While researching Sartre, I came across an article about how he refused a Nobel Prize for literature fifty years ago. He was offended by not being notified of the award, and consequently, he ended up rejecting it. He did not want his words to transform from their original intent to an “institution” of someone else’s design. One of the main points in his work, Bad Faith, emphasizes the roles we conform to even when we do not have to act in them. The paradoxical characteristics of humans strike him as absurd as he stands firm taking responsibility for his words.
Within Sartre’s work, a major point is the distinction between a “being-in-itself” and a “being-for-itself.” While the “being-in-itself” is about facticity of an object, the “being-for itself” is defined by a human’s freedom of choice. Understanding the weight of your decisions and that you are not stuck in one place creates much anxiety among people. To lie to themselves offers a foolish feeling of comfort, causing many to remain blinded by their lies. This altered state of reality allows them to deny responsibility of their actions.
While he realized the Nobel Prize was important, Sartre did not want his book to represent another's concept of what it was. As a human with freedom, he did not want to put himself into a position like the waiter in the cafe and sink to the level of a "being-in-itself." He decided the best course of action for himself and chose his path.
To not automatically accept this prestigious award seemed unimaginable from my perspective. However, learning what I now know about Sartre, I know he would not accept his work to become "institutionalized" and mutate the meaning of his work. Sartre did not want to choose the easy path of ignoring the responsibility of humans, but instead, understood what he needed to do.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/22/jean-paul-sartre-refuses-nobel-prize-literature-50-years-books
I think it is really strange how sometime we as humans will play roles such as the waiter in our lives. I feel that we tend to have a habit of creating reasons for everything. For example with the waiter, the waiter plays this role and acts just like a waiter would because he needs the job to pay for things. This kind of removes the responsibility from our actions in our minds as if we have no choice but to do certain things.
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