The Myth of Sisyphus
...and other essays
Author: Albert Camus
When I set about to reading a book, I look at it as a task, a point on a list of things to do, the achievement of which will lead in some way to knowledge. This allows me to finish books in very short order. It helps that I am usually skilled in extracting themes, purposes, and the like from a work with little external effort (it is almost a subconscious activity by this point).
As a result, however, I rarely find a book that makes me want to sit back and be silent after having finished it. Having finished a book, it will be in my thoughts, but other things will move in as well, if they were not already there as I was concluding of my reading. This work, however, is not like most books.
God is dead, said Nietzsche. Yes He is, says Camus. But the death of God has not made gods of us like it could. Instead we fall into fear, fear of what comes about when the pillar of our existence is but a pillar of salt. And so we erect new gods. For the modern mind, Camus would tell us, Reason is the new God. He has the same role as the old. He is the end-all of existence, he provides the answers we seek, and glorifies us through his action. He is unique in that from the start we are designated as the masters of Reason. We are to be the masters of reason, yet we fall victim to it in the act. For in reality it was the spirit that made God worthwhile; Reason has taken that spirit from us and replaces it with "truth," a truth that will somehow give us salvation but fails.
It is a dangerous proposition to set up reason as a religion (I suppose my own entry from yesterday tries to attack such a claim. But in my own defense, that was an entry of a different nature, following a different set of rules and working towards a different goal). In philosophy it can get one the title of Nihilist. Nietzsche is one such philosopher. Yet Nietzsche also claimed to despise Nihilists, to be writing explicitly against them. What is the discrepancy?
Nietzsche (like Camus) saw Reason being deified and was repulsed. Reason is built on a flawed assumption, that the world exists for us (to put it more plainly, that the world is something completely within our grasp). It creates the Utopias of human meaning and worth that it claims to be abolishing in religion. However, it lacks value. People come to the altar of this new God and find only a pretentious smirk instead of enlightenment. The empty feeling left as a result of the death of God is not assuaged. We try to see the world as subject to our minds and find that it is our minds that falter. When reason fails us and we recognize it we are left as Nihilists.
In a nutshell, this is the existential problem as Camus puts it. There is a gap between what we believe to be the world of value and meaning and the world itself, a gap which we cannot resolve. The expression of the problem is as the absurd. The world we see is one we look to for meaning, for past and future, for hope and achievement, and instead we find that all is dust in a chilling wind. Everything withers, including the greatest of hopes and of empires. Reason does not give us the future we expect. The world does not unfold itself before us. Reason is, in other words, a false prophet. Yet we continue to raise its standard as a way of knowing the world free of all deceptions, as a light to light all truths. That act is absurd. Seeing that act, the attempt to put Reason as a mask over the world and seeing it fail, that is seeing the absurd.
What, then? What should one do? This is where Camus (and Nietzsche) split with the Existentialists. Camus says of the Existentialists that, while they do right insofar as identifying the absurd, they essentially cop out. They embrace the irrational nature of the world as their new God, when in fact that is only falling when we have reached the summit. Prostrating one's self before a new god will not change the reality that we are no better off than before. It is, however, Camus says, a perfectly legitimate answer (he says this often, and as such could be said to have a relativist view, though I'm not so sure). But if you want the world as it really is, you must live out the absurdity present in life. You must acknowledge it every second of your existence. The absurd life, the meaningful life, is a life of constant (and I mean constant) rebellion, Camus tells us. Rebellion against the gods we have installed in the rafters of our churches to watch over our heads. Rebellion in order to achieve value in ourselves, value created merely by living instead of living for something. This is the really hard part, and I would say the point where most minds fail. It is not only so tempting but so unconsciously easy to simply fall back into step with what was before. We do so anytime we allow ourselves to let the world slip into the back of our minds. The absurd man, however, Camus' version of the ubermensch, lives fully aware of absurdity, and so lives for the only thing left that can truly be called real: now. I am myself, living right now, not controlled by some higher moral being or some human ideal. I am not bound by a distant future (which is valuable only insofar as it will become present) or regrets of the past. "I am the God of my own history."
