrate the contemporary significance of existentialism. This is not to say, however, that Sartre appeared here as a quintessential Dreyfusard intellectual, for, as I will show, his commitment to Enlightenment principles was a qualified one.

Political engagement
Sartres key texts during this period promoted political engagement. Sartre introduced the notion of littrature engage for the first time in his essay on New Writing in France in the July 1945 issue of Vogue, and he developed it further in the Prsentation of the first issue of Les Temps modernes on 1 October 1945 (Sartre, 1948 [1945]; see also Judaken, 2006: 151). The same notion of littrature engage underlay Lexistentialisme est un humanisme, which emphasized the significance of political engagement and commitment (Sartre, 1996 [1946]: 4546), and which located the author and existentialism as generally sympathetic towards the political causes of the communists whilst retaining their autonomy from party political influences. Against repeated criticisms from members of the French Communist Party who considered his theory to be subjectivist, Sartre set out to show his affinities with Marxism by arguing that existentialism is not quietist, let alone a philosophy of despair (Sartre, 1996 [1946]: 21ff.). In exchange with the critic Pierre Naville (an appendix to the book), he compared his own public engagement with that of Marx, whose Communist Manifesto also aimed at mobilizing a larger public, and then clarified that he agreed with many of Marxs ideas, in particular his insights into how society affects the individual (Sartre, 1996 [1946]: 81107). In terms of the conceptual framework which I introduced earlier, Lexistentialisme est un humanisme was a successful exercise in second-order self-positioning, whereby Sartre

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articulated his views forcefully in relation to those of other writers at the time and in relation to the harsh criticisms levelled at him from different political quarters. But the political engagement of Lexistentialisme est un humanisme remained primarily a philosophical stance. The engagement became more real in Sartres Rflexions sur la question juive, which after all tackled the problem of a persecuted minority. In this text Sartre was also clearer about his political position. He employed Marxist notions either explicitly (class struggle) or implicitly (false consciousness): for instance, when he asserted that anti-Semitism is a mythical bourgeois representation of the class struggle, and it could not exist in a classless society (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 184; 1995[1948]: 149) He drew the analogy between the predicament of the working class and that of the Jews: the Jews too needed to become aware of their societal condition and mutual interests, organize themselves and rise up. Crucially, Sartre found the solution in a socialist revolution because anti-Semitism would, according to him, be absent in a classless society with collective ownership of the means of production. Bad faith and envy, which are the hallmarks of the declining middle class, would be eradicated. Once the classless society is established, authentic Jews would be ready to assimilate because the assimilation would be a proper one (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 185186; 1995[1948]: 150151). However, Sartre kept his autonomous stance, stopping short of committing himself to any political party that might bring about the classless structure in which Jews would thrive. He was not opposed to political mobilization and organization, and he even praised the recently reconstituted Jewish League against anti-Semitism (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 186; 1995[1948]: 151), but he wished to position himself as autonomous vis--vis any political party. More generally, Sartres Dreyfusard stance tied in with his recurrent references to principles of meritocracy; for instance, when he provided the example of someone who failed to enter an elite university and who resented the Jews who manage to pass the concours and blamed them for his own failure. Throughout the text, Sartre depicted the anti-Semite as belonging to the lower middle class or, as he called it, petty bourgeoisie (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 2930; 1995[1948]: 2526) and in general those who fail to be successful in systems based on meritocracy. Anti-Semitism is a poor mans snobbery (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 30; 1995[1948]: 26), allowing struggling sections of society to feel better about themselves by portraying Jews as intrinsically inferior. The anti-Semite sees himself belonging to an elite based on birth.
By treating the Jew as an inferior and pernicious being, I affirm at the same time that I belong to the elite. This elite, in contrast to those of modern times which are based on merit or labour, closely resembles an aristocracy of birth. There is nothing I have to do to merit my superiority, and neither can I lose it. It is given once and for all. It is a thing. (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 3132; 1995[1948]: 27)

Contemporary significance
Even more central to the Dreyfusard notion of the intellectuals is their continuous intervention in contemporary society. Hence Sartres applied existentialism, which was central to his attempt to position his existentialist philosophy as having contemporary

