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

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.

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 know more about some existential thinkers than others. I take some more seriously than others. The adolescent thrashing is more characteristic of certain interpreters of the existentialists than the thinkers themselves, most of whom rejected the title of "existentialist."

What I actually find to be of interest is less "existentialism" per se than the phenomenological tradition that is closely associated with that movement, starting with Heidegger's teacher, Edmund Husserl. Phenomenology is a method of philosophy. It begins with the epoche, or the bracketing of one's assumptions, and then closely describes a phenomenon. This is called the phenomenological reduction. Then through the description of the various ways the phenomenon appears, one engages in an eidetic reduction, the process of identifying those structural regularities of the phenomenon that remain throughout all the variations. The aim is to arrive at the essential structure of the phenomenon, in order to identify what the phenomenon is.

Heidegger arrived on the scene as a critic of Husserl, and that is where I find him to be of interest. Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others are also of interest, due to their roots in this phenomenological tradition of Continental Philosophy.

Some of them are not worth reading. Sartre, for instance, is indeed just a windbag. He was trying to make a name for himself and tame ideas originating elsewhere for his own leftist politics; everything important he is just borrowing from others. But there is something important going on there, overall.

The leading ones, like Heidegger and Nietzsche, were quite smart and quite serious, but not morally good. The modern world was a problem to them - in vital respects they were against it. The result is acute diagnosis, if you get me. Certain problems stand out very clearly, are dissected with care. There are also persistent problems - they have to be read critically, with an eye on their failings not as guides.

Heidegger is, in addition, quite opaque in many of his works. Meaning it takes a significant investment of patience just to learn how to hear what he is saying. He expects a detailed understanding of western philosophy, while systematically manipulating or rejiggering what is made of key figures within in.

This all makes it something of an intellectual parlor game, and can bring in an external superficiality to the subject. (People just want to show they understand it, and sometimes buy into it for little other reason). That aspect of it all isn't worth anything.

By the way, both you and bdeaner would make excellent teachers.

Thank you. Actually, I'm a professor.

I'm glad to hear you are willing to grapple with Heidegger. Be patient with him. He is quite difficult, but once it begins to sink in, you will be hooked. In my experience, people who have seriously studied Heidegger are never quite the same afterwards, in a good way. You might accompany your readings with supplementary, secondary texts.

Also, you might want to begin with Being and Time before you move on to later works. Don't let the introduction freak you out. It will read like a foreign language, at first. Go ahead and read it, and then read the entire text, slowly and methodically. Then, go back and read the intro. It will make sense after your read the whole text. Heidegger is a German philosopher, and it is a tradition to pack the entire argument into the intro. It works better as an "outro," a summary.

There are some good secondary texts out there to accompany your reading. I especially like Michael Gelven's "A Commentary on Heidegger's Being and Time." Also good are Magda King's "A Guide to Heidegger's Being and Time" and Bert Dreyfys' "Being-in-the-world."

As you go along, if you are interested, you are welcome to drop me a line to discuss the text(s).

Exactly what feature might Camus have that attracts the conservative? A very helpful discussion at the end of Wahl's Short History of Existentialism may give some hints:

1. Georges Gurvitch: The term "existence" introduced by Kierkegaard, and the philosophy of existence of which he was the promoter, had a definite historical significance as weapons against the constructive dialectic and panlogism of Hegel.

Here perhaps Cicero might find an ally. Everything post-Hegel is post-modern and if there is a conservative reaction at all, it is against the utopia of pure objective knowledge. The wish for that has landed into a philosophical quagmire of logical antitheses mined from the verb "to be." Those who refused to give up chasing the holy grail of objectivity became fancy to the point of sham. (It already begins with Kant). Nietzsche sniffed out their pretense and gave up the game (see MacIntyre, Three Rival Versons). Insofar as Camus shares this, he is preferred by those conserving the good of the ages prior when the human being shared a dignity free from the tyranny of objectivity (The Stranger). He struggled against its political manifestations.

