by Pranshu Agnihotri
Sartre described Contingency and Necessity in a manner that is deviant from the way language would and compared them set upon the shoulders of experiences of his character, Antoine Roquentin, in his work Nausea. The character becomes witness to bizarre occurrences happening around him, such as lobsters following him on the streets or people engaging in abhorrent sexual activities, and realises that everything is contingent, i.e., it all could have happened in a different way. There was no necessity, and so by nature of contradiction, the definition of necessity became something that had to have happened.
Roquentin, exhausted by this contingency, finds his necessity in a ragtime jazz melody that is played at a bar where every next note flows over the previous in a manner that feels natural, eliciting emotions within him that it could have happened in no other way — ruling out all possibilities of alternative existences and leaving this one to be the only that is right. Of course, with Sartre, the underlying idea was always freedom — the freedom that comes when one is bound by situations, not chaos — and his notions of contingency and necessity were tainted by freedom all the same (admittedly this was in 1938, he was yet to write Being and Nothingness which would come out in 1943).
I wish to examine how Sartre’s concepts of Contingency and Necessity play out in the 21st Century, particularly in 2024, where they are now tainted not by freedom, but by a trichotomy of social media, ‘Voices’, and voices. In doing so, I wish to provide an operational definition of ‘Voices’, knowing full well these are only my thoughts and no scientific basis underlies them — the first instance that elucidates ‘Voice’, by my own example. The purpose I hope for my writing to attain is to test the understanding capacities of individuals and to enkindle introspection, to examine how much damage has already been done by social media giving everyone a (loud, albeit fake) voice, and how an actual ‘Voice’ can still be awakened.
To begin with, a distinction needs to be made between a voice and a ‘Voice’, just like Sartre made between Contingency and Necessity. A voice is something everyone has because of which communication and exchange of ideas, if only meagre ones, becomes possible. Enabling us to talk, express, dive, fall, float, fly in our interconnected worlds, a voice becomes our identity, solely by means of being one of the, if not the only, major ways to put ourselves ‘out there’. A ‘Voice’ encapsulates this voice but only to a certain length where it diverges in its path, ultimately reaching a synonymous destination.
A ‘Voice’, as per yours truly, is a conscious strain not on the larynx but on the brain that elicits vibrations in air which can be heard. A voice is merely orated which echoes in the surrounding for certain moments before eventually fading out, not achieving much for the orator or the audience. But a ‘Voice’ is what is responsible for capturing an audience, for filling seats and selling tickets, and also ensuring the next venue is sold out too.
A ‘Voice’ accomplishes for its speaker what a voice cannot, simply by its location of origin which lies a little underneath that bald spot one tries to hide, and not in the protrusion that one calls Adam’s apple. A ‘Voice’, apart from being sound just like a voice, prerequisites a logical consideration of not only whether what is about to be said is right or wrong, but also whether it is necessary. A ‘Voice’ comes with careful examination of the idea about to be put forth, its geographical and temporal significance, its objective of being borne and impact on the party/parties that would be involved in hearing it.
In simpler terms, a voice is something everyone has and uses to talk, share ideas, communicate. A ‘Voice’ is something only a handful possess which is employed after thinking whether something that is to be said, needs to be said. Therefore, a voice is a contingency, a leaf floating in the wind. A ‘Voice’ is a necessity, a mountain one climbs when a flood of voices encroaches the land of reason.
The definition of ‘Voice’ can very simply be put forth as :
A ‘Voice’ is what enables the logical flow of information, thoughts, and ideas in a manner that is comprehensible, important, and necessary.
With that, I wish to reiterate the purpose of this writing with a few corrections — I wish to examine how Sartre’s concepts of Contingency and Necessity play out in the 21st Century, particularly in 2024, where they are now tainted not by freedom, but by a polychotomy of social media, ‘Voices’, voices, and their impact on the decline of writing.
1. “What is the problem, bro?”