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significance. Parallel to Sartres rejection of art for arts sake and his political take on literature and drama, he insisted that philosophy should not just be an abstract, timeless construction, but intertwined with and relevant to the social and political issues of today. His philosophy underscored his plays and novels, which tied in with and reflected on current topics. Sartres Lexistentialisme est un humanisme introduced the key existentialist notions to a wider public and showed its wide applicability especially to war situations that still resonated with the public at the time (for example, Sartre, 1996 [1946]: 4143). But Rflexions sur la question juive was at least equally central to his effort to demonstrate the relevance of existentialism for today; it was in many ways his first committed work (Hollier, 1999b: 153). Drawing heavily on the existentialist vocabulary of Ltre et le nant and related texts, the significance of Rflexions sur la question juive lies in the way in which the text applies those philosophical notions systematically to a socio-political phenomenon with contemporary significance. This certainly did not go unnoticed at the time. After its publication, the distinguished philosopher Emmanuel Levinas was particularly impressed by how Rflexions sur la question juive employed existentialist arguments to attack anti-Semitism and how, in the process, it showed the vitality and contemporary relevance of existentialist philosophy, bring[ing] back the Jewish question from the outmoded discourses where it is often broached to the very summits where the twentieth centurys true, terrible, and gripping history is taking place (Levinas, 1999[1947]: 28). Indeed, existentialist concepts like choice, authenticity, inauthenticity and bad faith provided the conceptual framework for Sartres main arguments throughout the text. Sartrean notions of freedom and choice permeate the book, in particular in the portrayal of the anti-Semite and the authentic Jew. Examples abound. Sartre invoked the notion of being in a situation as a universal structure in which on has to choose oneself (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 72; 1995[1948]: 60). There are no essential features to Jews, but the distinctiveness of their situation created by the anti-Semite at least partly accounts for who they are today (Hollier, 1999b: 151). The anti-Semite has chosen to live on the plane of passion and hatred (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 20; 1995[1948]: 18). Whereas historically anti-Semitism created the Jew, Jewish authenticity consists in choosing oneself as a Jew (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 169; 1995[1948]: 136). Likewise, the concept of bad faith and related notions underpinned Sartres discussions. For instance, the distinction between being-in-itself and the being-for-itself underscored his view that the anti-Semite is attracted by the durability of a stone (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 21; 1995[1948]: 18) and does not wish to change: he seeks only what he has already found [and] becomes only what he already was (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 22; 1995[1948]: 19). Just like Sartres earlier depiction of Lucien Fleurier in his short story Lenfance dun chef which appeared in the collection Le Mur in 1939, Rflexions sur la question juive portrayed the anti-Semite as someone who exhibits bad faith by fleeing contingency and groundlessness, trying to find fixity in culture, history or the patrie (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 3234; 1995[1948]: 27 28; see also Hammerschlag, 2010: 75ff.). The notion of bad faith also underscored the controversial distinction between the inauthentic and the authentic Jews. The former refers, in Sartrean parlance, to those Jewish people who seek to integrate at all cost to assimilate and become fully part of French society. This inauthentic Jew exhibits bad faith by choosing an avenue of flight, becoming detached from himself and

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concealing the truth about himself, that truth being that he will still be regarded and treated as a Jew. In contrast, the authentic Jew refuses to integrate at all costs. He is conscious of his condition, makes himself a Jew (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 170; 1995[1948]: 137) and only wishes to integrate with his tradition and customs intact (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 169189; 1995[1948]: 136153).

