Sartre’s greatest impact on America was during the postwar years, especially during the 1960s, but his ideas influenced a number of radical cultural movements that followed. For example, his moral and cultural relativism helped open the door to the sexual revolution. Not coincidentally, Sartre was himself a serial womanizer. His attack on the idea of fixed human nature made possible viewing identity as pure construction and social roles as oppressive. This made plausible the emphasis of critical theories placed on power, deconstruction, and grievance.

Much has been written about the crisis of meaning among young adults. In 2023, Harvard’s On Edge report found that 58% of 18- to 25-year-olds experienced little or no meaning or purpose during the previous month. 50% reported that their mental health suffered from “not knowing what to do with my life.” Earlier this year, Talker Research reported that 32% of Americans are suffering from an existential crisis, including 52% of Gen-Z. 

It is no accident that the crisis of meaning has coincided with the rise of transgender ideology. The idea that the internal perception and projection of oneself is what is ultimately true, and that biology, family, culture, religion, and everyone else should be made to align is the ultimate social experiment. Specifically, it is the attempt to make meaning as if there is no meaning. 

Of the many contributing factors to these phenomena, a primary intellectual source is the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre, who was born 121 years ago this month. Sartre was the central figure in the philosophical movement of existentialism. In fact, the term existentialism is derived from Sartre’s most famous statement, that “existence precedes essence.”  

In this saying, Sartre inversed the traditional understanding of the relationship between essence, which refers to a thing’s nature or purpose, and existence. Historically across most times and cultures, essence was considered logically prior to existence. Thus, there is a fixed human nature (essence) in which people participate (existence). 

Sartre rejected the notion of a fixed human nature. He argued that the individual must decide their nature.

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