Sartre wrote a lot. In my reading of Sarah Bakewell’s ‘At the Existentialist Cafe’, a biography of Sartre, Heidegger, Beauvoir, Husserl, Camus, and others, I was surprised to find out just how much Sartre wrote. And he loved writing too. After having suffered from eye problems his entire life, towards the end when his remaining eye stopped working and he did not write for about 5 months, he described that period to be hell. It made me wonder why such little passion — or in Sartre’s case, obsession — is seen towards writing now, and why so few people want to read. I theorise that either the production of written material is negligible or if produced, it is of subpar quality. Moreover, it seems the demand for such written material has reduced by a lot.
One could argue that articles, books, and lectures are still being written and I talk like an idealist who lives under a rock where the truth is that I, myself, don’t lean my interests towards reading anymore. One could also argue that individuals still want to read but it’s due to the decline in quality of the written material that our hearts don’t flutter as much, it doesn’t arouse us enough that we get swayed in its direction; that its pull just isn’t strong enough. And one would be right in both circumstances. But how did we get here?
A critical role in the decline of the quality of written material as well as in people’s interest in consuming such, for the lack of a better term, literature, is of social media. Throughout history, during the pre-Internet times specifically, to get anything published or put out into the world, there were various channels that the material had to funnel through. As in the case of Sartre, his biggest proofreader was first and foremost Beauvoir, followed by his editor and then publishers. Information that was going to become accessible en masse was sieved through intermediary stages, refined and honed at multiple levels before it was deemed fit for consumption.
Now, everyone has a voice which they exercise to their fullest capacities on their pages, accounts, blogs, writeups, and whatnot. Nothing wrong in that but it does become a cause for concern when this voice is mistaken for a ‘Voice’ and evoked with a confidence that puts on display the foolishness of individuals instead of their bravery. And what reinforces it is the multitude of likes and comments and interactions they receive, raising the chances of such behaviour’s reoccurrence manifold.
Having a voice rewards an individual with power. Knowing their voice is heard increases the power’s magnitude and knowing how many people heard their voice solidifies beliefs having semblance with thoughts which look like, ‘I’m right.’ Amidst such voices, a ‘Voice’ drowns every day, either by being deemed the black sheep, or worse, in anonymity. The voices which prevail remain not voices and are instead transformed into noise — 20 people, often uninvited, speaking over the dinner table as the host’s toast goes unheard.
Social media has its dreamish ills — hazy, torrential, unpredictable — which become nightmarish in case of countries like India where everything happened too quickly. A collectivist society (consider here merely the adults of this society) harnessed the boon of globalisation in the last decade of the twentieth century which led to exposure to individualistic practices and instead of embracing the change, the members of public, a majority of them, withdrew into themselves — a quality highly characteristic of conservatives, which collectivism facilitated. And soon the advent of the Internet saw their children learning about computers and the World Wide Web in schools and classrooms.
Acculturation, the dual process of cultural and psychological change that takes place as a result of contact between two or more cultural groups and their individual members, as defined by the APA, is a process that is extremely complex in itself. While the Adult India of 20–30 years ago was learning to navigate the harsh waters that flew slyly in the gap amidst the collectivist and individualist shores, the young found themselves suddenly connected to the whole world via the Internet. This all would have been fine had there been qualified teachers providing quality training regarding cultural sensitivity, internet safety, emotional intelligence, to name a few.
It would have been the first step in countering what we now see online on meme pages — people making a mockery of absolutely anything and everything, be it political, religious, cultural, or personal issues. Someone belonging to a certain majority religious group would make fun of another minority group. Someone from a well-off country would make fun of one that is suffering. Someone would see someone exercising their personal freedom to express themselves however they want to, and they will be mocked with extreme prejudice and bigotry.
The individuals who partake in such jokes and find them funny hide under the guise of ‘being dank, having a dark sense of humour’, etc. Nothing wrong with those things, mind you, but they refuse all personal responsibility that lies on their shoulders. The responsibility I refer to is not that of stopping these activities altogether, but of exhibiting a little sensitivity to the circumstances and predispositions of others, a little empathy towards his fellows, a little regard of the other as being, primarily, a mere human being.
The adults of 1990s and 2000s India did not know what the Internet was and they learned it too late. The schools never bothered to teach the children of its true potential — something the world was still familiarising itself with. The children, thus, like seeds in the wind (read: voices) kept floating and are now trees planted in their own respective domains, strong and confident, proudly established individuals who discriminate and disregard everything that is against their beliefs or standpoints.
