Episode 226 - Transcript

Hello everyone! I’m Stephen West! This is Philosophize This!

So this is part three of this series we’ve been doing on the work of Camus. Consider listening to the last two before this. But I’m not gonna tell you how to live your life. 

Solidarity…was the concept Camus laid out in his book The Plague. 

Where he says that affirming life as it is… means affirming that other human beings live in the same world that you do. And that when the absurd comes knocking at your door, whatever it is– solidarity means to affirm that these people face a SIMILAR set of existential dilemmas that YOU do as a being. That to IGNORE the people around you, or to JUSTIFY their suffering with reasons for why they deserve it…well to Camus this is fundamentally to DENY something IMPORTANT about the reality that you live in. 

Now as we know: none of this is grounded for him in a philosophical SYSTEM. As we’ve talked about this emerges for him SIMPLY from a lucid affirmation… of our OWN nature… and the nature of the universe. The tension between those two. 

And as I teased at the end of LAST episode…this concept of solidarity will become the foundation…for EXTENDING what he thinks we can SAY from this place of lucid revolt– solidarity is going to allow him to make a case for justice. 

But it can BE confusing to HEAR this at first. How in GOD’S name is he gonna pull something like this off? 

Justice requires LAWS. LAWS are theoretical abstractions. Camus’ the kinda guy on Halloween…that’ll steal candy from someone dressed UP as a theoretical abstraction. He doesn’t like them. CERTAINLY not when they claim to be universal.

He lays out his case for this JUSTICE of his… in a very long essay he wrote in 1951 called The Rebel. 

And should be said: the SAME way Dostoevsky might be MOST FAMOUS for writing Crime and Punishment, but that SUPERFANS always have one of his OTHER books as their favorite…Camus may be most known for writing The Stranger or The Myth of Sisyphus…but this essay The Rebel’s the one that people REALLY serious about his work will often say contains his biggest contribution to human THOUGHT. Just saying this is a highly RESPECTED book we’re talking about today.

Camus starts the Rebel coming out swinging. He’s got no TIME to lollygag around anymore…not in a world that HAS no theory of JUSTICE yet. He’s gotta DO something. 

And immediately… he gives us one of those POWERFUL IMAGES he’s known for in his work. He gets us to PICTURE a slave… who has spent their whole life taking orders…and they suddenly decide they’re NOT gonna obey some new ORDER they’ve been given. They say NO to the master that’s trying to FORCE them to DO something. 

Well Camus asks in the first line of the essay: what is a rebel? A rebel is a person who says no… but like this slave it’s a person… whose refusal does NOT imply a renunciation. 

Because this slave is ALSO a person he says who when they say no, is ALSO saying YES to something very IMPORTANT, from the moment they make that first GESTURE of rebellion. 

Let’s break down exactly what he’s saying here: WHAT is the slave SAYING when he says no to the master there? Well to Camus he is saying SOMETHING along the lines of “this far, but not farther” or “I’ve done this for a while, but I’m not gonna DO it anymore, Mr. Slavedriver, No!” 

In other words the slave saying no there… implies a BORDERLINE for Camus. 

That as HUMAN beings…it just SEEMS to be the kind of creatures that we ARE…that as a person there are THINGS you can DO to me…where it is a LINE you are crossing that I am NOT cool with. 

You’ll notice this is a SIMILAR move to the one we’ve seen him make on the LAST two episodes, grounding this in lucid EXPERIENCE and not a system. And what you’ll ALSO notice is that this is one of those common FEELINGS in a human experience…that while it’s NOT a universal…it more or less FUNCTIONS just like a universal to Camus, because of how COMMON it is.

And when it comes to this kind of BORDERLINE we’re talking about...here’s the important thing for Camus: it doesn’t really matter WHERE that line SPECIFICALLY is– doesn’t need to be the same for line EVERYONE…the POINT here is… there IS a line, where I say THIS far and NO farther, where to CROSS that line would be a violation of my human dignity. Now…

SAYING no, Acknowledging that line…is NOT a renunciation of anything for Camus. In fact if you think about it it’s an AFFIRMATION… of TWO things really for him: one, this is an affirmation of the borderline that exists in my OWN experience… but TWO: it affirms the borderline that exists… in the experience of OTHERS. 

