Situation () is a concept developed by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. It refers to "how ritualized action might be avoided or at least confronted consciously as contrary to the subject's freedom of nihilation".
Overview The concept was first expressed in his 1943 work Being and Nothingness, where he wrote that:
Earlier, in his 1939 novella The Childhood of a Leader collected in The Wall, Sartre expressed the concept while referring to pranks, saying that they "have a revolutionary value. They disturb. There is more destructive power in them than in all the works of Lenin."Jean-Paul Sartre, Lloyd Alexander (1969), The wall (Intimacy) and other stories, p. 109.Stuart Zane Charmé (1993), Vulgarity and Authenticity: Dimensions of Otherness in the World of Jean-Paul Sartre, pp. 184-5.
Another famous use of the term was in 1945, in his editorial of the first issue of Les Temps modernes (Modern Times); arguing the principle of the responsibility of the intellectual towards his own times and the principle of an engaged literature, he summarized that "the writer is in a situation with his epoch." An influential use of the concept was in the context of theatre, in his 1947 essay For a Theatre of Situations, where he wrote that "if it's true that man is free in a given situation and that in and through that situation he chooses what he will be, then what we have to show in the theatre are simple and human situations and free individuals in these situations choosing what they will be".
In 1947, Sartre began to publish his series, Situations. He continued to publish entries in this series until 1976. Situations I: Critiques littéraires / Literary Critiques (1947) Situations II: Qu'est-ce que la littérature? / What Is Literature? (1947) Situations III / The Aftermath of War (1949) Situations IV: Portraits / Portraits (1964) Situations V: Colonialisme et Néo-Colonialisme / Colonialism and Neocolonialism (1964) Situations VI: Problèmes du Marxisme 1 / Problems of Marxism, Part 1 (1966) Situations VII: Problèmes du Marxisme 2 / Problems of Marxism, Part 2 (1967) Situations VIII: Autour de 1968 / The Author in 1968 (1972) Situations IX: Mélanges (1972) Situations X: Politique et Autobiographie / Life/Situations: Essays Written and Spoken (1976)
Guy Debord, Letterist and Situationist International Sartre's concept of Situation was reprised by Guy Debord at least since the times of the Letterist International.Hussey, Andrew (2002), The game of war: the life and death of Guy Debord, p. 105.Touza, L. Sebastian (2008), Antipedagogies for liberation politics, consensual democracy and post-intellectual interventions, p. 171.Kaufmann, Vincent (2011), Guy Debord. for the Institut français. English translation Guy Debord by Martin Richet In January 1954, the Letterist International declared: "The new beauty will be that of THE SITUATION, that is to say, provisional and lived."Letterist International, January 1954 in La Carte d’après Nature. Republished in Potlatch n.5.Sheringham, Michael (2006). Everyday life: theories and practices from surrealism to the present, p. 162.
Claire Gilman called Sartre a "father figure" for the Situationist International, and wrote that "Sartre and his philosophy of the situation are fundamental to the SI's notion of everyday life authentically experienced".Claire Gilman, Asger Jorn 's Avant-Garde Archives, in Guy Debord and the Situationist International, p. 201 and note 18 on p. 210. The relationship between Sartre's philosophy of the situation and the Situationist International is clarified by Peter Wollen in his essay "Bitter Victory".Peter Wollen, Bitter Victory: The Art and Politics of the Situationist International, published in Elisabeth Sussman (1989), On the passage of a few people through a rather brief moment in Time: The Situationist International 1957-1972.
References
Further reading Sartre, Jean-Paul. (1973). "Théâtre populaire et théâtre bourgeois". Théâtre populaire, n° 15, 1955. Also in Un théâtre de situations.