And this was not just an Indian phenomena but the reason I talk specifically of the Indian condition is this : the rest of the world was culturally more stable, having had time to be their own independent countries (the USA and European Nations). It allowed them with more than enough time to be their own selves that they had discovered over years, in a society that hadn’t been turbulent for generations at a time, prone to the ebbs and flows caused by other nations, and wasn’t undergoing a mass identity crisis.
All this can be observed from a glance at the history of our civilization. All one has to do is pick up the history and read, right?
Sartre’s Call to Action to all philosophers to take up arms (read: pens) against the injustices happening in the 1950s-60s across the world, with division into a bipolar world by the Cold War into two spheres of the Communist East and the Capitalist West, and the Soviet trials revealing the injustices behind the facade of a paradise and the death of humanity, was not only an urge to ask them to be firm in their political beliefs. I believe it was also something more fundamental — a call to awaken. Sure, Sartre’s own interests remained misaligned for years that followed, but that’s besides the point. And his call was heard and responded to by many fellow philosophers who indeed took up arms and rooted themselves in their stances — Camus took the side of his mother on the question of Algerian revolution, Merleau-Ponty preferred humans, and Sartre remained confused. But that confusion was still of inclinations, never of actions.
Another impact of social media, or the Internet, in general, on the writing of today is vastly observed in the inaction and confusion it causes in the form of the various mediums available right at our fingertips. If I wish to learn something today, I don’t physically travel to a bookstore and look for a book which would have the most information about said topic. Instead, I travel mentally to a hub of individuals (read: online) where I can get credible (not) information (not) for free which would definitely help me (NOT). I stay up one night reading all about the topic, everything I can find from Quora to Reddit to official websites which host articles that are 3 paragraphs long and I remember to quote my sources because you best believe I was raised right and received classes on internet safety and copyright infringement. By next morning, a (local) guru is born in the streets of Jaipur, Rajasthan. (I read the word ‘infringement’ in an online article today and looked it up on Google. Sweet, huh, this internet?)
This impacts the quality of writing today as well as one’s will to read. Why would a sane person force themselves to sit through a 300 page long, black and white, non-moving array of letters arranged into comprehensible words and sentences that convey an idea after having passed through various stages of approval that is deemed fit for production, when they can just watch a 30 second reel on it and obtain just as much information on it? And then why would that person not go preaching about what they ‘learned’ and have it become their ‘Voice’? (read: voice)
Here, in Sartrean terms, the noise formed by the legion of voices is the Contingency and it affects the Necessity of having a ‘Voice’, and those who possess this necessity and try to do it justice at every step, living through the painful, conscious existence exercising their freedom at every step which brings Kierkegaard’s anxiety of vertigo. The noise ties one down near the edge, stealing slyly their freedom and only providing them the illusion of it. “One of us” never felt better, one would think, and one would be right.
2. Case Studies — Existence Precedes Essence
Another separate issue I wish to bring to light is that of humour and conversations today. This is going to be more of a personal, directed angst that is pent up within me towards not only a few individuals, but towards society as a whole, or at least towards my own immediate environment. I will make a supposition of a Person X, and much like the variable ‘x’ in mathematics, various individuals from my life will be put into the frame of Person X, remaining unnamed, and I will recite incidents. I will use neutral, non-age specific terminologies to ensure their identities remain a secret.
If you are one of these people X reading this, these are things I could never really say to you because, frankly, I thought you too wilfully ignorant to understand my point. I do not wish to be condescending or patronising. I do not write this to satisfy my ego. I wish to talk to you directly, by medium of this post, hoping this knocks some sense into you. Again, I emphasise, I could not say these things to you in person. Believe me I tried. So, using the first section of this writing, I hope I have encouraged you to think for yourself and I hope that would be enough to make a difference and help you understand. If not, G*d help us all.
