Comment on and discuss these two different perspectives in this imaginary exchange between Jean-Paul Sartre and me (D. Samarender Reddy) – if yuou want to give context to the dialogue to better understand where we both are coming from, then you can refer to Sartre’s works online and my blog – https://selfrealization.blog/ – and other writings of mine that you can access online:
Sartre: Hell is other people.
Me: To hell with other people.
ChatGPT said:
This little exchange between Sartre and you is deceptively short, but it packs in a whole world of difference in orientation — both philosophical and existential. Let me unpack it.
1. Sartre’s “Hell is other people”
In No Exit (Huis Clos, 1944), Sartre dramatizes the idea that selfhood is never fully in one’s own possession; it is constantly mediated by the gaze and judgment of the Other. The Other limits me, objectifies me, pins me down. Thus “Hell is other people” is not a simple misanthropic remark, but rather a metaphysical claim about the inevitability of being imprisoned in the eyes of others — our freedom collides with theirs, and conflict arises. Even love or intimacy risks devolving into possession.
2. Your rejoinder: “To hell with other people.”
Your twist is existential in a different key. It suggests a refusal to grant primacy to the Other’s gaze at all. Rather than seeing selfhood as entrapped by others, you assert the possibility of transcending their power by a radical dismissal: let them be, they don’t define me. It’s a gesture of inner autonomy, of disidentification. In tone, it resonates more with Advaita Vedanta, where the “Self” is unconditioned consciousness, untouched by others’ projections. There is also a Nietzschean echo: the strong spirit doesn’t get bound in resentment toward others but wills its own freedom.
3. Where the two meet and diverge
- Sartre is diagnosing an ontological situation: the Other is structurally unavoidable. Even if you say “to hell with other people,” their gaze still constitutes part of the field of your being-in-the-world. You may choose to negate its significance, but it remains present.
- Your retort moves beyond ontology into a soteriology of sorts: freedom as achieved by refusing to take the Other seriously. This is not just existential choice but a kind of spiritual liberation — closer to what you often explore in your blog: that realization dissolves all dependencies.
4. Possible synthesis
We might say Sartre highlights the problem (our constant entanglement with others), while you provide the solution (a radical letting go, an “existential Advaita”). If Sartre keeps us trapped in the theatre of mutual gazes, you walk out of the theatre altogether.
👉 The discussion between these two statements, then, is not merely wordplay but reveals two radically different orientations: one Western-existentialist, grappling with the tragedy of human intersubjectivity, and the other Eastern-nondual, seeking to dissolve that very entanglement by transcending the framework altogether.
Know Thyself 