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Camus as Conservative: A post 9/11 reassessment of the work of Albert Camus
Orthodoxy Today ^ | 12/20/03 | Murray Soupcoff

Posted on 12/20/2003 12:47:34 PM PST by bdeaner

Camus as Conservative: A post 9/11 reassessment of the work of Albert Camus

Murray Soupcoff

The Guardian -- that last fanatical bastion of English left-wing obstinacy and foolishness -- published a unique book review honouring the latest Penguin edition of The Plague, the enduring fictional allegory of human suffering and sacrifice, written by French existentialist novelist Albert Camus.

It was particularly surprising that The Guardian, of all publications, would publish what was really a revised introduction to the latest English-language edition of The Plague, since Camus' unique philosophical and political point of view was always so different from that of most of today's Guardian contributors.

Like many other European intellectual heirs of Heidegger at the end of World War II, Camus philosophically travelled to the very edge of the ontological abyss and resolutely confronted a black Nietzschean vision of the death of God and the end of all conventional morality (a bleak vision sparked by the horrors of the Nazi era and the complicity of so many "ordinary" citizens in the cruelties of the holocaust). But unlike such existentialist contemporaries as Jean Paul Sartre, Camus did not cope with the "anxiety", "nausea" and "dread" that accompanied this nihilistic vision by taking refuge in the most popular left-wing "isms" of his day.

As reviewer Tony Judd appropriately noted in his Guardian piece, Camus' point of view in The Plague is particularly worth careful study after the events of 9/11. If nothing else, it demonstrates that if he had somehow still been alive on the day of that terrorist nightmare, he -- unlike most leftist thinkers of yesterday and today -- would have had no problem making judgements about who was at fault and why. And it is very unlikely that he would have been tempted to justify (or rationalize) the horrific actions of al-Qaeda by proffering the well-worn slander, so popular on the Continent, that the United States somehow deserved what it got.

Of course, there's no doubt that Camus was definitely a man of the political left. He had been raised in grinding poverty in Algeria. And he was briefly a member of the Communist Party in pre-War Algeria. But unlike Sartre and his pampered middle-class friends, Camus didn't existentially seek an awareness of "being" by means of a dogmatic ideological mission to redress human misery through the totalitarian Stalinist revolutionary solution (with all the doublethink and violence this ideological undertaking involved). Instead, Camus -- to use his mode of expression -- "revolted" against the "no" in life by embracing the "yes" in existence.

Camus would not take the easy way out intellectually, by abandoning all notions of morality and ethics in politics for the sake of the ultimate good (the revolution). Unlike Sartre and company, he rejected the era's most beckoning diversion from the phenomenological nihilist nightmare -- an intellectual fun ride on the deterministic Marxist roller coaster of historical inevitability, an intellectual adventure during which one immersed oneself in the extremes of a historical dialectic in which the end (the revolution) justified any means (murder, show trials and the extermination of all who get in the way).

As existentialists, intellectual contemporaries such as Sartre may well have attempted to confront the angst-inducing vision of the godless, nihilistic hellhole that represented "existence" for free thinkers in post-Nazi Europe. However, Sartre and his followers flinched. They turned away from this depressing nightmare, and found an escape from free will in the siren call of the dialectical "historical" struggle and all the comforting certainties (and rigidities) that the Stalinist strain of Communism offered them at the time. And by throwing themselves into the pursuit of the revolutionary end, they and their myriad compatriots in the class struggle were freed to pursue any means. In their minds, they and political idols like Stalin were unrestrained by the limits of everyday morality from pursuing the extremes of human cruelty that the revolutionary mission might demand.

In the class struggle, they could find "meaning" and "aliveness" in being. They could experience a Nietzschean "vitality" that only intellectual Ubermensches of revolutionary culture like themselves could truly appreciate. And through the struggle for revolution, they could transcend the empty nothingness of everyday bourgeois existence that so upset them.

Camus too came face to face with the same nihilistic vision that bedeviled most European freethinkers in the aftermath of World War II -- the dark, rootless path of constant suffering that was life, which ended only in the fear and trembling that attended godless death. But -- to use his language -- he "revolted" against this nihilistic dead end, the absurdity of existence that comprises the vale of tears of human life.

Instead of succumbing to the darkness of this nihilistic vision, by affirming the "no" in life, he turned to what he considered to be the "yes" in life -- the a-priori light of human existence: others. He said "yes" to the intrinsic sense of solidarity he experienced toward his fellow humans (no matter how imperfect they were), and otherwise strived to accept the unalterable "limitations" of human existence.

