In all of my posts on absurdism so far [1] I have not yet shown from the writings of Camus, the French existentialist philosopher who popularized absurdism in the 1900s, how absurdism differs sharply from nihilism and what our response (according to Camus) to living in an absurd life should be. I aim to accomplish the realization of those goals here. If you do not know what I mean by the word absurdism, perhaps you should read some of my other relatively short articles on the topic to gain understanding of the term.
Camus' philosophy of absurdism can sound like nihilism depending on the description read, but, at its core, it presents a wholly different worldview, and in Camus' version, a more optimistic one. According to his essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" he did not claim nihilism as his worldview but expressed skepticism about the issue of objective meaning:
“I don’t know whether this world has 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” (18).
Camus, knowing that he cannot prove that meaning either exists or does not exist, avoids the non sequiturs that would result if he claimed the philosophy of nihilism; he can thus support the more defensible position of skepticism with regards to objective meaning. In this vacuum of knowable or actual meaning, the question of suicide becomes elevated to the highest of priorities in our lives, as every other issue pales in comparison to it in terms of sheer existential significance. This is why suicide stands as such a prominent theme in "The Myth of Sisyphus". As Camus said, "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide . . . All the rest . . . comes afterwards. These are games" (1). Nothing--not matters of science, aesthetics, or personal opinion--could rival this issue in terms of all-consuming importance.
Criticizing those who deny absurdity on the grounds that acknowledgement of absurdity leads to despair, Camus states a simple truth:
“This cry is not likely to stop the absurd man . . . Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable” (14).
Irrespective of the subjective reactions of individuals to the realization of absurdity, Camus posits that the truth haunts us whether we face it or not. He never shirked from verbally acknowledging what he believed life to be like--an incomprehensible thing that may or may not prove significant in the end. But nothing that Camus said amounted to nihilism. Nihilism denies that any meaning exists in the universe, known or unknown, whereas absurdism holds to skepticism towards claims of objective meaning. For, according to absurdism, to know meaning we would have to escape our current limitations and process information behind our ability to learn and decipher. As Camus said in a quote I mentioned already, he did not assert that objective meaning does or does not exist, only that if it does he does not know of it.
Without any true logical or ontological justification, Camus encouraged people to not commit suicide in light of the absurd. He instead believed that we should defy absurdity by choosing to not take our own lives, simultaneously confronting and rejecting the absurd on a constant basis. He stated this position quite explicitly: "To abolish conscious revolt . . . is to elude the problem. The theme of revolution is thus carried into individual experience" (18). The intriguing thing about absurdism is that although it does not ultimately deny meaning it cannot provide an objective reason why people should not commit suicide, the very thing that Camus called the central question of all philosophy. After all, why defy the absurd if one cannot even know if that is meaningful? What point would there be? All Camus could offer was a question-begging "solution" based on subjective personal preference, not objective logic.
Although absurdism is quite distinct from nihilism, in the end, an absurdist who does not invent a subjective, arbitrary construct of meaning for himself or herself will inevitably end up living like a nihilist. The two positions are not at all synonymous, yet absurdism does not offer a verifiable reason to reject suicide. People from either worldview can easily end up resembling each other in action and attitude. Ultimately, Camus reached the illogical conclusion that although we cannot know meaning, if such a thing even exists at all, we should still find revolting against absurdity compelling and live accordingly. But if no meaning is knowable, then why pretend that what equates to effectually (in action) denying reality proves meaningful or comforting? It inescapably eludes the problem just as much as or more than suicide. That Camus would believe that, regardless of his feelings or preferences, is quite absurd.
[1]. See here:
A. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/09/on-absurdism.html
B. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/theistic-absurdism.html
C. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/absurdism-in-hamlet.html
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Camus, Albert. Trans. O'Brien, Justin. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.
Doesn't Ecclesiastes address absurdism? Solomon constantly talks about the meaninglessness and futility of our human condition in regards to finding satisfaction and completion in our current life.
ReplyDeleteEcclesiastes is definitely the most existential book of the entire Bible. Solomon was pretty much the closest thing to the Camus of Israel! Still, differences between the two existed.
ReplyDeleteThe phrase "Everything is meaningless!" that one finds in Ecclesiastes so often can seem quite out of place in a larger book about how we can only find genuine fulfillment in God alone. It seems to me that the author of Ecclesiastes was exaggerating a perception of emptiness to make a point. I mostly say that because of the content of the last two chapters of the book. For instance, when it comes to the question of objective meaning, nowhere that I remember does he get much deeper than merely declaring that everything is meaningless. He never presents some syllogism detailing just how one can know that life has no meaning or explains how the Judeo-Christian God he mentions (3:9-15, for example) and his "nihilism" or absurdism (1:1-11) can coexist. Never does he contemplate the issue of suicide like Camus. I think that the perceived futility of life is more what Solomon (or whoever wrote Ecclesiastes) focused on. Life is a vapor, a fog that evaporates for us all and brings us all to death, our universal end. I think that futility and brevity seem the basis for the existential complaints of Solomon here. But at the end of the book in chapter 12 readers see the author's final judgment about life: "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man" (verse 13). Solomon ultimately concluded that meaning can only be found in God, and nowhere else; throughout the book he simply describes the lack of intrinsic meaning or fulfillment in things without God.