2. Nicolas Berdiaeff Kierkegaard . . . did not wish to create an ontology or a metaphysics, and he did ot believe in the possibility of an ideational philosophy . . . Why is an ontology impossible? Because it is always a knowledge objectifying existence. In an ontology the idea of Being is objectified, and an objectification is already an existence which is alienated in the objectification. So that in ontology--in every ontology--existence vanishes.

Of course it doesn't actually vanish, but it is effectively ignored or despised. And this view, when put to use in politics, sidelines the dignity of the individual under a partial ordering principle. The optimistic solutions of such political ideas efface the reality of good and evil and this, I presume, is the plague that Camus shivered under. For the conservative then, Camus held on to a glimmer of hope during a time when politics eclipsed the dignity of humanity.

3. Alexandre Koyré To begin with, I was a little surprised that in his brilliant exposition, M. Wahl spoke so little of a concept--essential, so I believe-to Heidegger: the concept of Anxiety. Existence, according to Heidegger, is subjected to Anxiety; not the multiple anxieties of daily life, but to Anxiety as such. Existence is dominated in its entirety by the fact of Anxiety. This, for the very simple reason that existence is essentially finite . . . It is this inexorable limit--mortality, finitude, death--which determines and characterizes him, plus the fact that he knows it, that he is the only being in the world who knows it. . . .It is this awareness of our mortality, of death, that constitutes decision and acceptance. Heidegger echoes the ancient theme of wisdom: wisdom is always the acceptance of what is.

Of course, such acceptance is only half the story. We may accept death as a fact of life, but our resistence to it is another fact uniquely human. Our sheer wilfulness against it, that we ought not to die, that death is a wrong done to us, that death leaves justice unfinished, this is what gives us humanity. Death presents a moral distinction that cracks the glazed optimism of so many five year plans and speeches prefacing the deportation of flesh. For Koyré the prospect of death and loss presents nothing but anxiety, never mind those who try to carve out a bit of hope in words. Maurice De Gandillac questions whether our understanding of dying is actually grounde in hope.

4. De Gandillac. . . . we discover without a doubt that we are going to die. But is this simply a fact or a sort of right? Can one say that it is our nature to be beings made for death (Heidegger's zum Tode sein)?

Gandicallac claims such knowledge--that we die--is more than a fact of existence.

Here is exactly what I mean: Can one think the notion of the tragedy of this finitude in itself if one does not first posit an infinitude or a right to the infinite, a right to immortality? Is it not in an essentially religious perspective, which first posits immortality, that mortality, finitude, takes on its character?

And Gandillac has right somehow to point this out. If there is anything conservative here, it is what claims for human beings a dignity that opposes nature. The ancient Cicero knew this view was essential for politics. Today, when the scientistic ideal capitulates to the uniformity of natural laws, death cannot be just or unjust. And to stress this point, literature classes will repeat the mantra how nature has become "indifferent."

[Citing De Grandillac:] Here is exactly what I mean: Can one think the notion of the tragedy of this finitude in itself if one does not first posit an infinitude or a right to the infinite, a right to immortality? Is it not in an essentially religious perspective, which first posits immortality, that mortality, finitude, takes on its character? [Endcite].

What a magnificent essay, cornelis. Much to meditate here, and for a while to come. Thank you!

Just off the top of my head, for now I have to say how much I "resonate" to De Grandillac's claim for human beings --that human nature possesses a dignity that opposes nature. Where I disagree with him is thinking this dignity in effect constitutes a right. Perhaps it would be more fitting to acknowledge such dignity as a gift.

Here is exactly what I mean: Can one think the notion of the tragedy of this finitude in itself if one does not first posit an infinitude or a right to the infinite, a right to immortality? Is it not in an essentially religious perspective, which first posits immortality, that mortality, finitude, takes on its character?