Rebellion for Camus was not the inhumane "ends-justifies-the-means" action demanded by the historical struggle for the perfect revolutionary social order -- with all the murderous extremes that such a struggle inevitably encompassed. Camus' notion of rebellion resisted the nihilistic call, by affirming the relatedness of self to others and to nature. One strived to accept the limitations of human existence, all the while savoring every joy in life and fighting against every private or civic action that brought unjust suffering to others.

For Camus, the true "rebel" embraced human solidarity, as both means and ends, in a continuing "revolt" against the nihilistic shadow. The rebel could feel most alive by transcending the nothingness of being and finding meaning in relatedness to his or her fellows. And within Camus' humanistic world view, even the unceasing dialectical march of revolutionary history had to come to a halt when confronted by the exigencies of an even more basic a-priori truth of existence -- each human's essential solidarity with and obligation to the other.

Of course, after wading through this somewhat arcane discussion, you're probably thinking by now: "So what? It's 2002. Why bother ourselves with outdated writings from more than 50 years ago? Why refight the philosophical and political battles of post-War Europe now?"

The answer is twofold. First of all, after a careful reading of Camus, it's not difficult to come to the conclusion that despite his life-long leftist political leanings, he was a philosophical conservative by nature. And secondly, he still remains one of the best intellectual antidotes for budding college-age intellects searching for "meaning" amidst the empty, sterile conformity that comprises life in contemporary capitalist society (in their minds anyway).

Camus is a cautionary literary and philosophical footnote to the post-Heidegger European intellectual quest that has bequeathed to us the intellectual poison of Foucault and Jacques Derrida, and the soul-destroying theorems of deconstruction. He is an energizing antidote to the paralyzing non-judgmentalism of post-modernist political thought that produced the strange ambivalence (if not satisfaction) of North American intellectuals regarding the events of 9/11.

As a man of political action, Albert Camus may have adopted the language and world view of European leftist politics as he battled against the social and political injustices of the 1940's and 1950's. But perhaps because his entire identity was so rooted in the practical, real-world sensibility of the working-class surroundings of his Algerian childhood, and his strong identification with the eternal rhythms of nature that dominated life in the seaside surroundings of his birthplace, Camus could not shake an intrinsic conservatism in his perception of the dynamics of change in human life. Consequently, in quasi-philosophical treatises like The Rebel, over and over again he cautioned even the most well-meaning social and political revolutionaries of the need to keep in mind the "limitations" of human existence -- the innate and enduring injustices of life and nature which mere human interventions could never alter (after all, life's greatest injustice may well be that we inevitably die).

Like some wise old conservative, even the youthful Camus seemed to have an instinctive skepticism about the perfectibility of man or his social institutions. And just like post-war conservatives in the U.S. (of whom he did not approve), he instinctively recognized the travesties of the great Stalinist experiment in revolutionary society that was the Soviet Union of the 1930s, '40s and '50's. He was appalled by the Stalinist show trials of the 1930's. He condemned the ruthlessness of the petty commissars and tyrants who flourished in the Communist revolutionary milieu of the 1930's and '40's. And unlike leftist European intellectual contemporaries like Sartre, he strenuously objected to the Soviets' ruthless suppression of the anti-communist Hungarian uprisings of 1956.

Most important, Camus' literary and philosophical writings offer an alternative intellectual magnet for today's disaffected young intellectuals. He addresses the sense of alienation and rebellion still experienced by today's idealistic young thinkers in the post-modern age, those stubborn young minds still trying to forge an "authentic" path amidst the absurdity and banality of what they view as modern living. Having confronted death in his many bouts with tuberculosis, and during his participation in the French resistance movement, Camus convincingly tackles the question of living authentically within the modern existential void. And yet unlike Heidegger's post-modernist successors, Camus rejects any escape into the moral relativism of post-structural nihilism.

For in the end, Camus recognizes the existence of good and evil in human life. And in his writings, as in his life, he tried his best to ally himself with the forces of good (the light), in the fight against the forces of evil (darkness). His was an intellectual voyage guided by an innate notion of the enduring pull of the other -- by the timeless call for human solidarity against the vicissitudes of existence.

Certainly, Camus would have understood and approved of the heroic sacrifice made by so many New York City firefighters and police on September 11th, 2001. And As Tony Judd noted in his Guardian review, The Plague in particular makes enlightening reading in the aftermath of the dramatic events of 9/11.