Because for ANY human on this planet who SHARES this same feeling I have…where they have certain lines that CAN’T be crossed…I affirm the legitimacy of THEIR line, by affirming the legitimacy of my OWN. By saying NO. 

And look maybe you’re someone who DOESN’T have a line. Maybe you’re the kind of person where someone could come and kill you and you wouldn’t see it as a violation, maybe you’re listening to this and you’re just a sculpture made out of play-dough on a kids bookshelf somewhere, thanks for listening I’ll take it…the POINT is: 

To make a judgement like this where you say NO to something… you have to have an orientation of CARE towards the things AROUND you. In fact…to EVEN find your voice and say ANYTHING AT ALL to Camus…IS to desire and to judge towards a VALUE. To breathe is to judge he says in one really cool line. 

Which means every act of saying NO then…tacitly invokes a VALUE. And if the value of saying no is a preservation of limits where human dignity cannot be violated…then every act of rebellion like this, simply by ENGAGING in it…IS an affirmation of the existence of this borderline for the KINDS of CREATURES we are collectively. 

So to SAY no for Camus… is ALSO to say YES to this collective human dignity– and this is what is meant by his famous reformulation of the line from Descartes. Instead of I think, therefore, I am…he says I rebel, therefore, WE exist.

Now what we have done here in case you missed it: is we have just set up a line of human dignity that cannot be crossed…and we’ve done this WITHOUT grounding its LEGITIMACY in theoretical abstractions. This justice then…is not only LIKE the concept of solidarity from last time..solidarity and justice are CONNECTED, one necessarily implies the other. 

Meaning justice is NOT a system of ethics, it’s not an external set of rules or norms…justice… is an internal, metaphysical POSTURE towards the world. It is once again something DESCRIPTIVE, NOT normative. It’s something embodied, NOT abstract. And it’s a posture that for the REST of the book… he’s going to be calling: rebellion.

Now MUCH of this book, The Rebel, is going to be Camus making a case for how we got to a type of modern ideological extremism…that claims to PRESERVE human dignity…by trampling ALL OVER this LINE we just set up. 

In other words there’s a difference he says between true rebellion, GENUINELY aimed at human dignity, that goes on WITHIN certain real limits…there’s a difference between that and when rebellion turns into revolution. Something you see in the gulags and labor camps of Stalinism, something you see in the French Revolution with the reign of terror…but don’t stop yourself at the examples just during CAMUS’ time: picture ANYTHING during your OWN time, not necessarily even political, that STARTS as ONE thing that clearly is intended to preserve human dignity…but then transforms into something ELSE in the name of a higher IDEAL or a CAUSE or set of abstractions…picture things that REMOVE those limitations on rebellion…in ways that are contradictory.

And for Camus there’s NO better, MORE public, more COMMONLY accepted VERSION of this contradiction…than in the death penalty. 

His essay: reflections on the guillotine is one of the most CITED things in HISTORY on Capital Punishment. 

And it should be said: he understands where people are COMING from when they support the death penalty. 

You know, find the most DISGUSTING crime you possibly CAN where somebody completely ruins many different lives while DOING it…and then TELL me you have SYMPATHY for ANYTHING that happens to that person. Tell me when we’re looking at the terrible consequences of what they did, looking the kids in the face… that your priority right now is to think about their “RIGHTS”. You could say look: these people forfeited ANY right they have to LIFE… the SECOND they violated that OTHER person’s right to life.

To Camus: they’ll SAY this kind of stuff like such a sentimental, confident IDIOT. Like anyone thinking about ANYTHING deeper than their initial anger towards something… MUST be on the side of murderers. But to Camus this person’s ALREADY shown their HYPOCRISY…JUST in the way they’ve described it so far. 

He might START by saying: so you mean to tell me… that in the name of protecting the sanctity of life…you’re going to KILL this person against their will? Do you realize that the move you’re making there…is the EXACT same move that extremist ideologies make when they trample on people’s rights in the name of a cause? 

