Reading The Stranger by Albert Camus made me realize why some philosophy has helped me to be clearer, happier, and more effective than ever, but some philosophy is a useless brain rot.
Camus is not nihilistic. Absurdism advocates the following: (1) the fundamental characteristic of existence is the conflict between our desire for meaning and the universe's indifference; (2) the proper response to this fact is not to deny it (nihilism) or escape it by making claims to meaning you find/create (philosophical suicide / bad faith) but to revolt and live within the absurd; (3) a life lived this way is one that is honest and authentic, but it will not offer resolution or reconciliation.
I totally hear you about being bored or repulsed by Meursalt, but The Stranger (like all of Camus fiction) does not positively express a philosophical position. Rather, Camus's characters highlight the difficulty of confronting the absurd, and their flaws illustrate how one could accept the absurdity of existence yet fail to revolt. If anything, his characters' philosophies should be read as an a half-antithesis to Camus's. The real value in The Stranger and The Fall, for instance, is that they enumerate the many ways we delude ourselves and the many ways the absurd can eat you, what it looks like to fail to revolt.
Meursalt is an unhappy Sisyphus. Camus advocates for a way of living where, even though we're trapped within a Sisyphean struggle, we can still be happy and grateful and where we can still enjoy existence.
I grew up in a somewhat religious household, but when I was around 16 I lost my faith. I read some philosophy and literature, read through some different religions but fundamentally I didn't really believe in anything anymore. Looking back, I fell into nihilism for years, but it wasn't a conscious choice or philosophy I followed. I just stopped believing in anything and ended up a very very unhappy person. So over the years I suppose I've created my own meaning built up a new structure to "justify" my existence in a world that seems to lack meaning. What I'm trying to say is I love Absurdism and I love your essay thanks for writing.
I had to read L’Etranger in French, in college. I always thought that my inability to make any sense of it was because of my struggles with the language. However, it sounds just as confusing in English! I prefer both my philosophy, and my reading matter to be more to the point.
If I'm remembering accurately, my best friend gave me that book to read 20+ years ago. I don't remember disliking it, the only thing I remember is a flash of sunlight off a knife caused him to kill? Same book? Anyway, that scene must have been decent. Different from Brothers Karamazov, which my friend also made me read. That one I cannot recollect at all, except that I could not stop reading it and it was fucking hard to read. Like the opposite of Hemingway, a lot of which I can remember as if I were there.
Gosh I hope I’m not an intellectual narcissist 😂 but when I read this book it was in the same summer I read Herman Hesse’s book Siddhartha. I read Ann Rand too. I think it was a section of the library with philosophy books. And then I went on to study philosophy for 4 years. What I got from the book was your assumptions matter. Each person starts with plausible assumptions but it takes them to very different worldviews. I chose to live in alignment with assumptions that took me to Islam but I wanted to try out other ideas first. Your metaphor for ugliness and nihilism is brilliant.
Camus is not nihilistic. Absurdism advocates the following: (1) the fundamental characteristic of existence is the conflict between our desire for meaning and the universe's indifference; (2) the proper response to this fact is not to deny it (nihilism) or escape it by making claims to meaning you find/create (philosophical suicide / bad faith) but to revolt and live within the absurd; (3) a life lived this way is one that is honest and authentic, but it will not offer resolution or reconciliation.
I totally hear you about being bored or repulsed by Meursalt, but The Stranger (like all of Camus fiction) does not positively express a philosophical position. Rather, Camus's characters highlight the difficulty of confronting the absurd, and their flaws illustrate how one could accept the absurdity of existence yet fail to revolt. If anything, his characters' philosophies should be read as an a half-antithesis to Camus's. The real value in The Stranger and The Fall, for instance, is that they enumerate the many ways we delude ourselves and the many ways the absurd can eat you, what it looks like to fail to revolt.
Meursalt is an unhappy Sisyphus. Camus advocates for a way of living where, even though we're trapped within a Sisyphean struggle, we can still be happy and grateful and where we can still enjoy existence.
I grew up in a somewhat religious household, but when I was around 16 I lost my faith. I read some philosophy and literature, read through some different religions but fundamentally I didn't really believe in anything anymore. Looking back, I fell into nihilism for years, but it wasn't a conscious choice or philosophy I followed. I just stopped believing in anything and ended up a very very unhappy person. So over the years I suppose I've created my own meaning built up a new structure to "justify" my existence in a world that seems to lack meaning. What I'm trying to say is I love Absurdism and I love your essay thanks for writing.
I like the format
I had to read L’Etranger in French, in college. I always thought that my inability to make any sense of it was because of my struggles with the language. However, it sounds just as confusing in English! I prefer both my philosophy, and my reading matter to be more to the point.
If I'm remembering accurately, my best friend gave me that book to read 20+ years ago. I don't remember disliking it, the only thing I remember is a flash of sunlight off a knife caused him to kill? Same book? Anyway, that scene must have been decent. Different from Brothers Karamazov, which my friend also made me read. That one I cannot recollect at all, except that I could not stop reading it and it was fucking hard to read. Like the opposite of Hemingway, a lot of which I can remember as if I were there.
Gosh I hope I’m not an intellectual narcissist 😂 but when I read this book it was in the same summer I read Herman Hesse’s book Siddhartha. I read Ann Rand too. I think it was a section of the library with philosophy books. And then I went on to study philosophy for 4 years. What I got from the book was your assumptions matter. Each person starts with plausible assumptions but it takes them to very different worldviews. I chose to live in alignment with assumptions that took me to Islam but I wanted to try out other ideas first. Your metaphor for ugliness and nihilism is brilliant.