I worry that antisemites were Sartre’s outgroup (as they should be), and that this explains his description of them better than reality. Sure, maybe the kind of people he describes are overrepresented among racists, however, if a majority of racists were as lazy and stupid as he claims, WW2 would have been a lot shorter.
People choose to be wrong
Of course, they make no such conscious choices. The problem, I suspect, is that their minds “truth” is defined as something impenetrable, and when they see you asking questions and making mistakes, they deduce that you don’t know the truth. Really, it’s a very simple error to make, if you look at common depictions of wise men.
I worry that antisemites were Sartre’s outgroup (as they should be), and that this explains his description of them better than reality. Sure, maybe the kind of people he describes are overrepresented among racists, however, if a majority of racists were as lazy and stupid as he claims, WW2 would have been a lot shorter.
Of course, they make no such conscious choices. The problem, I suspect, is that their minds “truth” is defined as something impenetrable, and when they see you asking questions and making mistakes, they deduce that you don’t know the truth. Really, it’s a very simple error to make, if you look at common depictions of wise men.