The Alienation of Everyday Human Relations in Sartre’s Theory of Serialisation

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of Marxism in the philosophical work of Jean-Paul Sartre, with particular reference to the relationship between the individual and society, and the possibility of communal social action. In the context of the discourse of alienation that dominated the 1960s, Sartre’s theory of social action, with its phenomenological ontology and Marxist starting point, is examined as an outstanding theoretical achievement of Western Marxism. The concept of freedom in Sartre’s existentialist Marxism no longer interprets self-determination, planning and meaning-making in one’s own life in an individual way, but rather focuses on a communal functioning characterised by mutual recognition. This becomes the most significant idea of The Critique of Dialectical Reason. The traditional Marxist theory of class struggle is replaced by the serialisation of everyday human relations and the functioning of the group (as a temporary community) in relation to alienation and the possibility of revolutionary action for emancipation.