Breaking the Gaze: Ressentiment, Bad Faith, and the Struggle for Individual Freedom

Taking on a relatively unexplored topic, this thesis investigates the connection between Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre by revisiting both philosophers’ focus on individual choice and freedom. To do so, it first outlines the restraints placed on the individual by the gaze of the other. From there, it lays out the necessary steps towards liberation, emphasizing individual authenticity and responsibility, and the burden attached to the constant tasks of self-becoming and self-overcoming. This subsequently leads to an analysis of creative action and aesthetics, more specifically, of music and prose-writing’s ability to generate meaning. Through these discussions, this thesis aims to renew interest in Nietzsche’s and Sartre’s philosophies, and prove that an existential reading of their thoughts is still relevant to contemporary societies and can, therefore, offer some possible solutions to the current and ongoing issues of human rights and freedom.