Late Sartre and Existentialism

The chapter on Sartre's work starts off with a brief overview of the ideas of existentialism. It touches on the ideas that existentialism focuses on the individual and their experiences, if there is a point to life, and exercising one's freedom and encouraging others to do so. This made me think back to Sartre's later works in which he talks about helping others. He says that we must first “use our freedom to change ourselves for the better; and second, to do what we can to work toward a worldwide society in which all people have equal opportunity to exercise their freedom” (199). So while the first priority is still on the individual, Sartre turns to an idea of a more universal well being. Is this idea of helping others straying from the idea of existentialism? I honestly am not incredibly well versed in existentialism, but it seems that if the main focus is on the self and the debate over a meaning of life, helping others would not be high up in the priorities of an existentialist, but maybe I am seeing existentialists as more selfish than they are.