First Scenario : Problem
I was having a conversation with Person X about relationships. Person X presented me with a dilemma they were facing where they had an issue with a girl being a part of their group of friends which consisted only of guys. They gave me a supposition that if a girl entered the group then all the guys would, and I quote, “call dibs on her that she’s mine”, and the other guys would end up respecting the dibs, as one does. This would create an unfavourable situation because what was going on in the mind of the girl, no one would know, and so complications of attraction of one person towards another, and another’s towards another-another would arise, sort of giving birth to a love triangle.
Here, as per the supposition presented to me by Person X, one guy would have feelings of affection towards the girl who they called “dibs” on. The girl would have feelings of affection towards a second guy (who may or may not be interested, but for the sake of the example, we’ll assume he isn’t interested). This way, the dibs the first guy made won’t be respected and this would cause feelings of jealousy in the first guy’s heart towards the second guy. Such feelings would poison the friendship and so, the first guy, if it happened to be Person X, preferred no girl be a part of their all guy group because the risk of losing another guy friend was too large and not worth it.
I suggested to Person X if they considered there were certain assumptions they were basing this whole thing off on. For example, the assumption that if a girl became part of the group, then there would be attraction from one party towards another, either male or female. To answer this, Person X told me that it was basic biology — one’s primal urges and instincts would drive one to be attracted to another. I disagreed with him, putting forth my belief that such mentality was characteristic of horny individuals who believed the world only revolved around sex and nothing else. I told them I believed it is possible for neither any male nor the female to be attracted to anyone else, and they thwarted my claims by emphasising that this was the way it worked. I conceded.
The conversation had many twists and turns where we examined putting both Person X and myself into the first guy’s and the second guy’s shoes. Upon one instance, it was mentioned by me that what Person X was saying was sounding extremely sexist. They admitted that if it is sexist, then so be it, but they would want their point to be put forth regardless. We played around the hypothesis until Person X brought up the point of losing a friend again, and asked me if I would rather lose a friend who has been present in my life for many years for another person, matters not male or female, who I met, say, only a year ago. I told them that I would because I believed it was the quality of the bond that mattered. We agreed to disagree and eventually concluded that Person X did not even present it to me as a problem to be solved, and were only mentioning it as one of their beliefs.
First Scenario : Analysis
I was very disturbed when Person X presented this hypothetical to me. From the example above, I’m sure you would be able to notice the sexist language that was used, the inherent beliefs that signify the primitive mentality that is driven solely by biology and not humanistic tendencies. Another disturbing theme was the sexist remarks, mainly the “calling dibs on her”, which made me feel ashamed for deeming Person X a valuable figure in my life.
I pondered over it for long after the conversation came to a halt and we both pretended as if nothing happened. But I knew something happened and I still think about it now. To Person X, if you’re reading this now, I just want to say that you cannot just admit “yeah, if it’s sounding sexist then so be it” and carry on that way. It’s not something to be proud of. It’s not something to embrace. The fact that you said the words “calling dibs on her” is the most baffling to me — the thought first came into your head and you deemed it worthy enough to be put into words and uttered.
You have become extremely set in your ways and you have lost the ability to see things novelly. You believe what you believe, and you also believe that it is absolute — that everyone else is either stupid or wrong. You go around manipulating others in subtle ways that you think are unnoticeable but they are very well noticed, you lie compulsively without thinking why you do so, and deem others to be mere puppets while you are the puppet master. I am close to you and it hurts me everytime you elicit such behaviour. I am this close to breaking the bond we have, so I put upon you a Call to Action, just like Sartre. Just think, man. Think.
Think about what you do. Think about who you are, who you have become, and compare it to your childhood self whether it is what you set out to be. I doubt that at such a late stage, anything could be accomplished by you but as someone who cares about you (shamefully), it is my responsibility to do so. And if this feels threatening to you, like I’m calling you out, and you think “there was no need to do this publicly” and that I could have just called you, know that I couldn’t have. Know that I have tried at least 500 times in the past and it has not worked. This is the only choice I have left.
Please, respect others, I beg. Lest you ruin all you have, sooner or later.
Second Scenario : Problem
This Person X and I had a long political and religious argument. The scenario was when the election results were being declared and the opposition was gaining support in various constituencies, Person X mentioned, regretfully, in a group chat that now, the party they were supporting would not come into power and hence, all the jokes they made on Muslims would have to come to an end.