Does a person really need to feel attached to the infinite in order for it to be possible to bemoan his finite fate?

This maybe too simplistic, and if so, I apologize in advance, but couldn't it be that early man as he was beginning to question his existence, or perhaps more accurately, becoming acutely aware of his precarious existence, and would look around him, feel profound attachment to all he witnessed and sensed, and simultaneously feel a profound sense of the loss of all of this once his consciousness ceased?

In other words, couldn't it be that he just wanted always to be able to see his beloved blue sky or boundless sea?

Am I missing the point you were trying to make?

"more fitting to acknowledge such dignity as a gift" OK, although, to save De G., he suggests this right with an "or."

OTH, this recognition is also considered analytically, death implies life, the finite implies the infinite. Koyré says this is a Cartesian argument. Koyré suggests instead a fear of death gives rise to the projection of immortality, or the hope of prolonging finitude. b>AlbionGirl seems to suggest this with "always wanting to be able to."

But this too, is again the hope of human desires to participate in what it fears it doesn't have: authenticity. And what is more authentic than a consciousness or efficacy of continued existence? In one sense it makes no difference if this takes the form of a self-assertive ego like a Sartre trying authenticate living for himself or another who yields to whomever or whatever is deemed to have it. Either way, what must be had, can't be had but with a faith (and it need not be christian). Although when such a participation is considered a gift, it is more nearly christian.

In one sense it makes no difference if this takes the form of a self-assertive ego like a Sartre trying authenticate living for himself or another who yields to whomever or whatever is deemed to have it. Either way, what must be had, can't be had but with a faith (and it need not be christian). Although when such a participation is considered a gift, it is more nearly christian.

cornelis, your analysis is brilliant. To carve out my own response to it, I'd start by saying there is a huge difference between a Sartre "trying [to] authenticate living for himself" and a christian "who yields to whomever or whatever is deemed to have it" [i.e., Life] -- which is ultimately God.

Sartre has no way to authenticate his own existential expeiences outside of his own personal resources. No wonder he is so anxious, so filled with distrust for the hellish "Other."

The christian, on the other hand, yields his existential experience to a judgment that is not conducted from his own internal resources. By this means, he is able to find both place and peace in this world.

But this does not mean the "christian-type mentality" will necessarily fall under the spell of the next slick shaman to come down the pike: Fundamentally, it seems to me the human spirit is quite discriminating about the things going on in its constituting environment (so to speak). IMHO.

It is precisely this putative human "instinct" for truth that comes most under attack these days -- so to get it to "doubt itself."

I'm sure in our modern world we will not lack for different points of view in regard to which is the "better" way to live a human life: Chronic existential angst, self doubt, and the ever-abiding keen skepticism about the motives, projects, and goals of the "hellish Other"; or an abiding sense of place and purpose in a Creation that is founded on ideas of love and mutual cooperation....

That's why Heidegger's idea that being depends on something like human death seems pretty deluded to me.

I can see how one could arrive at that interpretation of Heidegger, but I do not interpret Heidegger that way. Heidegger's existential analytic of Da-sein is a methodological choice, not the conclusion of his analysis. I think, later, he regretted this methodological approach, and this may be why he abandoned the project of Sein und Zeit (his promised third part was never completed). Heidegger's regrets on this score are probably best represented in his critique of Sartre in "Letter on Humanism." Worth reading.

Anyway, Being does not depend on human recognition of death. Just the opposite. The condition of possibility for the human recognition of death (ontic level of analysis) is that nothingness is the basis for Being (the ontological level of analysis).

Heidegger always begins with ontic description in order to disclose the ontological dimension. That's his hermeneutic method.

As for theology, it is important to recognize that Heidegger was a German who began his studies in the seminary. And one of his central influences was Meister Eckhart. So, Heidegger's ontology is quite similar, in some respects, to Eckart's negative theology. John Caputo has written a very good book on this, titled The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought.

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