They BECOME the OPPRESSORS…that they CLAIM to be trying to STOP. They make exceptions for THEMSELVES…they turn their ENEMIES into NOT human BEINGS anymore, but just little rational COGS, that DON’T have rights, that fit into some abstract system that SOLVES the absurdity of the world for them. Makes it a nice, NEAT, philosophically JUST gift wrapped up for them. Oh boy.

Camus has a line in the opening paragraph of the introduction of The Rebel…he says, "There are crimes of passion and crimes of logic. The boundary between them is not clearly defined. But the Penal Code makes the convenient distinction of premeditation. We are living in the era of premeditation and the perfect crime. Our criminals are no longer helpless children who could plead love as their excuse. On the contrary, they are adults and they have a perfect alibi: philosophy, which can be used for any purpose—even for transforming murderers into judges."

His point is this: a CRIMINAL…at LEAST, SOMETIMES has an explanation that they just did something stupid in a moment. It was because of LOVE I did it…or cause of ANGER, it was a crime of PASSION, I wasn’t THINKING very clearly. 

But no matter HOW premeditated a CRIMINAL can get…it PALES in comparison to the level of premeditation, justification and PLANNING that goes on…in a LEGAL system that hands out the death penalty. 

Consider for a second that there is a room…called a courthouse…with judges and lawyers and gavels and big corinthian columns and ALL this pomp and circumstance that goes on…where the ENTIRE POINT of it all is to carry out a ceremony…where on behalf of our cause of JUSTICE…based on our set of theoretical abstractions, we have decided we are JUSTIFIED in killing you. 

Camus says this is essentially human sacrifice…dressed up in a bunch of legal niceties. That this is a HANGOVER from a more primitive form of justice we maybe ONLY could justify a long TIME ago…and that in reality this is one of the MOST premeditated forms of murder he can possibly IMAGINE. 

He says for what they’re doing with the death penalty…for the criminal to have DONE something equivalent to that…the criminal would have to decide they’re gonna commit the crime, the WARN the person they were gonna hurt about the exact DATE they were going to DO the thing, then CONFINE the person for MONTHS in a small space at their HOUSE, just feeding them, letting them out in the backyard for a while, just taking their time deciding how and when they were actually gonna KILL them. He says, “Such a monster is not encountered in private life.”

This issue was so important to him he had been TALKING about it for several books by this point in his career. Remember the character of Meursault from The Stranger. 

The murder HE commits…WASN’T premeditated. He just shoots a man on the beach because the sun was in his eyes and the guy had a knife. 

But when you compare that to his TRIAL…when you PICTURE the mob of clapping seals that decide that this man represents their deepest FEARS…well, there’s a sense in which he was dead before he even STOOD trial. The TRIAL was just an elaborate THEATRE… where these people could sit around RATIONALIZING their decision to KILL him and make it “LEGAL”. 

But whenever rebellion, or the GENUINE attempt to protect human dignity, CROSSES this line and starts making EXCEPTIONS for itself…THAT is the moment in a movement…when something FUNDAMENTALLY changes ABOUT that movement for Camus.

He says you can SEE this all throughout history. The French Revolution…STARTED with a genuine attempt to secure liberty, equality and fraternity. But he says the MOMENT when that rebellion decided it was JUSTIFIED to KILL Louis the 16th and his ministers…THAT’S when the rebellion transformed into the reign of terror. 

Another example: Communism…which STARTS with the philosophy of Marx and Engels, for them GENUINELY ROOTED in trying to preserve the sanctity of the individual, LIBERTY…but the SECOND that movement decides it’s justified to KILL the oppressors in the NAME of bringing about a better society…THAT’S the switch in thinking… that enables the gulags to come, the barriers between people with propaganda, the reduction of people to rational COGS. This is how it HAPPENS…to Camus. 

There’s a fantastic IMAGE of this that he paints in one of his plays called The Just Assassins around this time. Sometimes it’s just called The Just. Point is it’s centered around JUSTICE, much like his essay the Rebel. 

And for some context here, because people have been saying they appreciate hearing about Camus’ work in terms of these five CYCLES or SERIES that he laid out…cycle one was the Stranger, Myth of Sisyphus, Caligula focusing on the individual confrontation with the absurd. Cycle TWO is thought of as The plague, the Rebel and the Just Assassins… focusing primarily on solidarity and justice. 