I mentioned that people like them who are racist, casteist, and generally Islamophobic would always find a way. They replied with, “Thanks for hyping me up, brother.” A debate ensued on a group of 7 individuals where, except for one or two people, no one said a thing. No one bothered to say a thing. Person X defended their racist, casteist and Islamophobic ideas with pride, putting forth arguments where they called me a Communist (for no reason whatsoever), admitted that they only made jokes like this within this group where no one would judge them and thus, it wasn’t doing any real harm, and that, most importantly, they had Muslim friends.
In the end, after over 3 hours of conversation over text, they admitted with pride that they were a racist individual and would not stop making such jokes. I do not know this to be true or false but they seemed unfazed by most of the discussion and in the days that followed, I still noticed the same behaviour in them, in both public and private.
Second Scenario : Analysis
What disturbed me the most about this scenario was not only the fact that they had such beliefs, but how adamantly they defended them, as if I were coming after their family’s pride. They also admitted that everyone does such things — like making fun of Muslims or other minorities based on their respective stereotypes, or calling people from a poor socio-economic background Bhangi or Chamaar while grinning ear to ear. It was shocking to witness these things as, until not too long ago, I was too ignorant to know better.
But that is my entire point. It is never too late to learn, to grow, to improve, to stop being the way you are. Why do you carry so much hatred in your heart for a particular group or community or caste and defend it by citing something that the group did a hundred years ago. What difference does it make, I ask, if it happened to your great grandfather, or to your father? What difference does it make that it happened when you weren’t looking, or right in front of your eyes?
You can quote a thousand examples where you tell me about riots caused by a certain community, attacks authorised by some Fundamentalist States, and you can blame it all on religion. I ask you what your personal grievance is with them, and you will never be able to quote an instance. And if you are, then I say hate the person who wronged you. Why hold it against the entire community? “Because they hold it against me, too.” So then they are wrong as well.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. And similarly, I want to say something to the members of that group, you know who you are and I hope and pray to whatever G*d you believe in that you are reading this — was it not your responsibility to stand up to your “friend” and tell them where they were wrong? One of you texted me after the debate ended personally and told me, “That was needed, someone had to do it. Good job.” Why could you not do it? It simply didn’t concern you? You’ll right that wrong when it gets to your doorstep? When the seed of hatred has spread so far and wide that you find yourself running from people affected by this hatred?
What if one of your friends is the one who is chasing you? Will you lay down your life for your friend, just like you protect him, AND YOURSELVES, by being silent?
Third Scenario : Problem
Here, Person X and I were having a conversation about something which they did not know too much about, and I was pretty well informed of. This Person X held some authority over me and thus, I wasn’t entirely free in what I was allowed to say or do, and was being forced to do just as I was being told. That is something I would always refuse to do, if I don’t believe in it, if I haven’t examined the rights and wrongs for myself, so here too, I refused.
Person X kept insisting and pressing on the fact that I do as they were telling me to do and I kept refusing. This led to an argument between Person X and I which caused a lot of tensions.
Third Scenario : Analysis
Every individual is capable of making their own decisions. They can think for themselves and quite often, there is no need to tell them to “not walk in fire” because surely, they too have eyes and are aware that fire burns. Call it whatever you want — Stating the obvious, or Backseating, or Dictatorial Tendencies are somethings that are extremely prominent in Indians today where the roots of society are still that of a collective society, which clashes constantly with today’s changing times where individuals are influenced by Western Ideas of Individualism.
Indian society still hasn’t fully developed and blossomed into an Individualistic society. It yet remains a bud, nascent and fragile, and needs to be handled with care. This would have to come from both ends — from any two people interacting together. I was having a conversation today with a friend and we agreed on how everyone has advice ready today — you present them with a problem and they riddle your body with suggestions on what you should do and what worked for them and how they have been through the same thing. This advice often comes unprompted and causes frustration, specifically for individuals who are trying to do, or trying to learn to do things on their own.
Conclusion
Sartre tells us “Existence precedes Essence”. We are individuals who exist, first and foremost, and denies Descartes’s idea of “I think, therefore I am.” He twists it on itself and tells us, “I am, therefore I think”, implying my life is a necessary precondition to my thought. This ultimately implies that as long as I live, I am free to do whatever I wish, think whatever I want.
