The Psychology of Freedom - Bad Faith
The existentialists view of freedom, pioneered by Sartre, is quite different to how freedom is most commonly understood. Sartre does not believe freedom is something we enjoy; something we relish and fear being taken away from us. In fact, Sartre argues, freedom is something we fear itself. This is because true freedom entails responsibility. If we are free to choose how to act/not act, what to say/not say, then we are responsible for all of these choices. It is that responsibility that brings anxiety. And so, we constantly act in “bad faith”, which is the denial of our own freedom, and thus our responsibility for our actions. It is as if, whilst complaining about our lack of freedom, we are secretly (or perhaps unconsciously…not that Sartre believed in an unconscious as such) comforted by being able to pass blame to another.
It is because the existentialists put more emphasis on actions, rather than words, that this conclusion is understandable. Your words tell me nothing of your beliefs, desires, hopes, potential etc, but your actions can tell me much about you. This is for the simple reason that our fundamental beliefs are buried at the bottom of our unconscious…so you don’t even know what you believe.
This view of freedom becomes clearer when we consider some very simple examples, that many of us may have experienced. Take Netflix. You want to watch a film, so you start scrolling through the options. But the options are almost unlimited. You scroll and see one you think could be good, but you decide to look a bit further…and further…and further until you are sick of looking and you decide not to watch a film at all. Or, someone else chooses a film for the two of you to watch. If you disliked the film, it is easy to blame them and to moan about their film choices…yet maybe a part of you was happy they chose a film because it abdicated you of any responsibility for the choice.
A further example, one which is often viewed by therapists, involved a person constantly asking for advice, such as “what do you think I should do?”, “What do you think?”, “Is this the right thing to do?” etc. These questions can come from a true desire for input on one’s decision. However, they can also be used to pass responsibility for an action. By asking, “what do you think I should do?”, the questioner passes on responsibility. By answering the question from such a person you have, unknowingly, taken on the responsibility for the decision, making it easy for the questioner to say, if it goes wrong, that is was your fault or that you gave bad advice; they denied their freedom of choices, as it was too anxiety provoking, and passed the decision on to you. This is one of the reasons why handing out advice in such a way in therapy is strongly discouraged and should only be used as a considered intervention. The therapist is, otherwise, taking away the client’s autonomy and allowing them the façade of bad faith.
The consequences for acting in such a way span beyond Netflix, into society and government. We’ll explore this in the next post.