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L’enfer, c’est les autres
Famously, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote “Hell is other people.”
Most people take that as a misanthropic statement that other people are essentially bad.
What he actually meant was that the sensation of being in hell, feeling pressure or discontent, comes from our reflection in others, what they think about us.
It would be better translated as “Hell is worrying about what other people think.”
Sartre explained:
When we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves, we use the knowledge of us which other people already have.
We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves.
Into whatever I say about myself someone else’s judgment always enters.
Into whatever I feel within myself someone else’s judgment enters
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