Consequently, I suggest you amble over to your nearest bookstore and pick up a paperback copy of Camus' novel The Plague and then his political-philosophical treatise The Rebel. Think of them as intellectual comfort food for these confusing times.

Even better, make a gift of The Plague (and perhaps Camus' cold tale of alienation, The Stranger) to some conflicted young person in college you're acquainted with. It may well serve as a surprising antidote to the poisonous cant currently being dished out to this unknowing victim by his or her post-modernist professors. Murray Soupcoff is a recovering liberal and webmaster of The Iconoclast website.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: 911; albertcamus; alqaeda; anxiety; bookreview; camus; deathofgod; deconstruction; dread; existentialism; frenchintellectuals; friedrichnietzsche; jacquesderrida; jeanpaulsartre; literature; martinheidegger; marxism; michelfoucault; nausea; nihilism; postmodernism; september12era; theplague; therebel; thestranger; tonyjudd; wwii
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To: cornelis
I do think you have something there. My experience has been that the majority of people don't realize what 'being above ground' is really worth. You're right, you're definitely right.

I think the dangerous byproduct of your thesis is that life becomes cheap and easy to legislate away, as death loses its philosophical impact.

21 posted on 12/20/2003 3:13:21 PM PST by AlbionGirl (A kite flies highest against the wind, not with it. - Winston Churchill)
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To: cornelis
Is your username your name, or does it allude to Sholem Asch's 'The Nazarene?'
22 posted on 12/20/2003 3:15:19 PM PST by AlbionGirl (A kite flies highest against the wind, not with it. - Winston Churchill)
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To: trajanus_red
ping!
23 posted on 12/20/2003 3:17:16 PM PST by diotima
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To: bdeaner
I find nothing in your post which would indicate that the subject, Camus, was a Conservative. There are certainly many "Liberal" intellectuals, who do not support the efforts of the monolithic Leftists (i.e., the Communists, Socialists--including the Nazi variety--and the "One Worlders") to propagate their "idealism" by brute force. But it certainly sounds as though the man is (or was) still a collectivist, or how else do you consider one who makes a virtue out of the idea of human "solidarity."

Mankind is a very varied species, with speciating parts. The Conservative in every culture is interested in preserving what is unique in the traditions and achievements of his people. Human "solidarity" is hardly consistent with such preservation. And Europe after the war was not such a demoralized intellectual wasteland, that there were not Conservatives in each country, who wanted to get back to their traditional values. One need not speculate on who was or was not a Conservative in the period.

Conservatism, again, is about preserving traditional values. Simply refusing to kill conservatives in the pursuit of non-traditional values, hardly makes one a conservative or even a moderate. All Leftists were not Bolsheviks or Nazis. I will accept that Camus was not a Bolshevik or Nazi. That does not make him an ally.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

24 posted on 12/20/2003 3:37:32 PM PST by Ohioan
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To: mrfixit514
Ortega writes the polemic tract, Oakeshott the historical analysis.
25 posted on 12/20/2003 3:54:47 PM PST by cornelis
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To: Cicero
Overly simplistic. Heidegger matters and the reasons why are not hard to comprehend. They can't be dismissed with a SNL skit.

The charge against the modern world by those who hate it is fundamentally a charge of impiety. That basic point remains. What the German radical right showed was that the hatred would remain even if or when those leveling the charge lost their own piety. Because the objection to living in a secularized modernity is not that secularism is false, but that it is unacceptable even when it is believed to be true.

The animus behind the charge stems from an underlying fear of living in a world in which death is final and justice has no cosmic support. The German radical reaction to that situation was to deliberately set about creating a replacement of myth for the faith that had been lost. The same motivation lies behind modern radical Islam. The only difference is that there are various shades of honest belief, myth-making, and cynicism in the latter camp.

In that myth making, Strauss and Camus did not follow the Germans. Both kept their allegiance to morality on rationalist and humanist grounds without any support of faith. Strauss, more than Camus, considered it entirely implausible that any large number of people could or would do the same - that is, he thought most people's allegiance to morality, and contentment with modernity, depended in the last analysis on faith or on myths. Which all involved seem to agree, modernity systematically undermines.

The "existentialist mind trip" as you put it certainly has its sillier elements, and anyone can see as a replacement theology it leaves much to be desired. It is a reaction, perhaps an unsuccessful reaction, to a real cultural-political issue and problem, however. The dominant one in the modern world, both in their day and in ours.

