"The Myth of Sisyphus" purports to be about the "one truly philosophical problem [of] suicide".
Perhaps, it's a littlThe One True Philosophical Problem
"The Myth of Sisyphus" purports to be about the "one truly philosophical problem [of] suicide".
Perhaps, it's a little sensationalist to define the problem in these terms, at least in the 21st century. Even Camus himself immediately restated the problem as "judging whether life is or is not worth living".
Maybe another way is to ask whether, if life is not worth living, does it follow that we should cease to live, e.g., by committing suicide? (It's interesting how we commit four things: errors, crimes, sins, suicide.)
Camus tends to assume that, in the absence of God, there is no meaning of life, at least no superimposed, objective meaning of life.
Thus, for him, the resulting absurdity is the starting point, not the result of a deductive process.
If life is truly meaningless, the question is how to respond?
Do we revert to the meaning of life posited by religion and a supernatural being (an irrational response)? Do we commit suicide in order to escape the absence of meaning (the result of despair)? Or do we embrace the absurdity implicit in an absence of meaning without accepting it (revolt)?
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Franz von Stuck's "Sisyphus" (1920)
The Confrontation
For Camus, we long for meaning. Yet, we don't readily find it. Partly because it isn't there. The absurd is born of "the confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world". (29)
The absurd is a divorce: "It lies in neither of the elements compared; it is born of their confrontation."
And what is the confrontation between? In effect, "the Absurd is not in man...nor in the world, but in their presence together." (30) Absurdity describes a relationship between the two.
Not just is the Absurd a confrontation, but it is also an "unceasing struggle", which struggle "implies a total absence of hope, a continual rejection and a conscious dissatisfaction...A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future." (31)
Arguably, a man with no hope has no reason to continue living into the future. Without hope, what awaits us is inevitable death (which awaits us anyway, with or without hope).
The Escape
Camus considers that all existentialist attempts to deal with the Absurd "suggest escape...they deify what crushes them and find reason to hope in what impoverishes them."
He maintains that "nothing logically prepares this reason. I can call it a leap." Paradoxically, it shares something with a religious leap of faith: "we turn towards God only to obtain the impossible. As for the possible, men suffice." (33)
Nevertheless, the leap is an escape. By it, we seek to elude the Absurd.
Endurance
In contrast, Camus argues that "living is keeping the absurd alive." (47)
We must keep it alive so that we can confront and endure it. To do so, we must revolt against it:
"It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity. It is an insistence upon an impossible transparency...metaphysical revolt extends awareness to the whole of experience...Revolt gives life its value. Spread out over the whole of a life, it restores its majesty to that life. To a man devoid of blinkers, there is no finer sight than that of the intelligence at grips with a reality that transcends it."(47)
Camus' solution therefore is consciousness and revolt. (48)
Suicide is an illusory solution:
"It is essential to die unreconciled [to the Absurd] and not of one's own free will." (49)
The Revolt
According to Camus, man must never surrender or give in. We must live "without appeal" to some greater natural or supernatural authority. Only then are we truly free and responsible. (52)
Camus sees the future, inevitably, as an invitation to death. However, he converts the revolt, the refusal to commit suicide, into a rule of life.
The Absurd therefore gives us three qualities: our revolt, our freedom, and our passion (for life over death). (55)
Camus distinguishes between "renunciation" and "revolt".
"Renunciation" is an irrational denial of the absurd, e.g., like religion. Camus writes "consciousness and revolt, these rejections are the contrary of renunciation." Rejection doesn't deny the existence of the absurd, whereas renunciation does.
"The Point is to Live"
These arguments define a metaphysical process, a way of thinking. However, Camus concludes, "The point is to live." (56) We must live without appeal, but informed of our limits. (57)
It is "essential to elude nothing. There is thus a metaphysical honour in enduring the world's absurdity. Conquest or play-acting, multiple loves, absurd revolt are tributes that man pays to his dignity in a campaign in which he is defeated in advance." (77)
There is honour in battle, honour in confrontation, honour in revolt.
Metaphysical Art and Literature
Camus finds sustenance in art:
"The great novelists are philosophical novelists...what distinguishes modern sensibility from classical sensibility is that the latter thrives on moral problems and the former on metaphysical problems." (85)
For me, the focus on the metaphysical points to a bridge between modernism and post-modernism. Both are separate from the realist focus on morality, on problems of good and evil.
