Simone de Beauvoir: Irrepressible Freedom

At a young age, she asked herself, “Why bother?” Her answer turns our assumptions about freedom, rights, kindness and violence on their heads.

Simone de Bauvoir’s philosophical writings, beginning with Pyrrhus and Cineas, examines how the relations between people structures their understanding of the world. Painting: La Chambre Rouge, by Félix Vallotton, 1898 (Public Domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons).

We have thoughts, feelings, hopes and desires. We also can be treated as statistics, objects or obstacles.