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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

This morning, I began to think about "The Myth of Sysiphus" by Albert
Camus.

I turned to my trusty www.sparknotes.com and pasted a few
excerpts below, with comments of my own.

Albert Camus (1913–1960) is not a philosopher so much as a novelist
with a strong philosophical bent. He is most famous for his novels of
ideas, such as The Stranger and The Plague, both of which are set in
the arid landscape of his native Algeria.

Like existentialism, phenomenology influenced Camus by its effort to
construct a worldview that does not assume that there is some sort of
rational structure to the universe that the human mind can apprehend.

Camus when he first wrote about exile, was a man, far from his home,
who was struggling against a seemingly omnipotent and senselessly
brutal regime.

The central concern of The Myth of Sisyphus is what Camus calls "the
absurd." Camus claims that there is a fundamental conflict between
what we want from the universe (whether it be meaning, order, or
reasons) and what we find in the universe (formless chaos). We will
never find in life itself the meaning that we want to find. Either we
will discover that meaning through a leap of faith, by placing our
hopes in a God beyond this world, or we will conclude that life is
meaningless.

Camus opens the essay by asking if this latter conclusion that life
is meaningless necessarily leads one to commit suicide. If life has
no meaning, does that mean life is not worth living? If that were the
case, we would have no option but to make a leap of faith or to
commit suicide, says Camus. Camus is interested in pursuing a third
possibility: that we can accept and live in a world devoid of meaning
or purpose.

Sitaram wonders if our purpose in a meaningless universe is to find
meaning in the meaninglessness, create meaning where there is no
meaning, impose meaning upon that meaninglessness. Perhaps
meaninglessness is a necessary ingredient for freedom. If there is a
pre-existing meaning and order, then that which pre-exists becomes
law for us, and law constricts our freedom.

Stop and think how even the omnipotence of God is threatened by
laws and order. There are two verses in the Bible (Titus 1:2;
Hebrews 6:18) which state that "God cannot lie."

Allah of the Qu'ran, on the other hand, is more free and potent than
such an honest-Abe Jehovah, for Islam states that Allah has the power
to abrogate and overturn any and every established rule or command.

Sura 2:106 "Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be
forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know
that Allah has power over all things?"

Plato presents us with the famous "Euthyphro Dilemma" which asks:
"Is what you're doing pious because it is loved by God, or does God
love what you're doing because what you're doing is pious?"

Honest-Abe-Jehovah is forbidden to lie because of the pre-existing
absolute standard of good and evil to which even God is subject. So
Jehovah loves virtue because of its intrinsic objective absolute
nature as something good. Allah on the other hand, is more powerful
since Allah is free to designate whatever Allah pleases as pious and
virtuous, and is not even bound by Allah's own judgment, but may
abrogate that judgment at any time and designate something
completely different as pious and virtuous.

Confronted by meaninglessness, we seek transcendence to rise above
and escape.

Sisyphus must struggle perpetually and without hope of success. So
long as he accepts that there is nothing more to life than this
absurd struggle, then he can find happiness in it, says Camus.

Camus gives four examples of the absurd life: the seducer, who
pursues the passions of the moment; the actor, who compresses the
passions of hundreds of lives into a stage career; the conqueror, or
rebel, whose political struggle focuses his energies; and the artist,
who creates entire worlds. Absurd art does not try to explain
experience, but simply describes it. It presents a certain worldview
that deals with particular matters rather than aiming for universal
themes.

Camus discusses the very meaning of existence and life itself.
Sitaram observes that to justify absurdity is to impose a measure of
order upon it.

We can be certain of only two things: our "nostalgia for unity" and
our inability to find an answer in the world.

Think about "unity." We study the "UNI"verse in a "UNIV"ersity
where we constantly strive for a "G.U.T." (Grand Unifying Theory)
Our various religions stress "MONO"theism, or the "UNITY" of the
Trinity. Our government adopts the maxim "E Pluribus Unum" (From the
many, one.) One wife, one husband, one God, one faith, one baptism.
We even make "top ten lists" of novels and many other things, which
implies that there is a NUMBER ONE at the top of the list. We speak
of "the great American novel." It is amusing to note that, even
though we have TWO eyes and TWO ears and TWO cerebral hemispheres,
yet we experience only ONE unified field of vision and hear only ONE
harmonious composition and have only ONE stream of consciousness. The
number one seems to have a sanctity all its own. The sanctiy of
unity give a new and different meaning to the one greatest prayer of
Judaism, the Shema: "Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is
ONE." Numero Uno is a God for us in many ways.

If the absurd man does not need to explain or justify his life and
behavior, why did Camus write this essay, which is, essentially, an
explanation and justification of the absurd worldview?
The irony of writing an essay to justify the absurd reminds Sitaram
of an episode from the Simpsons, "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming," in
which the side-kick of Crusty the Clown, Sideshow Bob (voice of
Kelsey Grammer), a frustrated Shakespearean actor, seizes control of
all the television stations, in an attempt to censure and silence the
very medium which enslaves him to the absurd role which he plays.

Bob: Oh, and one more thing. I've...stolen a nuclear weapon. If
you do not rid this city of television within two hours, I will
detonate it. Farewell.
-- Bob's evil parting words, "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming"

The TV turns off. The crowd begins to panic. The TV clicks back on
again.

Bob: By the way, I'm aware of the irony of appearing on TV in order to
decry it. So don't bother pointing that out.

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