Debating Sartre At 100

Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre would have been 100 last week. “French newspaper and magazine supplements, as well as television panels, radio shows and bookstore displays, utterly swamped the idea, pushed by ideological enemies of bad faith, that 20th-century Europe’s most famous philosopher has long since grown passe. Did Sartre hate America or regret it? Was the “freedom” he exalted the same as George W. Bush’s? Could the “later Sartre” fairly be dubbed a “godfather of political terrorism”? The tiny, wall-eyed, serial seducer and manuscript producer would have loved every paragraph.”