Anyway that’s the reason why this PLAY, The Just Assassins…will be FILLED with dramatic IMAGES of people trying to understand the limits of justice– how do you GENUINELY embody, metaphysical rebellion at this level WITHOUT falling into abstractions? 

The play centers around a group of Russian Revolutionaries who are planning to assassinate a DUKE. For whatever it’s worth: this DUKE’S a pretty terrible person…fine a lot of bad stuff in the name of his own country. 

And one of the main characters…they call him Yanek in the play as a nickname…HE makes a plan to kill this grand duke Sergei by throwing a bomb, AT his carriage as he goes to a theater. On the day of the assassination, he sets up on the street, ready to throw the bomb… he sees the Duke’s car coming down the street…he’s JUST ready to throw it when suddenly…he sees the duke’s niece and nephew, just small children at the time…that are unexpectedly in the car WITH him. 

He DOESN’T throw the bomb that day. Instead he goes BACK to his revolutionary friends and tells them he couldn’t DO it… if there were going to be innocent children killed. 

And one of the revolutionaries named Stepan gets really ANGRY at him, see– he’s a bit more ENTRENCHED into the revolutionary movement here and HE comes back at him and says: look, stop being such an idiot. You claim to care about children. How many CHILDREN has this Duke killed in cold blood JUST up until this point? He says are our own moral SCRUPLES more important than the cause itself? For the sake of future JUSTICE, Stepan says…we HAVE to be willing to kill innocents as well…otherwise the DUKE could just wrap himself in innocents as a human shield and we’d never really be able to KILL him. 

To which Yanek replies back to Stepan: some people love justice so much…that they refuse to become murderers for it. 

Camus once said if the big question he wanted to answer in cycle ONE of his work was his classic line of whether or not to commit suicide. Well cycle TWO is focusing on the natural FOLLOW up question to that…whether or not to commit MURDER. Is murder…EVER something that can be done coherently IN the name of justice?

Well the SHORT answer to that is: never say never. I mean, for Camus to SAY never… would ALMOST start to sound like he’s trying to declare universals. 

He ACKNOWLEDGES at one point that yes, we LIVE in a violent world…and that there MAY BE moments where a genuine act of rebellion has to kill someone in self-defense. But if a rebel did this…it’s would ABSOLUTELY…be a last RESORT kind of thing for him.

To which ANYBODY whose a PART of one of these revolutions he mentions can say BACK to him: well what do you call what WE’RE doing? Stepan from the just assassins could say THIS IS A last resort! Louis the 16th has to GO, the grand duke has to go…the oppressors are in CHARGE right now, MURDERING people… we gotta get RID of them! 

But IS this…TRULY a last resort he would ask? Or is this just YOUR set of abstractions, REMOVING the limits that are in your way and making exceptions just for you?

Cause ultimately for Camus that’s the problem here: if you had to break down what’s going on…the problem begins when rebellion no longer has the LIMITS built into it… that it does at the level of an individual's lucid engagement with reality. 

Philosophical, abstract SYSTEMS, ALLOW these limits to be thrown out…and then its only a MATTER of time before people that were otherwise committed to helping others…have their effort get channeled towards an idealism… that DENIES important details about the messiness of what life really is.

And this happens in MANY ways:

These systems often pretend to TRANSCEND the lived experience of individual people…which then makes followers of it claim to know MORE about what's BEST for people than THEY do. These systems SILENCE the idea of “measure” and “proportion” altogether...often claiming things like, yeah this definitely LOOKS bad, but “this is the ONLY possible way to actually get things DONE!” Really, there’s NO middle ground? These systems exist in DENIAL… of a LUCID take on reality for Camus…because they CLAIM to have some universal solution to problems… which then FLATTENS the ambiguity of the world into a DOGMA. And then lastly… and this is where the work he did in The Plague will come into this: these systems are based on a total and flat out REJECTION… of the idea of solidarity.

Because when individuals…are NO longer seen as people sharing a common set of existential conditions, you know, as people sharing a kind of fragile dignity that we ONLY preserve together…throwing out that limit of respect towards each other… is the ONLY WAY these people then become PAWNS to carry out some “grand vision”...it’s the only way people are SEEN as just DESERVING whatever they get, even if it's death. 