Art is fundamental to our pursuit of freedom in the short time we have on earth. In art, we find "not the divine fable that amuses and blinds, but the terrestrial face, gesture, and drama in which are summed up a difficult wisdom and an ephemeral passion." (95)
Art captures the ephemeral flame that burns passionate and bright for the duration of our short sojourn.
The Myth of Sisyphus
It's here that Camus introduces the myth of Sisyphus. The burden of Sisyphus is his fate. Perhaps it is a futile and hopeless labour. However, "all Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing." (98)
In the same way, "the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols," the illusions that encourage him to elude Absurdity:
"There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night."
He who recognises this will be the master of his days:
"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." (99)
So too, we must imagine Sisyphus happy, if we are to be happy, because ultimately our burden is the same.
"The Stranger" dramatises the issues at the heart of existentialism.
The same issues are probably at the heart of life, whether or not you If You Exist
"The Stranger" dramatises the issues at the heart of existentialism.
The same issues are probably at the heart of life, whether or not you believe in a god.
Being Judged
It's interesting that there has been a crime and now Meursault is being "judged".
The judgement is symbolic not only of the justice system, but of God's judgement of humanity.
Defending Yourself
You would normally expect the defendant to assert their innocence or plead not guilty in the criminal justice system (cue Law and Order theme song).
Both options require the defendant to take a positive step, only they differ in degree.
To assert your "innocence" is to positively state that "I didn't do it".
A plea of "not guilty" would place an onus on the prosecutor to prove the defendant's guilt (although there are significant differences between the French system of justice and that of the UK/USA/Canada/Australia/etc).
To plead not guilty can mean a number of things.
It could mean that "I did actually do it", but you, the prosecutor, have to prove to the Judge or Court that I did it.
It could mean that "I did actually do it", but I have a defence or justification that means it is not a punishable crime (e.g., self-defence or provocation).
Asking Forgiveness
This process is partly analogous to the situation when a Christian dies and meets their God.
If they have sinned, you would expect them to ask forgiveness. Having been forgiven, they would expect to go to Heaven.
Not Defending Yourself
One of the dilemmas of "The Stranger" is that morally and legally there might be issues that Meursault could put to the Judge that would excuse his action and allow the Judge to find him not guilty.
He could then go "free".
He could have argued that his action was self-defence or the result of provocation.
He could have "got off", if he had taken a positive step on his own behalf. However, he fails to take the step.
If he was a Christian (i.e., if he believed in God), he might have wanted to prolong his life on Earth.
His life would have had some meaning and he would have wanted more of it.
Similarly, if he was a Christian, he would have been motivated to seek eternal life in Heaven.
So he would have taken the positive step.
What's the Point?
Instead, against all expectation, he doesn't defend himself. We are left to wonder why.
We have to assume that Meursault effectively asked the questions of himself, "What is the point? Why should I bother?"
And we have to assume that he answered the questions, "There is no point".
Achieving Your Own Mortality
There was no point in prolonging his life and, not believing in Heaven, there was no point in seeking eternal life.
He had lived a life (however long or short, however good or bad, however satisfying or unsatisfying) and it didn't really matter that his life might come to an end.
The point is that, sooner or later, all life must come to an end.
By failing to take a "positive" step on his own behalf, he effectively collaborated in and achieved his own mortality. He existed while he was alive, he would have ceased to exist when he was executed.
If he wasn't executed, he would have died sooner or later.
Ultimately, he "enjoyed" his life while he had it, he didn't care enough to prolong it and he accepted the inevitability of his own death.
Is Despair the Explanation?
This doesn't necessarily mean that he embraced despair as a way of life (or death).
In a way, he accepted responsibility for his own actions during life and he accepted responsibility for the inevitability of his own death as well.
Ultimately, this is why "The Stranger" and Existentialism are so confronting to Christianity and Western Civilisation. It makes us ask the question "what is the point?" and it permits an answer that "there is no point".
Responsibility
This doesn't mean that life is meaningless and everybody else should live their lives in despair. Quite the opposite.
We should inject our own meaning into our own lives. We are responsible for our own fulfilment.
Life is short and we should just get on with it. (Or as a friend of mine says, everybody is responsible for their own orgasm.)
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