Norman Mailer on On Sartre's God Problem
Interesting piece in The Nation by Norman Mailer assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Sartre's thought.
posted by James @ 5/20/2005 09:25:00 AM
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The Mailer assessment of Sartre is first rate, and it's also a particularly punchy essay. It's akin to the verve he had in The Presidential Papers. It's intriguing that Mailer takes Sartre to task for dismissing God from the existentialist equation, chiding him for believing that greater goodness and fairer conditions can be generated by men alone, sans divine inspiration. Mailer doesn't seem to insist on the existence of a good and great god as a matter of fact--ever the mystic, he suggests the possibility through metaphor, simile, sweetly arranged analogies.
What would matter is the demonstration of good acts as a result of the belief. This makes you wish Mailer had spent more time
with philosophical conumdrums; perhaps someone with sufficient credentials can interview Mailer someday about his views on William James.
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