Posted on 12/09/2002 3:05:28 PM PST by Apolitical
Not long after September 11th, 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 is 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 phenomenological "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, Camus' point of view in The Plague is particularly worth careful study after the events of September 11th. 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.....................
(Excerpt) Read more at iconoclast.ca ...
I disagree, completely. While not an expert on Camus by any means, I studied his works and had to do a term paper on it and his philosophy, which was what he based his writings on. He was an unhappy man. It is believed his death by car accident was the result of suicide. As an existentialist (which, as far as I'm concerned was is a religion, as that philosophy requires more faith than believing what Jesus said, IMHO), he believed there was a God, but that's about it. Sartre, on the other hand, was an existentialist but also an athiest.
What I recall about Camus' thoughts on existentialism were described this way by my literature professor: imagine yourself as sand on a beachfront. Nature causes a body to form out of the sand. It "becomes," quite apart from a "disinterested God." And so, we, "become," all on our own, "forever alone." I wouldn't say that his works should be praised any more than any other philosopher's. And they should be studied less than works which make you believe that you are not "forever alone," created by chance. Just my 0.2 cents.
Conservative or not, The Rebel contains the most devastating critique of Marxism I've ever read. In fact, reading that essay destroyed any lingering fondness for Marx left over from my college days.
Camus understands the Marxist world view like few Conservative critics could. I guess today he would be a neo-conservative, like Kristol.
During the 1930s and 1940s many accepted the leftist idea of collective liberation. Since then, we've all become much more individualistic, and the old leftist idea is no longer so compelling. People have seen what it led to, and what the opposite path of individuality produced. We don't look for collective liberation, because we recognize that any new collective can be as oppressive as the old authorities -- if not more so.
Camus was a man on the margin, who imbibed the ideas of his day, but didn't fully fit in with the orthodoxy. Orwell was another. I don't know if it makes them conservatives. The opposition to conformity and collectivism that one finds in "The Plague" is first of all opposition to religion, tradition, and unquestioned, accepted habits. But the views of Camus and Orwell do make them very compelling figures, now as well as then.
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