They met in college in Paris in 1929 and remained together until Jean-Paul’s death, in 1980, their relationship a unique kind of amorous companionship founded in mutual intellectual curiosity, not based on nor requiring exclusivity in sexual partners, a kind of romantic stoicism, an attitude that said, “Our life together is what it is, perfect and whole, not affected by what we may do when we’re apart.” More significant than sexual independence, though, was de Beauvoir’s liberation from convention generally.
Jean-Paul and Albert Camus and other, lesser lights in the post-religious, European philosophical era, commonly known as Existentialists, made history expressing their belief in the observation that human life was inherently meaningless, that the cradle-to-grave experience was in fact, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Not a new idea by any means, but easy to sell amid the meaninglessness of life that humanity experienced in the age of plague, world-wars, global genocide and economic depression.
Simone apparently agreed with this sad outlook. However it was she who articulated the solution. In “The Ethics of Ambiguity,” and elsewhere, she wrote about the opportunity – in fact the obligation – each of us has to recognize that the meaning of life, the path to fulfillment in our minds and our souls, was our responsibility to find and to follow. Happiness a decision to be made. She proposed that the requirements for eudaimonia, Aristotle’s term for fulfillment or true success, was for each of us to realize. This was the statement of the new existentialist featuring a new, nurturing feminine spirit that said, “Mes amis, c’est vrais. Your happiness is up to you.” The prescription for meaning in life is first to find out who you really are meant to be, then to be that person.
M. Sartre saw the problem. Simone had the solution.
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