There is a nihilist revolt against modernity as soulless. It has had many manifestations and it will undoubtedly have others in the future. Radical Islamic fascism is just one version of it. Original Nazism was another. Conscious myth-making and deliberate rejection of reason as a standard characterize that revolt. The root of it, psychologically, is not a SNL skit or a sophistic verbal game.

It is the fear of millions of human beings, newly without faith in historical terms, of their personal annihilation, and a frantic attempt to conceal that real prospect from themselves. Which leads them to hate anyone teaching anything that reminds them of why they came to doubt in the first place, anyone who reminds them of the harshness of the world. At the same time, feeling a release from all moral restraints, and a hatred of the imagine hypocrisy of those still upholding them.

If anyone wonders what is uniting the infantile pacifist left here, the fanatics in the Muslim world, and secular leftist intellectuals in Europe, look no farther.

Camus is better than the other existentialists of his day, left or right - along with someone like Ortega y Gasset. He held morality foremost, higher than politics or philosophy. I would not call him a wise man, but he was at bottom a decent one, trying to grapple with what are effectively the theological difficulties of his age. And doing so honestly, without evasion, without letting himself off easy with some facile inward lie.

He faced the political problems of fascism and the French war in Algeria, as well. There is nothing wrong with the recommendation to read him, particularly "Plague" (which is fundamentally about the futility of a hyper-political reaction to mortality) and these days, "Stranger".

Incidentally, Strauss is more important than the linked article suggests, as well. He not only understood this whole terrain better than just about anyone, he understood its links to the inter-civilizational struggle presently underway. He was not ignorant of Islam, or of medieval attitudes still very much alive in the modern world, nor of some of the inconsistencies and difficulties within modernity that give them points to aim at. He knew as much of Averroes as of Socrates. It is not the first time a similar issue - a destruction of legitimacy through widespread loss of faith - has arisen in history.

I don't think Eddie Murphy's got any answers to all of that. But thanks for offering.

26 posted on 12/20/2003 4:14:18 PM PST by JasonC
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To: Cicero
That is all there is to Heidegger's Existential idea of Being-towards-death.

Heidegger ends up with a center at 'care' or 'concern.' He is close to the true center, one step away. It's not the true center, but no philosopher would dare to mention the true center lest he be labelled Buddhist.

27 posted on 12/20/2003 4:20:03 PM PST by RightWhale (Close your tag lines)
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To: Ohioan
That is not what makes him a "conservative". I'd say, he is aware of the theological problem, and that the political one arises in a wider context set by it. ("Religion is about death", Acton once said). "Plague" is not simply about it being wrong to murder political opponents. It is a diagnosis of the frenzy driving political injustice in our day, as at bottom rooted in a fear of the situation revealed (or believed in, if you like) by loss of faith. And of the futility of the hyper-political reaction to that fear.

Lowith was saying something similar when he said mankind cannot be saved because it does not exist - by which he meant to put the emphasis back on the individual soul. Voeglin was saying something related, though not the same, when he diagnoses the problem as making immanent what ought to have remained transcendent. What makes Camus a man of the left despite this is simply that he had no faith, himself.

What he means by human solidarity is hardly leveling or social homogenization. It is simply seeing the common mortality of man, and if you like a sort of clinging to one another in the face of it. Among religious conservatives much the same point would be expressed by saying all are children of God, and seeing that as the basis of the moral worth and dignity of men as men. Camus hasn't got God. Men can only help hold each other up in the face of death, or else tear each other to pieces vainly trying to run away from it - as though it won't get them if it gets the other guy first. Well, it will.

28 posted on 12/20/2003 4:28:54 PM PST by JasonC
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To: AlbionGirl
How long have you been in the US? Is English your native language? If not, WOW, I'm impressed. You write very well.
29 posted on 12/20/2003 4:44:46 PM PST by bdeaner
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To: AlbionGirl
Leftist politics is largely driven by envy. Plain to see.
30 posted on 12/20/2003 4:47:10 PM PST by bdeaner
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To: Penny
I understand even though I do not share completely your views on the death penalty. Another time, perhaps, we can discuss this issue on this forum.

I will try to fish "The Guest" out of Google.

