“觉今是而昨非”——论西蒙娜·德·波伏瓦回忆录《岁月的力量》

Proper Decision Now and Mistake Before:On Simone de Beauvoir's La force de l'age

西蒙娜·德·波伏瓦将她的存在主义哲学运用到回忆录的写作中。她的第二部回忆录《岁月的力量》贯穿着她对自我—他人关系的讨论。波伏瓦深刻地认识到个人意志至上的价值取向造成了她对他人存在的漠视,而这种漠视最极端的表现,便是当年对日益迫近的战争威胁不闻不问:在全面检讨了二战爆发前自己的种种不是之后,波伏瓦开始不遗余力地介绍二战对她和萨特的重大影响,即他们是如何摒弃绝对的自由观念,正视“历史”和“他人”,由小资产阶级文人转变为积极“介入”的知识分子的过程。对这一转变的过分强调,意味着波伏瓦很难客观公正地叙述她和萨特在沦陷期的所作所为。

Simone de Beauvoir applies her existentialist philosophy to the writing of her memoirs.Her second memoir,La force de l'age is filled with her discussions of the relationship between self and other.De Beauvoir is acutely aware that the primacy of her own self results in her indifference to others and to the outside world,the most extreme form of which is her indifference to the looming threat of war.After a thorough review of her own mistakes before the outbreak of World War II,she goes to great lengths to describe the great impact of the war on Sartre and herself,including how they abandoned the concept of the absolute freedom,faced up to“history”and“others”,and transformed themselves from petty-bourgeois intellectuals into engaged intellctuals.The overemphasis on this transformation makes it is difficult for Beauvoir to give an objective and fair account of what she and Sartre did during the occupation.