Bad Faith As Viewed by Jean-Paul Sartre Essay

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Bad Faith" as viewed by Jean-Paul Sartre in "Being and Nothingness" and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In "The Darkness of the Cave."

We will also digress and speculate if Jean-Paul Sartre and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were to engage in a conversation on "bad faith" as to what would each of them argue? We will discuss what their alleged beliefs on bad faith and freedom would entail.

Comparison and Contrast

Jean-Paul Sartre

For Sartre, we are condemned to be free. If we do not realize this, it is an act of "bad faith." For Sartre, when one lives a life is defined by occupation, racial, social, or economic class, this is, bottomline, the very inner essence of "bad faith." Sartre defines this as a condition in which people are able to transcend their life situations so that they can realize what must be and what they are not. For Sartre, it is also critical for a person who exists to understand that a negation of self for a person to reach their proper potential. This is because there is no God for people to plug into. These people proceed from a falsity and have committed bad faith because they have lied to themselves (Sartre, 1969, 47-48).

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in the 1960s that "Most people are totally unaware of the darkness of the cave in which the Negro is forced to live. A few individuals can break out, but the vast majority remains its prisoners.

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Our cities have constructed elaborate expressways and elevated skyways, and white Americans speed from suburb to inner city through vast pockets of black deprivation without ever getting a glimpse of the suffering and misery in their midst (King, 2010, 224)." This statement sets the tone for his essay. In his opinion, blacks in the ghetto have no access to the American dream that flies over the ghetto and drives on interstate highways that detour the slums. The affluent members of American society do not see what goes on in the ghetto with its suffering and miserable residents.

The residents of the ghettos however are very much aware of their situation. The outside world of America is an exclusive club, and they are not members. Instead, they toil and work at the menial jobs that the people outside the ghetto do not want to do. Even the good paying blue collar jobs are out of their reach because of the dominance of whites in labor unions (ibid.). Certainly, they are not part of the American dream and they would feel….....

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