That is not to say that we become Nihilists. To do so would be a failure by the standards of both Camus and Nietzsche. Instead of rejecting everything we affirm life. We live for moments where we are proving our own existence. I have no God but myself, therefore I create my own value. (Before I continue, a quick note: Does this give one license to disobey all laws and roam as tyrant of the human realm? No, since we are all people here. All of us deal with the same problems and have our own values. One's actions may not be evil, but they are perfectly punishable. If this non-moralism does not sound like the way things should be, then I'm sorry, our two authors would say, but I don't see this "should" you're referring to.)
So, then, what exactly what does one live for? The question still remains. Answering it is perhaps as difficult as the constant rebellion, this task of realizing what it means to call ourselves gods. We can create anything. We designate the things which matter. It is the ultimate freedom, freedom which for many leads to the fear which causes us to accept other gods in the first place. I was once told by someone who is perhaps the only person to know me "spiritually" that I appeared free. I appeared so because, compared to her, the countless ties which bind us to others and to the world don't seem to exercise their grip on me. I owe little to few, and I feel obligated to only the things I accept. "If so," I said, "Freedom is a lonely place." However, at the same moment I thought, "If I am free, and this is freedom, freedom is not something I would surrender for anything in the world."
So whereas others advocate the God of reason, the God of irrationality, or just God, Camus (and, once again, Nietzsche) advocate life and nothing more. "I am a lover of life," said Nietzsche in all his works, and that means he is a lover of free life, life lived by a man who accepts it as is and makes it his own, the ubermensch. Camus called him the absurd man, but both are the same. They are not only gods, in the individual sense they are God.
-----
Not bad for a book I read over the span of one weekend. Combine these thoughts with some of the most elegant prose I've ever seen and a willingness to go across disciplines to look for meaning, and you have a work that for me not only is good but means something.
For my next book I think I will begin Nietzsche. I had intended to hold off for a little longer, as it is possible I will receive the works of his I am missing shortly (The Untimely Meditations, The Dawn, and Human, All too Human), but I don't think I can now. The mindset is set in, and I'm up for some life.
Author: Albert Camus
When I set about to reading a book, I look at it as a task, a point on a list of things to do, the achievement of which will lead in some way to knowledge. This allows me to finish books in very short order. It helps that I am usually skilled in extracting themes, purposes, and the like from a work with little external effort (it is almost a subconscious activity by this point).
As a result, however, I rarely find a book that makes me want to sit back and be silent after having finished it. Having finished a book, it will be in my thoughts, but other things will move in as well, if they were not already there as I was concluding of my reading. This work, however, is not like most books.
God is dead, said Nietzsche. Yes He is, says Camus. But the death of God has not made gods of us like it could. Instead we fall into fear, fear of what comes about when the pillar of our existence is but a pillar of salt. And so we erect new gods. For the modern mind, Camus would tell us, Reason is the new God. He has the same role as the old. He is the end-all of existence, he provides the answers we seek, and glorifies us through his action. He is unique in that from the start we are designated as the masters of Reason. We are to be the masters of reason, yet we fall victim to it in the act. For in reality it was the spirit that made God worthwhile; Reason has taken that spirit from us and replaces it with "truth," a truth that will somehow give us salvation but fails.
It is a dangerous proposition to set up reason as a religion (I suppose my own entry from yesterday tries to attack such a claim. But in my own defense, that was an entry of a different nature, following a different set of rules and working towards a different goal). In philosophy it can get one the title of Nihilist. Nietzsche is one such philosopher. Yet Nietzsche also claimed to despise Nihilists, to be writing explicitly against them. What is the discrepancy?
Nietzsche (like Camus) saw Reason being deified and was repulsed. Reason is built on a flawed assumption, that the world exists for us (to put it more plainly, that the world is something completely within our grasp). It creates the Utopias of human meaning and worth that it claims to be abolishing in religion. However, it lacks value. People come to the altar of this new God and find only a pretentious smirk instead of enlightenment. The empty feeling left as a result of the death of God is not assuaged. We try to see the world as subject to our minds and find that it is our minds that falter. When reason fails us and we recognize it we are left as Nihilists.
