"The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity"
About this Quote
Sartre lands this line like a thrown bottle: meant to shatter the comforting glass of bourgeois “charity.” The phrasing is deliberately ugly. “Function” reduces human beings to a role in someone else’s moral economy, and “our generosity” slips in the real target: the self-congratulating “we” that needs poverty to feel virtuous. It’s a joke with teeth, because the joke is on the people who think they’re the heroes.
The intent isn’t to sneer at the poor; it’s to indict a social arrangement where compassion becomes a performance and inequality becomes useful. Sartre is exposing how philanthropy can operate as social deodorant: it masks the stench of structural exploitation while allowing the comfortable to keep their comfort. The poor, in this worldview, are not citizens with claims but props in a morality play that flatters the benefactor.
The subtext is pure Sartrean existentialism filtered through postwar politics: if human beings are supposed to be free, then turning anyone into a means for someone else’s self-image is an ethical scandal. The line also echoes his broader critique of “bad faith,” the habit of hiding from responsibility by playing a role. Here, the role is the generous savior, which quietly depends on keeping the saved in their place.
Context matters: mid-century France, the rise of consumer prosperity alongside decolonization and class conflict, and a left intellectual scene suspicious of liberal humanitarianism that stops at handouts. Sartre isn’t rejecting generosity; he’s demanding we notice when it’s cheaper than justice.
The intent isn’t to sneer at the poor; it’s to indict a social arrangement where compassion becomes a performance and inequality becomes useful. Sartre is exposing how philanthropy can operate as social deodorant: it masks the stench of structural exploitation while allowing the comfortable to keep their comfort. The poor, in this worldview, are not citizens with claims but props in a morality play that flatters the benefactor.
The subtext is pure Sartrean existentialism filtered through postwar politics: if human beings are supposed to be free, then turning anyone into a means for someone else’s self-image is an ethical scandal. The line also echoes his broader critique of “bad faith,” the habit of hiding from responsibility by playing a role. Here, the role is the generous savior, which quietly depends on keeping the saved in their place.
Context matters: mid-century France, the rise of consumer prosperity alongside decolonization and class conflict, and a left intellectual scene suspicious of liberal humanitarianism that stops at handouts. Sartre isn’t rejecting generosity; he’s demanding we notice when it’s cheaper than justice.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|
More Quotes by Jean-Paul
Add to List
