Camus in 60 Minutes

Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes

Walther Ziegler

• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9783741230134
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Albert Camus was a legend in his own lifetime, as a successful author, a philosopher and a "ladies' man". His philosophical discoveries remain provocative even today. Because, like all great philosophers, Camus posed the question of the meaning of life. But his answer to this question was an answer of an entirely new kind. This question as to the meaning of life has been answered, of course, very differently down the centuries. For Plato it is 'the Good' that holds the world together; for Hegel the 'World-Spirit'; for Marx the relations of production; for Sartre freedom; for Nietzsche 'will to power'. Really, each philosopher has his own answer to this question. But Camus is the exception here. He has none. Or rather, worse: he has an answer, but one of very sobering effect. His answer to the question 'what is the meaning of life?' is simply 'It has no meaning. Life is absurd'. We plan ahead and make decisions, but in the last analysis our whole life depends on a series of chance events over which we have no control. Nor is there really a goal. Nevertheless, it is our task to live proudly and undauntedly on. Camus compares the life of Man with the myth of Sisyphus. The mythical Sisyphus strained tirelessly to push a boulder up a mountainside, even though it always rolled back down before he reached the top. But precisely in this apparently senseless and absurd activity lay, argued Camus, a chance for a fulfilled life. The book "Camus in 60 Minutes" explains, using selected quotations and examples, this theory of "the absurd". The chapter on "what use Camus' discovery is for us today" describes the "absurd style of life" that Camus recommends. Camus' colourful examples of "absurd life-projects", and his descriptions of how one best confronts "the absurd" itself and leads a life without God or ideological orientation are, above all in our modern societies, of powerful relevance and topicality. The book forms part of the popular series "Great Thinkers in 60 Minutes".

Camus’ Central Idea

The Sense of Absurdity

Absurdity, for Camus, is not the result of conscious reflection or rational analysis but rather a feeling – one which always arises when one’s familiar daily routine collapses:

Because once a human being has begun to doubt the world he is accustomed to he will never again be completely absorbed and subsumed in it. Once the experience of absurdity has arisen, it will never again release its grip on him. The direct perception of absurdity can be awoken by individual feelings or events. If, for example, a relationship breaks down and you lose a partner whose love and devotion you believed were yours forever, this often renders fragile and uncertain all the other aspects of your life as well. Everything in which one had, so recently, had an implicit trust now seems strange and absurd. One suddenly notices that all the things that one had formerly looked on as real and objective were in fact things that one had merely read into it:

The romantic, old-world style apartment, for example, that we had shared with our departed partner; the restaurants and little squares which had once so warmly received us – all these things suddenly become again what they really were all along: anonymous and unconcerned with us. The romantic movies on TV seem false to us now and even the woodland paths on which we’d walked and all the rest of Nature around us suddenly show their true face. That Nature which had seemed a bosom friend reveals, all at once, its utter indifference:

The diagnosis of a serious illness such as cancer is also apt to awaken the sense of absurdity.The medical explanation here – namely, that the renewal of the body’s cells is a perfectly normal process and that cancer cells are simply cells that reproduce beyond the natural rate – is reasonable and comprehensible. But for the person actually affected by it this process of accelerated cell-division is an absurdity that he cannot be reasonably expected to come to terms with. It is impossible to fit the illness into the familiar plan of a life, since it puts everything into question. As Camus insists, however, it is not always such a shaking of our whole existence that is required in order for the absurd to suddenly enter our life:

Many people, for example, will know the strange feeling that arises when one looks down from a church tower onto a busy square. Seen from high above, the people look like nothing more than little black dots.

They run about hectically in different directions like ants, their paths crossing, until they vanish from the scene and their place is taken by others just like them. From this birds-eye view, such restless motion appears laughable, indeed downright absurd. Although each person down on the square probably has a reason for following their route and possibly even an ambitious life-plan, this frenzy of activity, taken in aggregate, gives a disconcerting impression of senselessness. If one of these “ants” were suddenly removed from the scene, by death or otherwise, this would seem unimportant. Its absence from the hurly-burly below would not even be noticed. Observed from so high above, the movements of a single individual seem easily dispensed with – somehow superfluous. This restlessness, these contrary movements, these routes and destinations which are those of one “ant” but could easily be those of another, all appear senseless. All the little concerns and goals which may have, for each individual, such great importance, appear, from a distance, merely random. Relative to the aggregate they amount to nothing and their pursuit seems, to the observer, every second more absurd.

This feeling of the absurd is all the more uncanny because one senses that one is oneself just such an “ant” – just as replaceable and just as insignificant as the others. In the end, one feels oneself to be merely another “dot” moving from A to B – and indeed one day not even moving any more. Camus offers a similar example for this sudden flaring-up of a sense of absurdity in the midst of daily life:

The sense of absurdity can even seize us in the morning over breakfast, when a familiar person suddenly appears completely strange to us. Camus describes the surreal feeling experienced by a man observing his partner of many years in just this situation. Somehow he is no longer able to perceive her in the accustomed way. Because for a few moments he recalls the woman with whom, many years before, he had fallen in love – who is, however, a woman who cannot be brought, in his mind, to resemble in any way the woman now seated across from him at the breakfast table:

One feels, of course, initially irritated in such a situation. It is painful to be reminded that one’s own wife has become strange to one, and that she is no longer she who she was before. What has become of our beloved? Has she really changed so much? Or is it we who have changed? Why is the mood that pervades our breakfasts together so different? Have we lost all sense for our partner’s beauty?

However one might answer such questions, one’s accustomed world collapses for a moment. One had been looking forward to the usual pleasant breakfast but, instead of the familiar harmony, one has stumbled – even if it is only for a brief moment – on the strangeness and absurdity of life, on (in Shakespeare’s phrase) a “world out of joint”. Absurdity can seize us for brief moments in this way – and also for prolonged periods. Indeed, it can become an inner certainty. This is why Camus speaks not just of a “sense of”, but also, in many passages, of a “climate of absurdity”. This climate first subtly implants itself in the hearts of men and only later becomes an attitude of mind:

As a rule, human beings avoid, as best they can, perceiving absurdity at all and try to move exclusively within the world they feel familiar with. They give a meaning to their life and cling to routines. They structure their daily existence, setting professional and personal goals for themselves for which, if asked, they can give a host of good reasons. But still absurdity can break forth at any time and shake this familiarity to its foundations:

The sense of absurdity always arises, then, when a human being can no longer find his bearings in key aspects of his own life. He feels as though he has been expelled into a strange world. But this feeling of “divorce” from one’s world does not arise by chance. It arises, says Camus, necessarily. This is why the experience of absurdity strikes not just some people but all. Each of us will experience at some point this conflict with our world, since the wish for unity, predictability and order is a basic driving force in Man:

Camus speaks here of a “human drama”, that is to say, an unavoidable catastrophe toward which all who are involved in it must slide. Because, whereas the search for meaning must be undertaken, it is nonetheless doomed to fail, since the world is, in the end, chaotic, unpredictable and irrational. Our life is exposed to a thousan...