In a nutshell, this is the existential problem as Camus puts it. There is a gap between what we believe to be the world of value and meaning and the world itself, a gap which we cannot resolve. The expression of the problem is as the absurd. The world we see is one we look to for meaning, for past and future, for hope and achievement, and instead we find that all is dust in a chilling wind. Everything withers, including the greatest of hopes and of empires. Reason does not give us the future we expect. The world does not unfold itself before us. Reason is, in other words, a false prophet. Yet we continue to raise its standard as a way of knowing the world free of all deceptions, as a light to light all truths. That act is absurd. Seeing that act, the attempt to put Reason as a mask over the world and seeing it fail, that is seeing the absurd.
What, then? What should one do? This is where Camus (and Nietzsche) split with the Existentialists. Camus says of the Existentialists that, while they do right insofar as identifying the absurd, they essentially cop out. They embrace the irrational nature of the world as their new God, when in fact that is only falling when we have reached the summit. Prostrating one's self before a new god will not change the reality that we are no better off than before. It is, however, Camus says, a perfectly legitimate answer (he says this often, and as such could be said to have a relativist view, though I'm not so sure). But if you want the world as it really is, you must live out the absurdity present in life. You must acknowledge it every second of your existence. The absurd life, the meaningful life, is a life of constant (and I mean constant) rebellion, Camus tells us. Rebellion against the gods we have installed in the rafters of our churches to watch over our heads. Rebellion in order to achieve value in ourselves, value created merely by living instead of living for something. This is the really hard part, and I would say the point where most minds fail. It is not only so tempting but so unconsciously easy to simply fall back into step with what was before. We do so anytime we allow ourselves to let the world slip into the back of our minds. The absurd man, however, Camus' version of the ubermensch, lives fully aware of absurdity, and so lives for the only thing left that can truly be called real: now. I am myself, living right now, not controlled by some higher moral being or some human ideal. I am not bound by a distant future (which is valuable only insofar as it will become present) or regrets of the past. "I am the God of my own history."
That is not to say that we become Nihilists. To do so would be a failure by the standards of both Camus and Nietzsche. Instead of rejecting everything we affirm life. We live for moments where we are proving our own existence. I have no God but myself, therefore I create my own value. (Before I continue, a quick note: Does this give one license to disobey all laws and roam as tyrant of the human realm? No, since we are all people here. All of us deal with the same problems and have our own values. One's actions may not be evil, but they are perfectly punishable. If this non-moralism does not sound like the way things should be, then I'm sorry, our two authors would say, but I don't see this "should" you're referring to.)
So, then, what exactly what does one live for? The question still remains. Answering it is perhaps as difficult as the constant rebellion, this task of realizing what it means to call ourselves gods. We can create anything. We designate the things which matter. It is the ultimate freedom, freedom which for many leads to the fear which causes us to accept other gods in the first place. I was once told by someone who is perhaps the only person to know me "spiritually" that I appeared free. I appeared so because, compared to her, the countless ties which bind us to others and to the world don't seem to exercise their grip on me. I owe little to few, and I feel obligated to only the things I accept. "If so," I said, "Freedom is a lonely place." However, at the same moment I thought, "If I am free, and this is freedom, freedom is not something I would surrender for anything in the world."
So whereas others advocate the God of reason, the God of irrationality, or just God, Camus (and, once again, Nietzsche) advocate life and nothing more. "I am a lover of life," said Nietzsche in all his works, and that means he is a lover of free life, life lived by a man who accepts it as is and makes it his own, the ubermensch. Camus called him the absurd man, but both are the same. They are not only gods, in the individual sense they are God.
-----
Not bad for a book I read over the span of one weekend. Combine these thoughts with some of the most elegant prose I've ever seen and a willingness to go across disciplines to look for meaning, and you have a work that for me not only is good but means something.
For my next book I think I will begin Nietzsche. I had intended to hold off for a little longer, as it is possible I will receive the works of his I am missing shortly (The Untimely Meditations, The Dawn, and Human, All too Human), but I don't think I can now. The mindset is set in, and I'm up for some life.
posted by Derek at 4:09 PM
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