Qualified Enlightenment principles

Sartre departed from the archetypal Dreyfusard notion of the intellectual insofar as he exhibited an ambivalent attitude towards the Enlightenment. On the one hand, throughout Rflexions sur la question juive, he promoted Enlightenment principles and depicted anti-Semitism in juxtaposition to Enlightenment values. Anti-Semites were seen as distrustful of abstract reasoning and experience: they wish to lead the kind of life wherein reasoning and research play only a subordinate role (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 22; 1995[1948]: 19). Anti-Semitism was repeatedly described as primarily a passion (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 10; 1995[1948]: 10) in opposition to reasoning. When Sartre described anti-Semites as exhibiting bad faith, he explained that this is because they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 23; 1995[1948]: 20). So they stand for irrationalism, tradition, intuition, sentiment, the particular, the past and the concrete and oppose the Jew because of his association with critical rationalism, intelligence, universalism, the present and the abstract (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 2529, 134145; 1995[1948]: 2225, 109117). The anti-Semite is incapable of operating in and grasping modernity in all its complexity, and he is nostalgic for an undifferentiated primitive community (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 36; 1995[1948]: 30). On the other hand, Sartre expressed clear reservations about the merits of Enlightenment philosophy. He already did so in Lexistentialisme est un humanisme, in which he rejected universalism (Schor, 1999). In Rflexions sur la question juive he went further, questioning the Enlightenment both philosophically and politically. Philosophically, he continued along the same vein as Lexistentialisme est un humanisme in rejecting the essentialism of Enlightenment, preferring instead to talk about people as being in a situation. Contrary to the view that people have a nature in common, Sartre suggested they share a condition or basic human situation. By this, he referred to an abstract set of constraints common to all situations: all individuals are born in a world already inhabited by other people, most need to work to survive and all will die eventually (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 72; 1995[1948]: 60). Politically, Sartre posited that Enlightenment principles might contribute to the precarious conditions of the Jewish people. This is particularly telling in the passages where he depicted the character of the democrat whose nave Enlightenment belief in universal rights, justice and assimilation inadvertently undermine, rather than contribute to, the emancipation of the Jews (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 6670; 1995[1948]: 5558) For Heidegger, modern man is condemned to a life of inauthenticity, and Sartres inauthentic Jew cuts an equally pathetic figure, desperately trying to assimilate in a society that deep down rejects him or her and in the process losing his or her identity (see also Traverso, 1999: 8183). In short, Sartre departed here from the quintessential Dreyfusard notion of the intellectual who speaks out in the name of universal rights or

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justice. He argued that this Enlightenment pursuit, insensitive as it is to Jewish culture, would end up eradicating it (Hammerschlag, 2010: 8193).

Sartres forgetting
Drawing on the general outlook of existentialist philosophy and explicitly referring to its key notions, Rflexions sur la question juive was meant to be an exercise in applied existentialism. As mentioned before, applied existentialism utilized the philosophy to tackle current social and political issues, and Sartre regarded anti-Semitism as a significant social phenomenon with contemporary relevance. He was one of the few to do so at the time, and although the publication of the whole text with a larger publisher would have enhanced its dissemination, the publication of the first part, which dealt with the anti-Semite, in one of the first issues of Les Temps Modernes certainly helped to cement the issue of anti-Semitism as a relevant political issue. The significance and originality of Sartres text comes to the fore when put in the socio-political context of de Gaulles concerted attempts to reunite a fractured society. At the time, there was little political appetite in Gaullist circles and indeed on the left to delve into the issue of anti-Semitism, given its divisive qualities and French involvement (Judaken, 2006: 123126). This general reluctance to revisit the potentially explosive issue of anti-Semitism might also partly account for Gallimards lack of interest in publishing the book.6 But the very same socio-political climate might also explain some of the peculiar aspects of the text. Rflexions sur la question juive trod carefully through the political minefield of the post-war era. The text did this both by the theoretical claims that were being made and by the type of issues or events that were explored or left out. To start with the theoretical component, consistent with his earlier portrayal of the archetypal collaborator as someone who lives on the margins of society (and is therefore in search of an authoritarian force from outside) (1949b [1945]), Sartre held that anti-Semitism flourishes when integrative forces are weak and declines when society finds a renewed common purpose (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 184185; 1995[1948]: 149150). At his most eclectic, Sartre combined the theory of crowd behaviour with Durkheims evolutionary theory to argue that under conditions of diminished solidarity the anti-Semite cuts an isolated figure and precisely because of his atomized state becomes susceptible to the overpowering and destructive force of the crowd (see also Birnbaum, 1999:101; Traverso, 1999: 77 78). Not only did Sartres account exclude a proper investigation of the culture and institutions of French society or the role of the state, he portrayed anti-Semitism as antithetical to a properly functioning French society; it only surfaces and will only resurface in periods of anomie when solidarity is on the wane. Sartres argument, in conjunction with de Gaulles unifying efforts, portrayed anti-Semitism not just as a hankering for a mythical past but also as potentially a thing of the past if, as he hastily pointed out, the divisions between the classes are finally eroded. Moving on to the more descriptive dimension of Sartres navigation skills, whilst dealing with a highly sensitive issue in which the French were heavily implicated, the text still managed to avoid opening some of the darker pages of recent French history. Sartres account was abstract and, crucially, contained hardly any references to the Holocaust and none to Vichys active involvement in the deportation of the Jews. These

