Choosing freedom means learning to exist without seeking permission from the systems around us. Beauvoir lived her life like an ultimatum to society, proving that a genuine choice owes no translation, no apology, and no audience. It stands justified entirely by the freedom of the one who made it, leaving the bystanders to stumble on their own confusion.
Simone de Beauvoir, whose own mother said that “She has a man’s brain; she thinks like a man; she is a man”, challenged the perspective of all those around her, even of those who simply came to know her name and life. To contest Dostoevsky’s Fatalism in a world that was paralyzed by fear and had nothing to hope for was an intrepid move on her behalf, her second essay, “The Ethics of Ambiguity”, argued that while we are all born as free individuals, freedom is a choice we have to constantly make in order to not lose its essence.
One archetype she used to explain such a point of view was the Nihilist, who was defined by the nothingness that life presents, a perspective that easily led to destructive, totalitarian movements, fueled by the chase to feel something. Simone considered that Nihilists reject their own freedom, escaping it, and live by the principle that nothing matters – the choice that lays at the foundation of all consequences. On the same spectrum, she used The Adventurer, who revels in such freedom, abusing its liberties without pondering the effects their actions have on others. The effortlessness with which Adventurers chase the feeling lost by nihilists is the catalyst for years and years of oppression brought upon society.
Simone de Beauvoir’s writing is quite hard to decipher sometimes, you may feel lost at first, trying to hang on to an idea, a concept she might focus on. You may look at her life trying to find a story that answers at least one question from all the many that she raised. Depending on what bridge you just crossed in your personal life, you might start recognizing a pattern in her notes, writings and every commitment she ever made in life: that every decision leads to another one – just as for anybody else. Unlike most of the revolutionaries or philosophers of her time, she was a master of transitions. Beauvoir made herself known for treating each of her works as a vital foundation for the next, cultivating an interconnected trajectory of thought marked by deliberate transitions until they ultimately converged. Transitions that maybe are not the end goal for feminists in today’s world, that maybe are more confusing than any previous numbness the world had experienced, transitions that still are desperately needed in the chaotic reality of today.
Why do we still need these transitions? Because more than 50 years later, we still haven’t found the answers our grandmothers were looking for. Because we have been fighting on both public and unseen battlefields all around the globe, some for the right to speak, some for the right to exist safely upon their own soil rightful land, some for education, some for clean water and food, some for a better future on a planet that is slowly collapsing – or at least drastically changing, under our eyes. Beneath all these distinct battlefields lies a universal, psychological trap: the oppressive demand for justification. There is an unspoken expectation in our world that forces those who are simply trying to survive to constantly explain and legitimize their choices to onlookers. The question, built upon Beauvoir’s existential foundation, I pose here – “Why do we confuse our inability to understand someone’s choice with their obligation to explain it?” – may be the best bridge to cross, the closest the world can get to true freedom.
As presented by Simone, the Nihilists, who successfully realize the flaws of certain doctrines and stop acknowledging the “Serious Man” inside, crumble at the discovery that everything they believed in is fake, that most of their beliefs are not based on real arguments. Moving from a rejection of rules to a loss of meaning is a terrifyingly short step. The Adventurers create a context for others’ choices in their quest to explore raw, existential freedom. And yet, at the intersection of the Nihilist’s refusal to validate false rules and the Adventurer’s remorseless action lies the redemptive dimension of their shared cruelty: the raw liberty of leaving one’s choices entirely unexplained. It is simply instinctive to recognize the patterns and to seek a clear distinction between the harmful and innocuous aspects of freedom, only to be baffled by the duality of it.
Resembling Simone de Beauvoir’s life, her work makes you think you ended up in the same place you started, only to realize, after the information has settled, that the issues and questions she raised made you doubt multiple answers you thought were perfect. She reflects on the way women and men have coexisted since the beginning of time, the way society gives but also takes from all. Most importantly, she is the perfect example of a human being that was both the victim and the persecutor of her own archetypes: a woman born ahead of her time, who made questionable decisions throughout her life, executing her freedom. She understood to some extent both sides of the same coin but never could only decide on one. Her views brought desperately needed hope, especially for women, yet her answers were never the final point. Maybe that was her intention: to challenge people at a perpetual inner monologue. She lived her life and wrote her thoughts like she had the mission to give society an ultimatum of some form: to choose freedom, by whatever definition was true at that time. And she did it by doubting the power that we possess to separate our ability to understand from other’s obligation to explain.
Is it because we are keen on understanding before respecting an opinion?
Is it because we are too focused on following others’ actions rather than our own dreams?
Is it because we are trying to adapt to a society instead of adapting it to us – humans?
Is it because we are forgetting that life is simply about questions we’ll never know the answers to?
Or is it because we are building bridges only to burn them when they don’t immediately take us where we want to be?
And is it because people like Simone de Beauvoir, who asked just too many questions and gave just too few acceptable answers, are too caught up in the dance to lead the revolutions in our minds?
Hi, I am Maria, a first-year student in BIEM, born and raised in Romania. I always loved reading about everything there is in the world, from politics to fashion, philosophy and architecture , psychology and travel and from my strong need to voice my opinions, I discovered I love even more to write and create a space for everyone to express themselves.
