In several works written immediately after the war, Sartre sounded a more optimistic note, arguing that the struggle to dominate others is pathological, not normal.  The work Anti-Semite and Jew (Réflexions sur la Question Juive, 1945-6) was a path breaking existential analysis of anti-Jewish racism.  The existential account of racism would provide grounds for attacking racism in France, Europe and abroad.    

Sartre's works in the post-war period outline a general model for healthy social relationships: the model of mutual recognition.  Mutual recognition is the idea that a person's freedom and self-identity are best developed through egalitarian relationship with others.  Ethically desirable relationship should be equal and mutual; pathological relations are lopsided and based on the impulse of domination.  

I believe that Sartre's use of the recognition model of interpersonal relationships opens up a new reading of Sartre the philosopher.  While his early philosophy emphasizes the struggle for authenticity and heroic self-creation, his middle works challenge the notion of a radical self-creation.  The insight of the recognition model is that a person's identity is dependent upon the recognition of others.  According to the recognition model, heroic self-creation is a deeply impoverished means of self-realization.  

Thus, what emerges from my study of Sartre is a new Existentialism.  This new Existentialism aims at a general critical theory of society, and more particularly a theory of ethics and politics.  The root of this new Existentialism is a social conception of individual authenticity.  The individual must seek to become his own highest self, but where best to strive for authenticity if not in a group of like-minded people?  

Existentialism is a philosophy of engagement, a philosophy that recommends beginning with one's raw existence as a free self, but digging beneath the appearance of a radically isolated self to the relations that form who we are.