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omissions were in line with Sartres journalistic writings of 1944 and 1945, which confirmed de Gaulles picture of a cohesive and defiant French nation and his rsistantialiste account of history according to which a significant number of the French were resistance fighters and few were genuine collaborators (Judt, 1992: 45ff.; Rousso, 1991). This is particularly striking in La rpublique du silence (Sartre, 1949a[1944]), which praised the activities of the French resistance and then equated their heroics to those of the French people (Judaken, 2006: 106122; Suleiman, 2006). Equally revealing was Sartres Quest-ce quun collaborateur?, in which collaborators were portrayed as on the margins of French society: for Sartre, the typical collaborator was not properly integrated, he lived on the margins of society, and he was in search of a strong social force from the outside (Sartre, 1949b[1945]). Rflexions sur la question juive concentrated on the emotional state, views and rationalizations of anti-Semites, not on the atrocities that took place. As Traverso (1999: 73 75) pointed out, the Holocaust was surprisingly marginal in Sartres argument. Insofar as Sartre mentioned anti-Semitic actions, the text tended to ignore what the French did to the Jews. He discussed anti-Semitic actions in abstract terms or tended to provide examples from outside of France: for instance, the butchery of Lublin7 or the killing of Jews by the Gestapo (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 57; 1995[1948]: 4748). There were a few exceptions to this rule. For instance, Sartre came close to recognizing the French involvement in the persecution and deportation of the Jews when he depicted the democrat [who] during the occupation was indignant at the anti-Semitic persecutions (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 70; 1995[1948]: 58), but even here he remained vague about who the persecutors were. The reference to the occupation not to Vichy or to the French officials who appeared very willing to follow German orders seemed to suggest that the Germans were the sole persecutors. Sartre came closer towards acknowledging French responsibility for the atrocities committed against the Jews when he wrote that in 1940 the Ptain government initiated anti-Semitic measurements (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 85; 1995[1948]: 70). However, not only did the reference to measurements remain mild and fail to do full justice to what took place, the acknowledgement was then followed by the statement that today those Jews whom the Germans did not deport or murder are coming back to their homes (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 86; 1995[1948]: 71, my italics), thereby suggesting that the deportations were exclusively a German responsibility. Towards the end of the book, Sartre wrote about the responsibility which we all share, but it remains unclear to whom we refers, and even here he was only willing to admit our involuntary complicity with the anti-Semites (Sartre, 1954[1946]: 186; 1995[1948]: 151, my italics). In short, whilst Sartre was one of the first to systematically analyse antiSemitism and to bring it to the fore at this point in time, there is no doubt that he consciously or unconsciously curtailed his applied existentialism in function of the political sensitivities of the day, stopping short of writing openly of the French treatment of the Jews and their involvement in their deportation to the concentration camps. More significantly, there is another omission in the text, one which concerns Sartre directly and which is intimately related to his silence about the French involvement. Whilst in other publications in this period Sartre positioned himself as an engaged writer and virulently condemned authors who did nothing to halt the injustice and atrocities of their time, it is worth qualifying this heroic stance with two observations. Firstly, Sartre

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propagated this position precisely when the political context had become safer again and when taking a political stance had (at least for a while) become more of a symbolic act than one which made a real difference. Secondly, at crucial points during the war he himself had not spoken out when it really mattered: he had remained silent at the sight of the mistreatment and deportation of the Jews (Hollier, 1999b: 139148). In that sense his sarcastic comments about the democrat were particularly misplaced (at least the democrat had the courage to speak out when the lives of the Jews were at stake), but the we towards the end of the book could possibly include Sartre himself, and this was the closest he came to expressing his guilt (guilt from the perspective of his own theory of responsibility of the writer, that is). Be that as it may, Sartre carefully left out any reference to his own complicity from the narrative of Rflexions sur la question juive, something which was aided by the abstract tone of the text and of course by his neglect of the French context. Admitting to those failings would have made it particularly difficult for him to position himself as an intellectuel engag or to maintain that position.