And when you’re NO LONGER LOOKING at people as full human beings anymore worthy of dignity…all of this is not REBELLION anymore to Camus. This has transformed into a type revolution and ideological extremism.  

This is how Camus’ father we talked about last time, great guy, could ever support the death penalty even in THEORY. You know, in THEORY he loves the idea of killing someone in the name of a good cause. But then when he actually has to look at the guy’s head getting lopped off…the DISTANCE that abstractions USUALLY allow for people to live at… gets cut down quite a bit. Much HARDER to say you believe in the cause when you actually have to carry it out. Kind of reminds me of eating meat…and the difference between shopping for red cubes at the supermarket…versus actually having to kill the animal. 

See the point is there’s built in limitations TO these kinds of activities that get REMOVED at the level of theory.

And if the PROBLEM is a REMOVAL of limits…then to Camus we HAVE to find a way to reinstate these limits somehow…ON our effort towards justice. And he has SEVERAL of these he suggests we pay attention to throughout his work: ONE example he talks about is if you’re some person that makes the claim we need to KILL somebody in the name of preserving human dignity…if THAT’S the kinda stuff you’re gonna SAY and you’re saying it’s TRULY a last resort…well in that case he says: NOT ONLY do YOU need to be the one that’s willing to do the killing there…but you ALSO, probably need to be willing to DIE as the consequence of having MADE that choice. 

This can SOUND weird at first but think of what he’s getting at: how COMMON is it to see someone in power, sitting behind a DESK, ordering the KILLING of other people in the name of FREEDOM or something…but then after they give that ORDER… they get to just sit back in total SAFETY not even having to WITNESS all the horrible stuff they’re ordering. 

And look, you can see this as ONE case of MANY… where someone has ORDERED violence in the name of justice… and there is SOME crucial LIMITATION that’s been LIFTED here at SCALE…where not HAVING it creates a bad set of deterrents. That again rebellion, always NEEDS to remain ROOTED in a lucid experience of an individual for Camus.

This is why he’s going to eventually propose a philosophy of LIMITS on rebellion. Where we CAN’T just have a world…where people go around in a totally unmoderated way, ripping out all the wires of society…you know, AVOIDING this more balanced, measured, lucid confrontation with the world as it actually IS. 

But before we get to his limitations…another very important piece of this argument is: how do we GET to this place Camus is speculating about? I mean, if you’re gonna say the way we’re DOING it is wrong Camus…how do we find an example of something…that reimagines the world in a new image…but STILL RESPECTS the limits of lucid human existence? 

Well Camus might respond to that question by saying consider for a second…the similarities between rebellion when it's done genuinely…and ART when it's done genuinely. 

Think about how similar an artist is… to what Camus said about the rebel at the beginning of this book: like the rebel…the artist starts ANY art project that they DO… by saying a kind of “No.” Because to Camus…to do ART…is at least at SOME level to NOT ACCEPT the world purely as it IS. Art always comes with the implication that something NEW needs to be brought into existence. 

But MORE than that: just like the rebel, by saying NO…an artist ALSO is saying a kind of YES…to some alternative universe being brought into view. Or as HE says, the artist, “rejects the world on account of what it lacks, in the name of what it could be.”

One of the key points to consider here…is to think about the vibe… that an artist brings towards the world all the time…think of the metaphysical posture they’re always more or less positioned in as an artists: it’s not, passivity…but it’s ALSO not trying to IMPOSE themselves onto the world without regard to what it IS. This is why artists are some of my favorite people to be around.

Because to Camus: an artist…EVEN at the most avant-garde, revolutionize art itself sort of level… an artist STILL never COMPLETELY smashes the rules and forms of a genre to nothing. There’s always a RESPECT that they have, for certain constraints or boundaries that MAKE this still someone engaging in ART…as opposed to just, creating CHAOS.

For example you can be a REALLY revolutionary author that rethinks the entire way that language is used to tell a story…but you STILL are using language. That’s a CONSTRAINT that you STICK to out of respect to the entire process you’re engaged in. A great painter…no matter HOW CHAOTIC your work may be, it may look like if Jackson Pollack hadn’t slept in two weeks, it is STILL, ALWAYS painting your work within the constraints of a particular frame. 

