The broken world

A major theme in Marcel is the notion that human beings live in a broken world (le monde cassé). He meant to convey a number of points by this claim, one that he returned to in different forms in his work. First, the notion of being has been lost in the modern world, replaced by a near-obsession with the power of primary reflection; the modern world is under the sway of what Marcel called “the spirit of abstraction” (Man Against Mass Society). Second, one manifestation of the dominance of primary reflection is the increasing bureaucratization of modern culture, which often identifies human beings with their functional roles in society and which therefore stultifies their inner lives and their creativity to such an extent that people’s self-worth is often directly tied to the social status of their jobs or their potential for owning material possessions. That situation leads to alienation, a key theme in the existentialist movement in general.

Marcel elaborated on the broken world by means of yet another distinction that flowed out of earlier themes: that between disponibilité and indisponibilité (usually translated in English as “availability” and “unavailability”). Disponibilité describes the degree to which an individual is available for another. Such availability is part of the essence of intersubjective relations but is denigrated in the broken world, dominated as it is by selfishness, emphasis on individual autonomy, instrumentality, and the desire for material success. Indisponibilité is the opposite attitude. It is to approach intersubjective relations in a selfish way—in the language of Immanuel Kant, as a means rather than as an end or, in the language of Martin Buber (a philosopher whose work is very similar to Marcel’s in a number of areas), as an “I-It” rather than as an “I-Thou.” In the broken world, the attitude of “I-It” dominates human relationships at all levels. Marcel illustrated the point with the example of a person who is sitting in the same room but who is not “present” to me, in contrast to a person who is “present” to me but who may be miles away (The Mystery of Being).

Third, the broken world is characterized by an obsession with technology and with science as a means of solving all human problems. Marcel did not advocate that technology should be given up, but he argued that it often leads to a smothering of the life of the spirit because it seduces people into equating material comfort with human fulfillment, among other temptations. The experience of the broken world can lead an individual into deep despair, often manifested in lack of self-worth, a feeling of alienation, and a loss of confidence that life has an overall meaning.

Finally, however, the human person has as part of its structure what Marcel called an ontological exigency—a need for being, a need to develop the inner life of the spirit in creativity and freedom, including in its ethical dimensions. Ontological exigency is not merely a form of wishful thinking but is an “interior urge”—an appeal or a call—that offers the human person an “ontological hope” in the ultimate rationality and meaningfulness of reality. That reassertion of human essence is the beginning of a rejection of the category of having in coming to terms with human existence.