On Absurdism

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.  Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.  All the rest -- whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories -- comes afterward.  These are games . . ."
--Albert Camus, An Absurd Reasoning


Drastically different from nihilism, absurdism, a philosophy formally articulated by Albert Camus, teaches not that existence and life possess no meaning, or that there is no god to imbue them with meaning, but that current limitations on human knowledge will inevitably prevent us from deciphering any meaning of life.  Whereas nihilism denies all purpose whatsoever, absurdism merely acknowledges the difficulty of realizing that objective meaning possibly exists while concluding we cannot currently learn what it is.  To some extent, even the most dedicated Christian--if intellectually and emotionally honest--will be forced to admit the absurdity of life.  Every being with my limitations that searches for meaning will eventually have to confront the fact that life is absurd and that no human effort can alter this.

Albert Camus understood that an individual cannot legitimately invent meaning for himself or herself.  This is not only logically impossible, as something is either objectively and intrinsically meaningful or it is not independent of human preferences, but it also completely avoids the problem which absurdism embraces.  The question that absurdism leads to, of course, is one of suicide: why not kill oneself?  Even if meaning exists, how can one justify existing when that meaning cannot be discovered, proven, and accepted?

Camus, intriguingly, condemned suicide.  He did not label it a legitimate response to the uncertainty and absurdity of human existence.  However, the question of whether or not meaning exists and the question of whether or not the present life is worth ending in order to discover ultimate truths are two highly different questions.  The former is an epistemological and metaphysical issue; the latter is a more personal one.

Allow me to emphasize a point again--absurdism does not teach nihilism, moral relativism, atheism, anti-theism, or any other such positions.  Depending on the type of absurdism in question, it does not contradict theism, moral objectivism, or even Christianity.  Life does not have to be meaningless.  It is not impossible for objective meaning to exist, but many aspects of life are difficult or impossible to decipher--most attempts to find meaning fail quite blatantly.  Certainly every attempt to create meaning or live for an unverified meaning leads to contradiction, the illusions of relativism, or to despair, if one truly wants to find fulfillment in something that is inherently significant.

People cannot justify responding to the elusive nature of meaning by inventing their own subjective significance.  One cannot create what cannot exist, and one's feelings will not reorient the nature of any values that do exist.  This can only prove a futile effort that avoids the problem of existential epistemology through fallacious, superficial, and artificial comfort constructed on emotion.  Living for a subjective or nonexistent purpose equates to living for a fantasy, not a remedy to the absurdity of life.