Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

Camus, Albert, & O'brien, Justin. (1991). The myth of Sisyphus and other essays (1st Vintage international ed.). New York: Vintage Books.

Camus starts out: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide” (3). “Suicide has never been dealt with except as a social phenomenon. On the contrary, we are concerned here, at the outset, with the relationship between individual thought and suicide” (4). “…killing yourself amounts to confessing. It is confessing that life is too much for you or that you do not understand it” (5). “The subject of this essay is precisely this relationship between the absurd and suicide, the exact degree to which suicide is a solution to the absurd (6). “Reflection on suicide gives me an opportunity to raise the only problem to interest me: is there a logic to the point of death? I cannot know unless I pursue, without reckless passion, in the sole light of evidence, the reasoning of which I am here suggesting that source. This is what I call an absurd reasoning” (9).

The absurdity of life is that there is nothing else. “This hearth within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction” (19). Camus rejects the logic of the affirmation of the existence of God. He doesn’t reject the affirmation of God (42). “What I know, what is certain, what I cannot deny, what I cannot reject—this is what counts” (51). “I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it” (51).

“Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion” (64). “The preceding merely defines a way of thinking. But the point is to live” (65).

The Absurd Man (Don Juan, Actor, Conqueror): “The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. ‘Everything is permitted’ does not mean that nothing is forbidden. The absurd merely confers an equivalence on the consequences of those actions” (67). Don Juan goes out and woos women. He does not do this for some future gain or punishment, but for pleasure now. “I see Don Juan in a cell of one of those Spanish monasteries lost on a hilltop. And if he contemplates anything at all, it is not the ghosts of past loves, but perhaps, through a narrow slit in the sun-baked wall, some silent Spanish plain, a noble, soulless land in which he recognizes himself. Yes, it is on this melancholy and radiant image that the curtain must be rung down. The ultimate end, awaited but never desired, the ultimate end is negligible” (77). The actor mimes the absurd, he is not content with living his own absurdity, but must embody the absurdity of another. The conqueror understands that man is the end of man’s own existence and that there is nothing else. He would love to transcend the whole of the world but he knows that this is impossible.

“Let me repeat that these images do not propose moral codes and involve no judgments: they are sketches. They merely represent a style of life. The lover, the actor, or the adventurer plays the absurd. But equally well, if he wishes, the chaste man, the civil servant, or the president of the Republic” (90).

Camus then examines artistic creation. “Creation is the great mime” (94). He looks at the suicide of Dostoevsky’s Kirilov, who doubts that God exists, but kills himself to prove that ‘he will not be had’ (105). Then there is ephemeral creation, of which I will say nothing.

He ends with an examination of the myth of Sisyphus. “They [the gods] had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor” (119).

Sisyphus climbs the hill pushing the rock. It is brutal, difficult work. The rock falls. “It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself!...That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness…He is stronger than his rock.,” and, “The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd…Sisyphus, the proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious…There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn” (121).

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy” (123).

Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth

Fanon, Frantz, & Philcox, Richard. (2004). The wretched of the earth / Frantz Fanon ; translated from the French by Richard Philcox ; introductions by Jean-Paul Sartre and Homi K. Bhabha. New York: Grove Press.

The mighty preface to this edition was written by Sartre, who presents a scathing telling of the effects of colonialism on European society. He makes the case that Fanon is not writing to the colonialists. No, he is writing about the colonialists. This, he claims, is important to realize, so that the Europeans can eventually move out of their humanist costume and towards an authentic embrace of the history of their involvement in the oppression of the global masses.

From Sartre:

"I have written one, however, to carry the dialectic through to its conclusion: we, too, peoples of Europe, we are being decolonized: meaning the colonist inside every one of us is surgically extracted in a bloody operation. Let's take a good look at ourselves, if we have the courage, and let's see what has become of us" (lvii).

"Today whenever two Frenchmen meet, there is a dead body between them. And did I say one…?" (lxii).

And on to Fanon (and it might be sufficiently colonialist to put Sartre before Fanon, but that's how the book is structured):

This book is very in tune with the movement of history. In fact, Hegel can be seen throughout the text and the master/slave dialectic is one of the most defining characteristics of the identities, rather, the consciousnesses of both the colonizers and the colonized.

This is a book about de-colonialization, the effects of this, and how this aspect of history has moved forward. "Decolonization, we know, is an historical process: in other words, it can only be understood, it can only find its significance and become self coherent insofar as we can discern the history making movement which gives it form and substance" (2).

In one of the critiques of colonialism, Fanon talks about the compartmentalized nature of colonialism. "The colonized world is a world divided in two. The dividing line, the border, is represented by the barracks and the police stations" (3). This division also extends to the division between the rural and the urban areas within the colonies.

Another aspect of colonialism that is highlighted by Fanon was the dehumanizing nature of colonialism, the reduction of the colonized individual to the position of always being below, subservient, a slave. It is interesting to note that Fanon was a psychologist for most of his life.

The colonized respond to this process of dehumanization in some easily identifiable ways. There is a return to traditional cultural forms of expression, like dance. These cultural expressions were able to hide some of the symbolic rebellion and violence enacted against their colonizers.

Another relationship that Fanon highlights in relation to the de-colonial push is the rivalry, or distrust, between the rural and the urban classes. The urban people are seen as being collaborators with the colonial leaders. The rural people are seen as being unable to run a country as they have evolved. Neither the rural nor the urban populations can fully control the government, and neither will they fully trust each other when they are trying to take this control from the colonialist.

This is not struggle for the sake of struggle, but rather for the sake of emancipation. This is not an all-encompassing account of this text, but just some of the main themes that emerge. The book is rich, angry and a powerful critique of a certain stage of history that still exists in certain important ways.

The key to emancipation involves the autonomy of the army from the citizenry. Also, heavy investment must take place in education. People need to have opportunities to struggle in a direction, and education provides the means to achieve this. Prevent chauvinism, xenophobia, bigotry in general, as they can be pervasive in a nationalistic society. Have to develop a counter-hegemonic culture (Gramschi) to the prevailing cultural norms. This involves an organic alliance between cities and country-sides. You do not position yourself as just being the opposite of the common culture, because then you are dependent on the hegemonic cultural position. This new cultural hegemony would have to create its own agenda; it would have to define its own path.