Personal Freedom and Others - Simone de Beauvoir - Assignment Example

One can either choose to be free, or the nature of an individual can just determine their state of freedom. For instance, when says that each and every party started as a child with no right of freedom to choose what is good for them but to copy and simulate what the adults around them do things. However, when a child leaves childhood and becomes an adult they escape the unfreedom state. Simone de Beauvoir refers to this attitude as “seriousness”, which she says is the condition of a child escaping the anguish of freedom. The only way a child can avoid this anguish of freedom is by existing objectively through thinking of values outside themselves.

A “Serious man” is not very much different from a sub man. A serious man degrades his values hence getting rid of his freedom that would be considered as unconditioned. The act of the serious man getting rid of his freedom is like a childhood habit similar to a sub man. They both are similar because they are free, but they just disregard and reject the fact that they are free. The values of a person determine the free state of the individual.