Concluding remarks
This article has demonstrated how Rflexions sur la question juive enabled Sartre to position himself as an authoritative public intellectual a generalist with a strong moral voice, commenting on a wide range of issues without methodical analysis and as a politically committed writer with a progressive and autonomous stance. Other writings by Sartre at the time positioned him in a similar fashion, but as the first systematic piece of applied existentialism, this book was particularly central to how he carved a niche for himself within the post-war context. In his text, Sartre also managed to navigate carefully around the sensitivities surrounding the traumatic experiences of the war, implicitly confirming the official narrative of the French involvement in the war and protecting his self-presentation. It is in the light of this complex positioning with the cultural and sociopolitical field of the time that some of the omissions and peculiarities of the text make more sense. This is not to deny the importance or insightfulness of Rflexions sur la question juive. It is to argue that it would be misleading to read this book in isolation from Sartres positioning in the setting at the time. Ironically, once the text is put in this context, the deficiencies become more understandable, opening up space for appreciating both the originality of Sartres views at the time and the significance of his arguments for today. Sartres originality lies, amongst other things, in exposing the contradictions in the French republican notion of citizenship, encouraging Jewish people, as its assimilationist policies did, to lose their cultural identity under the false pretext that they would then be accepted. Moving the attention from Jews to Muslims, the more recent furore over the banning of the veil reveals the contemporary significance of Sartres argument about the problems underlying the French notion of citizenship. Of course, Sartres argument contained its own contradictions, calling on Jews, as he did, to assert the identity that, according to him, anti-Semites had imposed on them. Nor was Sartre particularly sensitive to the constraints imposed on Jews by their authentic culture and their genuine need to escape it.

Baert Notes
1.

395

2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7.

Shortly after the publication of Rflexions sur la question juive, Sartre was invited to lecture by two Jewish organizations in France because several Jewish intellectuals appreciated the arguments. See, for instance, Levinass commentary at the time in Les Cahiers de lAlliance (Levinas, 1999[1947]). Shortly after this, Levinas (1947) distanced himself from Sartres arguments. The phrase Jewish question, which appears in the French title, had also been used in antiSemitic literature. Rflexions sur la question juive is henceforth cited in parentheses in the text, with English page reference followed by French. The term Israel and Israelite were used at the time to refer respectfully to Jewish people. In the text Sartre often referred to Jews rather than Israelites but occasionally used the latter. The translator George G.Becker did not always follow Sartres terminology, sometimes opting for Jews and Jewish when Sartre used Israel and Israelite. For instance, Weil (1985) found an inverse correlation between education and anti-Semitism, with the strength of the association varying from country to country. Interestingly, Gaston Gallimards personal wartime trajectory provided an additional impetus for him to withdraw from this commercial proposition: he had published openly fascist and anti-Semitic material during the war and was keen to move forward (Assouline, 1994). Sartre is referring to the extermination of Jews in Lublin (Poland) and the concentration camp Majdanek on the outskirts of the city.

Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank Emma Murray and Alan Shipman for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Funding
This research has been funded by a British Academy Small Grant (SG102163) for which the author is grateful.

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Author biography
Patrick Baert is Fellow of Selwyn College and Reader in Social Theory at the University of Cambridge. Amongst his recent publications are Social Theory in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (with Filipe Carreira da Silva, Polity, 2010) and Philosophy of the Social Sciences: Towards Pragmatism (Polity, 2005). He also co-edited the volumes Conflict, Citizenship and Civil society (Routledge, 2010) and Politics of Knowledge (Routledge, 2012). His current research explores the intellectual landscape of the 1940s in France.