The POINT for Camus is: an artist can’t simply detach themselves from reality and produce TOTAL randomness. No an artist…always takes on a kind of responsibility to communicate truth—or at the VERY least to strive for sincerity. So the point is: that carries with it a set of limits that ANY piece of artwork has to OPERATE within– a artist holds onto CERTAIN parameters that make their work intelligible and open to human meaning. Now at the same TIME…an artist ALSO doesn’t just paint by numbers…they don’t follow some rigid set of rules given to them that supposedly DEFINES what their genre IS. 

Well consider how SIMILAR this is…to the traps the rebel has to avoid falling into as well. 

He’ll take some time in this book to lay out examples of characters from Dostoevsky’s novels…that illustrate this point he’s making. Now I know not everyone listening to this will have listened to the Dostoevsky series we just did, so I’m gonna try to find a balance here, not taking TOO long going into this out of consideration to everyone, but just KNOW there’s a TON of really interesting crossover between Dostoevsky and Camus.

But again the ABRIDGED version of this so I don’t talk your ear off for an hour… as we already KNOW: During his time, Camus is opposing the Nihilism and the Fatalism that he sees dominating the philosophy of his time. And Dostoevsky, coming just BEFORE Camus’ time... Camus thinks this guy CLEARLY saw what was about to go down in the world. And through the characters in his novels he DRAMATIZES this internal tension in the spiritual crisis of the time, that leads to things emerging like world war two. 

Consider for example, the character of Ivan in the Brothers Karamazov– he has a FAMOUS line. Where the way it’s often paraphrased is if there is no God…then all is permitted. 

And Ivan in the book WRESTLES with this reality when he considers the possibility that it’s true. Even as the very thoughtful, RATIONAL character in the book…even HE finds it to be overly Nihilistic. What does it MEAN for the world if we can’t find genuine moral leadership in the abstract realm of philosophy?

But then on the OTHER hand…Dostoevsky presents the character of Kirollov from his book Demons. Kirrolov if you remember was the character that didn’t believe in God or any collective causes necessarily…so what HE believes is that the ULTIMATE act of expression for an individual while they’re here…is to sacrifice themselves in the NAME of THEIR OWN cause. That as LONG as the cause is ULTIMATE enough…and as LONG as I’m really CHOOSING it…then NOTHING can be a greater act of self-realization than to DIE in the name of my own VALUES. 

Well to Camus– Dostoevsky shows his GENIUS here…it’s just SUCH a perfect character to illustrate NOT self-REALIZATION, but self-deification. Because to be willing to deny life like that in the name of an abstract cause like this...is the VERY problem that lies at the heart of modern Fatalism, Fascism, Totalitarianism…even something like the Death penalty, like we talked about…is BASED on this same internal logic.

And then to consider the fact…that IN the BOOK Demons… a charismatic dude like Pyotr, the leader of the revolution, just ultimately CONVINCES Kirillov that HIS revolution is the one to SACRIFICE himself for. Gah, when we think about our OWN world: what ELSE might people with just a bit of charisma, be able to convince people to do… when the GAME so many people are PLAYING is to outsource their views of rebellion… to some unlimited set of abstractions. 

Once again we can see: the PROBLEM here for Camus…is that this rebellion NEEDS to be something grounded in the limits of the individual.

Because here’s the BIGGEST point: ultimately Camus thinks Dostoevsky’s work… the GREAT arguments in it, the BEAUTIFUL presentation…his work IN practice… is ONE PART, of the MANY cultural FORCES in the early 20th century that made people feel justified SURRENDERING to a religious unity. But it’s MORE than that: ultimately the work of Nietzsche he thinks…contributes to and FUELS the Nihilism and Fascism of the 20th century. Ultimately the work of Hegel… fuels and contributes to the Fatalism of the 20th century. 

