Albert Camus and Absurdism

You wake up one day and realize this: the world is an absurd place. Everything is nonsensical. For example, let's say you want to get a high grade at your school. Why do you need a high grade? Because you want to go to a prestigious university. But why? So that you can get a well-paying job. Why so? If you get hired, you can get whatever you want. What's the point of that anyway? Everyone will return to dust someday. You might lose your tongue here.

This is what Albert Camus called 'Absurd'.  According to Camus, the absurd results from confrontation with the irrational. This world is indifferent to you by its nature. What would you do after facing the fact that there is no meaning in life? You may search for religion. But how do we know if   there is a god? Even if there is a god, what if he is indifferent to our pain? You can try creating your own meaning in life. However, as that meaning is different for everyone else, it is not only arbitrary but also disastrous. You can think that it would be irrational to keep living. It is almost as if we are bound to suffer, like Sisyphus.

The Myth of Sisyphus

Sisyphus is a man whom Zeus has punished. When Thanatos, the Greek personification of death, came to visit Sisyphus, Sisyphus tricked Thanatos and chained him so that he could not bring him to the underworld. But the Greek god of war, Ares, came to help Thanatos. Before being taken to the underworld, he told his wife to leave him unburied and not have a funeral. In the underworld, he asserts that since his wife does not even have a funeral for him, he can not die peacefully. Persephone, the queen of the dead, listens to him and lets him live again. He lives until old age.

As a consequence of tricking the gods, he has to roll a boulder up a hill. But every time Sisyphus does so, it falls again. This means that he has to suffer for eternity. It must be painful for Sisyphus, or is it?

 Camus does not think so. 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy,' he said. Despite knowing he is doomed to pain, Sisyphus still climbs the hill. When he pushes the boulder, he revolts against the gods and his cruel fate. 'He is superior to his fate,' Camus asserts. 

The Revolt

Sisyphus is the symbol of the human condition. For Camus, revolt is the Sisyphean spirit of defiance in the face of the Absurd. 

He later even argues, 'I revolt, therefore we are.' How can the revolt of an individual lead to an existence of us? By revolting, we attempt to fight social problems and join others in our struggles. Either way, we form solidarity. 

To Camus, to not join the revolt means we are an accomplice of oppression. However, there is a dilemma in this. The revolt entails violence. Yet, the violence, even killing the oppressors, erodes our principles. Moreover, the revolt is against the irrational, yet the violence is absurd. It would be impossible for rebellion to happen without violence. So how can we fight our oppressors without using violence?

Unfortunately, Camus failed to tell us how the revolution can maintain solidarity without brutality. He, however, suggests two actions for revolutions to remain rebellious. One is to abolish the death penalty, and the other is to encourage freedom of speech. 

Then how should we live?

 Indeed, we suffer frequently. Because of this fact, some might choose to end life by themselves. Suicide is the only serious philosophical problem, according to Camus. In Camus' view, we have to understand suicide to know what it means to be truly alive. Also, facing our being as a mortal helps us appreciate our lives. He thought suicide was a natural response to the fact that life is absurd. People commit suicide because they judge life to be not worth living. Nonetheless, suicide is meaningless, too. There can be no more meaning in death than in life. 

Some may ignore the meaninglessness of life, thinking it has some significance. But by doing so, we cannot act freely because our actions are tied to these arbitrary goals. Some may say, like Carl Jaspers, that we should abandon reasoning. But for Camus, absurdity is something that we should live with. 

Instead of atoning for our sufferings, we must refuse to submit to the absurdity and continue our lives with vitality and intensity, like Sisyphus. In other words, keep fighting against the circumstances. The other way to live is to deny eternal freedom. We must seek freedom in the present, not in eternity. In addition, we should live passionately. Love your life and live as fulfilling as possible. 

What it means to be alive in the modern world

Camus was optimistic about humankind. He lived through World War II and the Nazi occupation of Paris. Despite seeing the lunacy of humans, he loved them. 

Sure, it's easy to lose hope for humanity. It's surreal to see how celebrities you do not know flex their money while people on the other side of the planet are dying from missiles. Thinking that the world will be better any sooner would be naive. It would be wrong to lie to Sisyphus that the boulder will someday go up to the hill. 

But there is you. You can sympathize with others and get angry when faced with injustice. That is a sign of human solidarity. You can use it to help others. See people as people, not obstacles. The most painful punishment that Sisyphus had to face was loneliness. Enjoy your life and share it with others, Camus would argue. 

Sources:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/04/09/facing-history

https://www.thecollector.com/albert-camus-meaning-of-life/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/

https://iep.utm.edu/albert-camus/

https://www.vox.com/features/22989761/vox-conversations-albert-camus-the-philosophers