Seeing as I have been delving as deep as can be with Camus, and also not at all being a fan of metaphysics any longer, something came across my mind.
In the midst of his enumerations of the abject condition of living; the primordial defect of conscious, the malady of intellect, he makes a case for absurdity that stands quite well.
But then comes the realisation, that his own absurdity is quite telling. From an industrial nihilism he still finds cause for justifying life, which in his own words comes to look as though saying “experience to live to die, having died, knowing nothing”. Seems a bit odd, his arguments go well up to that point, even with all the unnecessary returns to “soul” being anything other than muted fallacy.
There is a connection with his determinations of intellect, the power and sway of it, and ultimately, the futility of attempting to hold on to it, when it is generally the direct cause of suffering. Strange question he asks, (the nature of suicide), stranger still his “logic”, which itself, seems nothing more than a justification for the absurd, which is again, absurdity …
Not certain if I’ve missed him, or superseded his rationale with my own.
I wish I could comment intelligently about this or that anyone here could and would. I’ve not read the primary souces, only the secondary. Some of these seem to be of the opinion that Camus considered the struggle to exist, survive, etc. as our ultimate, knowable meaning and value, as did Hesse. Sisyphus’ pushing the rock back up the hill, regardless of whether it rolled back down before he reached the pinnacle, was purpose, which defines meaning and value. I suppose this was Camus’ way of avoiding the extreme meaninglessness nihilism espouses. Sorry I’m not up on this.
Part of the uncertainty lies with his determinations of suicide. Is he merely positing from this example because it is a striking topic of taboo, or is he espousing the legitimacy of death as our only purpose in living at all?
Can’t tell, seems a bit … “up in the air”, but his writing style is spectacular.
I think this post proves you have definitely read and analyzed Camus. Well done. I appreciate the perspective. Had similar thoughts myself regarding the absurdity of absurdity!
Mastriani, What in particular have you been reading?
I have a couple Camus books and essays;
Sisyphus,
suicide essays
The Rebel,
Resistance, Rebellion and Death
and some others.
Camus was my spring board into philosophy.
The world opened up from there.
I image myself as Sisyphus.
I did not read any of the plays or novels. The Plague, Stranger, etc. but I have learned all about them and the ideas Camus was conveying in them.
Bob Solomon’s lectures (The Teaching Company) on existentialism are excellent. (Download them via bit torrents.) He has half hour lectures on each of the Plague, the Stranger, the Fall, Sisyphus, and Camus himself. A wealth of analysis and information.
I LOVE the Rebel. Though many of the ideas I got out of it are old and not necessarily directly from Camus, the book opened my eyes to some ideas. I think about them often, for example:
A rebel needs the thing they are rebelling against. Without it, they do not exist (as a rebel). It is like a symbiotic relationship. Is it possible to have “a rebel without a cause”? I don’t think so. It is like a circle. Once the rebel’s goal is achieved, they cease to exist as rebels and possibly have become the thing they rebelled against in the first place!
Wiki~ “Another theme [in the Rebel] is the idea that once a revolution is successful, it can become more tyrannical than the original government, as the pursuit of a utopia is a pursuit that often justifies anything, even atrocities,”
It reminds me too of ideas concerning control: As Tyler Durden said in Fight Club, “The things you own, end up owning you.” The things you think you control, are actually controlling you in a way. If you believe you should spend all your time striving for “X” then “X” ends up controlling and ‘owning’ you. No matter what your “X” is. Whatever you spend your time doing, owns you. I guess I could say, your own motivations end up controlling or owning you.
I think what you say about the rebel is true by definition alone, their existence as a rebel is in the attempt to supplant oppression, and take their place as the tyrant by doing so. Seems there is no other outcome to that particular path.
I thought from the synopsis I read that The Rebel was also a look into the logic behind murder?
Apparently there is a tie between Camus and Baudrillard, (besides them both being French). The possessor being the possessed seems to be a mutual theme.
I would have to agree on your perspective of motivations, as once we become habituated to a particular pattern, we then forget that we placed ourselves into the pattern, and the pattern begins to take on a force of will of its own.