So I ask Person X from the First Scenario — Why not think of something in a more liberal, open-minded fashion than remaining closed off in your own head, fixed in your own ways? Why be sexist and admit it with pride? Why lie all the time? Why not respect others and get that respect for a change, instead of mere tolerance?
I ask Person X from the Second Scenario — Why hold what happened to your ancestors in riots against a group of people now? Why not think for yourself and decide who to hate, instead of acting off of what you have been told? Why not be a better person, instead of admitting you are a racist with pride?
I ask Person X from the Third Scenario — Why let your ways corrupt you such that your ears, and thus cognitions, become fallible? Why let your notions of perceived superiority direct your misjudgment and mistreatment of others? Why not think for yourself?
Ultimately, for all of you, existence precedes essence too.
3. “What can be done, bro?”
Stepping back from the case studies — phew! — and returning to the topic at hand — What can be done? What can be done about this issue of a voice and a ‘Voice’, of Contingency and Necessity? To be very honest with you, reader, I don’t think there’s anything that can be done by anyone. A short and sweet answer lies in the quality of education one receives — to ensure it teaches people how to think, not what to think — and a pledge that individuals take to continue to educate themselves even after school and university end, and this education will be the education of life, and thus, ultimately of freedom.
The idealist in me peeps out every now and then, I know, it’s one of the flaws. He wishes to participate and contribute but fails every time by nature of the things he says or when he says them. If it were this simple, the world would already be less doomed.
I believe Sartre was right a lot more than he was wrong. His readings of Husserl’s phenomenology, which have inspired the writing in this piece as well, of Heidegger’s analysis of Being and it’s various relatives, as well as his own obsession with writing led him to give to us one of the most important gifts one could give to a civilisation — Freedom.
We all indeed are free to choose for ourselves — choose what to say, what to do, how to do it, and who to be. He told us that the situations and circumstances we feel bound by are the things that give meaning to our freedom — because without them, it’d just be chaos, like an astronaut floating in space without a harness. His ideal of freedom is something he lived by and something I am trying to live by now, although it does come with its own set of Kierkegaardian anxiety — that vertigo you feel when you are looking down from a cliff, unable to trust yourself that you won’t throw yourself off. If you were tied to the edge, you’d feel much safer because then your freedom has been taken away from you.
Sartre believed that freedom brings anxiety because at every moment, you are free to make choices and that constant decision-making not only puts a burden on one, but also makes us experience that vertigo. To protect our feeble selves against this, we do many things that keep us bound to a system, that make us say “I cannot because…” or “I have to do this…”. For example, we set an alarm to wake up in the morning and then relieve ourselves of all responsibility that lies on our shoulders that waking up is something we have to do by ourselves. If we sleep through the alarm, we can blame it on it and say, “The alarm didn’t sound!” In Sartre’s terms, all these ‘have-tos’ and ‘cannots’ are nothing but “so many guard rails against anguish”, as they give us the illusion that we are not free when in reality, we are.
So, according to me, a Necessity today is for more to see their freedom and exercise it properly — to fully realise they are free in thought and action. To not give excuses for their actions and take responsibility for being a (shitty or great) human being. This way, the voices that form the noise may slowly dry out and fade away in this humdrum of the Internet where visual and audio media prevail and everyone ‘protagonises’ their lives, claiming their words, their own subjective reality to be the only Necessity and rest all to be Contingent, as if there are no two faces of a coin.
As I write this, I wonder if it all fits in today’s society or if I’m fibbing out of my behind. But something tells me not everyone will read this and of the few who do, will brush it past, obscuring it to be unnecessary or inapplicable to them. They will wonder, as I am, if it really applies to them and come to decide that it does not, as I am not. Of course, theirs is a ‘Voice’, fully conscious, beyond the grasp of juvenility, soaring towards transcendence. I would say something in contradiction but it would be but a voice, a mere addition to the noise, rising from my larynx as something (which I perceive to be) unique, eventually flattening out to match the stagnant, stratified hum of the noise.