But here’s the thing about ALL of these thinkers to Camus: NONE of these TAKES on their work are REAL. These aren’t based on accurate readings of the points they were trying to make…like Hegel…DIDN’T believe in some passive acceptance of absolute knowledge we were going to ARRIVE at at the end of history, that’s just NOT what he SAID. For Nietzsche, contributing to Nihilism…well he of course spends most of his entire career REFUTING Nihilism in various ways…and Dostoevsky as we know was rooted in such a complex, existential, tragic form of Christian faith…that to call his work an excuse for religious unity is just missing something deeply important about it. 

But that’s the POINT to Camus: even in these EXTREME cases, even the most brilliant, self-aware thinkers, who dedicated MUCH of their work to OPPOSING the very kinds of abstractions that leads to mass political apathy or violence…EVEN THEIR work…becomes co-opted and USED for things like the events of the 20th century… BECAUSE of this larger GAME we’re playing… where rebellion becomes rooted in something unlimited.

Abstractions as the basis for our rebellion in the world…just reliably end up DOING this to people. 

So when it comes to laying out his case for what a philosophy of limits might LOOK like in practice…well again: of COURSE this wouldn’t actually be a philosophy for Camus…the more ACCURATE way to see it for HIM is just a lucid acknowledgement of something, and then a COMMITMENT to living authentically, and like the artist: respecting certain boundaries that are BUILT IN to that authentic engagement with the world. 

FIRST point he’d probably want to stress here, calling BACK to when we were asking if political violence is TRULY a last resort or not…is to say that even if you CAN…ever find a situation where doing violence was absolutely the only move that preserved human dignity…someone TRULY rooted in rebellion for him… could NEVER feel GOOD about that violence. They’d never call it “virtuous”...they’d never claim it's the “logical” move. You START using language like that and it’s very telling about the place you’re in as you’re doing it. Camus’ conclusion here is very OFTEN compared to Kant’s philosophy for whatever its worth…where the sort of natural ethos that emerges for him is that we should never be treating people, as just a means to an end. That to SEE human beings as ends in themselves…IS to be SEEING the world as it is. 

SECOND limit he’d want to set is: if you’re SEEKING rebellion…seek rebellion AS MUCH as is necessary…but make sure you don’t go even ONE step further than that. And this is a CRUCIAL one for Camus. Live your life RECOGNIZING… how EASILY we become coopted by these sorts of abstract narratives, and ALWAYS try to be on TOP of honestly looking at your behavior, so that you might CATCH this going on before it goes too far. 

See on that note: this final section of the book by the way is called Thought at the Meridian. Meridian in that title representing the midday sun…yet ANOTHER REFERENCE for Camus to the mediterranean sun in his work.

And the point is: it’s a call for us to live our lives in a way where we avoid the extremes…avoid being nihilistic, avoid being fatalistic… don’t be cynical and sit around doing nothing, but ALSO don’t become the oppressor that you’re trying to rebel against.

No, through balance, moderation, measure, and lucidity…through solidarity with the dignity of those around us and sticking to what we can do from within the limits of our own STATION in life…this is how we can TRULY be as sure as we can that our rebellion…stays in the SPIRIT of rebellion that it BEGINS in. We don’t want to ever become one of those charities… that STARTS in the right place…but then becomes something terrible over time.

Anyway: there’s a theme that runs ALL THROUGHOUT the work of Camus that we haven’t actually even discussed ONCE yet. That theme… is the importance of exile. Both personal and COLLECTIVE exile. 

I think it will be a really nice combo with a COUPLE more important things from his work: One…some deeper analysis of his book The Fall, obviously going into more than what we did a couple years ago when we went over the basics of it…and number Two: EXILE is going to pair PERFECTLY…with looking into the LAST book he ever wrote. 

He never FINISHED…the last book he wrote. In fact when he died in a car accident, a version of the incomplete manuscript of this book was found in the car. It was a STRANGE book for Camus to be writing…he told a romantic partner of his at the time, she TELLS this story after his death…he told her that he felt something was MISSING from his work…and that he needed to rediscover something about himself. His PLAN was to explore his own past in a level of depth he never HAD before. What he started writing…was an autobiography DEEPLY exploring the concept of belonging and love: we’ll talk about it NEXT time. This was a book he titled as he was WRITING it…The First Man.  

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Thank you for listening. Talk to you next time.