I was introduced to Camus in my conceited ‘intellectual’ days. I read him because you couldn’t be an ‘intellectual’ unless you could discuss his work. What I finally came to understand after getting past my superficial knowing, was the preoccupation with attachment, and the resultant nihilism that comes with it. His exploration of absurdity was as thorough as anything I’ve ever read. Ultimately, recognition of absurdity doesn’t release us from our attempts to find meaning, even if that is an absurdity in itself. Camus leaves us in the ultimate catch 22 does he not?
That’s definitely where I’ve been sitting with him. It is absurdity to seek purpose in a mechanical/industrial world of vacuousness, but nihilism is absurd in itself, you search for something purposeful, knowing you are only exercising to defy absurdity …
There is no reason why we should not converse. My paranoid statement elsewhere was just that–paranoia.
Death as begging the question of meaning and value in life is, historically, a perennial concern. Hamlet, faced with what he sees as an overwhelming destiny, ponders suicide. Does Camus see this as a cop out or as a legitimate response to being asked to impose a personal value on an impersonal event? And was not the murder of his father by his uncle personal?
In my own senses of meaning and value I often find exhuberance in what is, in flowers, cats, people able to allow the frailties of other people, etc. and I find nothing in my perspective that is negated by nature, mine or the universe’s. The highs of being and becoming are my only salvation from meaninglessness.
I’m going to have to read more thoroughly before I can answer those questions. I think perhaps, in a somewhat similar manner to how sociality is continuing sets of outwardly radiating circles, perhaps absurdity is too with Camus.
Personal may be a matter of the determination of the closeness of the act, the level of observation, and the level of absurdity leading to the act …
If my senses of meaning and value were absurd, I would not have evolved as an animal able to assess meanings and values. Evolution does not fault us for who and what we are. Religion does. Were Camus’ ideas too indebted to religious interpretations of human reality?
After slogging through the miasmic swamp, one comes to the point that Camus was attempting to reach beyond the absurdity of absurdity. From my perspective, he took us to the absolute bottom and left us there to figure out that, having arrived at the bottom, there is only one direction: up. Of course, I may be missing the subtleties, but having stripped away all pretensions, religious or other, he left us stronger. Sisyphus wasn’t searching for meaning, he created it in his momentary present without thought of the past or a future. Meaning is whatever I say it is, nothing more or nothing less. Being, instead of being as.
I like it!!! Being is its own right to be. Becoming is our destiny. If Camus thought thus, if he was able to throw a plank over the mouth of the abyss of absurdity so that we could walk on, I’m all for him.
I think most of all, I have found a commonality with passages from the book concerning the malady of intellect, its consummation with absurdity when faced with the unknowable or irrational.
For that alone, Camus is worth the gold. Intellect is an act of malice and war against the keeper, and this I think is the root of philosophical suicide; and why absurdity defies all, except its own absurdity.
You’re right tent, one of the most interesting Catch .22’s I’ve ever seen. Pearls before swine, and he knew it when he wrote it. Tragic life being only 47 years …
Solomon’s lectures on Camus & the existentialists were wonderful. Sadly he died earlier this year. He left behind a great intellectual legacy his own right, and his talents as a teacher were profound.
Camus was really more poet & author than philosopher, and reading him solely to determine his wordview is to miss the point. That doesn’t mean I disagree with you, Mas- just that he’s more artist than scholar.
In the academic sense, you are likely correct. In the pragmatic sense, I would disagree, for even as Camus himself asserted, that man who claims to be “a philosopher”, and does not live his philosophy, is either a poseur or a dupe or both, making themselves little more than well spoken irrationals.
From what I’ve read, Camus lived as he spoke. I’ll put him above all the didactic academicians who simply obfuscated learning with overly complex linguistics to validate themselves as superior through philosophical dialog.
That the man was poetic, is not a matter of contention.
Many years ago I presented a poem to a prof for scrutiny. Two lines of the poem are–
“Psychologically, Sisyphus is happy.
Psychologically, happiness is Sisyphus.”
“You don’t have to read Camus”, said the prof. Do I still need to?