In the meantime, keep in mind our conversation about the death penalty. You know my handle, so when you have the time and inclination, drop me a line.
31 posted on 12/20/2003 4:49:38 PM PST by bdeaner
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To: Ohioan
I'm with bdeaner on the distinction between the collective and the communitas (polis) and I found billthedrill's statement unique: principal issue for the protagonist is to what degree the impending social catastrophe impels him as a reclusive, reflective individual, to embark on direct action in opposition. It is both a measuring of what individual and collective actually owe one another and what degree that individual may remain withdrawn and still be true to his ethical beliefs with respect to that relation

.

32 posted on 12/20/2003 5:07:47 PM PST by cornelis
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To: JasonC
You must admit that, upon first reading, Sein und Zeit reads not unlike the above 'ebonics' passage -- which I found quite hilarious. But I take Heidegger very seriously.

One of the many things I take from Heidegger is his quite Aristotelian priviledging of possibility over actuality -- an analysis that makes possible his subsequent description of being-towards-death. Without a grasp of the ontological priority of possibility -- and its relation to the three ek-stasies of time -- one's grasp of Heidegger's analysis of death will be quite trivial.

Nihilism (e.g., Islamism), then, hinges upon giving priority to actuality rather than possibility -- that is, taking up death as an actuality rather than possibility. To take up death as an actuality is to flee the recognition of death as possibility, the not-to-be-outstripped possibility of having no possibilities.
33 posted on 12/20/2003 5:20:56 PM PST by bdeaner
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To: JasonC
a destruction of legitimacy through widespread loss of faith

Yes. Thanks for posting that.

34 posted on 12/20/2003 5:21:46 PM PST by cornelis
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To: bdeaner
I didn't study philosophy or read any Camus. Frankly, I'm not sure what the author is talking about. So, I guess I'll stick to my version FReelosophy :0)
35 posted on 12/20/2003 6:23:01 PM PST by Aura Of The Blade
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To: Aura Of The Blade
FReelosophy :0)

LOL. Hey, if it works for you, go for it. ;^)
36 posted on 12/20/2003 6:24:57 PM PST by bdeaner
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To: bdeaner
bttt
37 posted on 12/20/2003 9:06:09 PM PST by lainde
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To: bdeaner
I've been in the US several decades, and actually both English and Italian are my native tongues because I learned them both simultaneously.

My brother had it a little harder than me. When we came to the US he was five years old. We disembarked in NY in April, and he had to attend kindergarten in September of the same year. The only phrase he knew at that time was upside down. By the end of the school year he spoke English as well as his native born school mates.

Those Nuns were tough, sometimes even vicious, but they were very, very, well educated, and they were excellent teachers. We received a private school education that cost my parents nothing.

My how things have changed: today the cost of attending a Catholic school is very high, the education while better than most public schools is still dumbed down, and the Church has to organize a 'Capital Project' to raise money to settle lawsuits filed against it for unspeakable acts committed (sp?) by its aberrant priests.

My Church is sorely in need of a good fumigation or schism, take your pick.

It seems that my Church has nothing on the godless humanism practiced by the godless humanists. It really depresses me.

By the way, do you know a lot about Heidegger and the existentialists (sp?)? There seems to be some debate on this thread concerning the merit of their thinking. I'm not acquainted with his writings in great detail, but I find his movement in general to be peopled with windbags and not deep thinkers.

I agree w/Cicero in that it's a hard act to take seriously unless you're pretty short sighted. The long view of History mocks nearly everything they stand for, and the advancements of society as they follow momentous Military engagements reduces the existentialist core message to that of thrashing adolescence.

38 posted on 12/20/2003 9:20:41 PM PST by AlbionGirl (A kite flies highest against the wind, not with it. - Winston Churchill)
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To: bdeaner
Yes, but it goes a long way in explaining why alot of conservative students have an affinity for Camus.
39 posted on 12/20/2003 9:32:30 PM PST by Cosmo (Liberalism is for Girls!)
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To: Cicero
"this left Strauss in the prickly position of preaching the absolute truth of Socratic philosophy while giving credence to Nietzsche and Heidegger, who rejected all absolutes and Socrates more than anyone."


This does not sound so implausible for alot of people of a conservative bent. And perhaps that might explain why so many conservatives come away feeling that leftist thinkers like Camus speak to them. Inudeed, i often find myself questioning the leftist credentials of alot of academic pontiffs.I 've found for exa0ple, that plato's writings are often qi4ite conservatve (especially if you read them with the 'Straussian eye":))


40 posted on 12/20/2003 10:05:47 PM PST by Cosmo (Liberalism is for Girls!)
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