Sartre:

The Role of the Press and the University in a Concrete Democracy

Abstract

Based on the texts "Sommes-nous en démocratie?", published in the journal Les Temps Modernes in 1952 and included in Situations VI, and "L'ami du Peuple", an interview given to the newspaper L'Idiot International in 1970 and included as a postscript to the lectures on intellectuals in Situations VIII, I intend to follow Sartre's assumption of imagining the loss of meaning of the notions of truth and objectivity in a society torn apart by class struggle and divided into two antagonistic blocs. In this society, bourgeois liberal thought denies the existence of class struggle in order to maintain unchanged what sustains it economically, politically, and morally; and the revolutionary press provides the masses with news without a basis in fact, preferring lyricism to truth.

In this catastrophic scenario, where imaginary virtual gestures seemingly prevent concrete and collective actions, is there still anything that can be done? Sartre doesn't deny being optimistic. I, however, am much less so. Without hope, and starting from the description of a mystified democracy – such as the one we live in today – I intend to at least consider some guidelines that could guide us, both within universities (which seem to have lost the defense of knowledge) and in the left-wing press, in the pursuit of a concrete democracy.