Absurda Novae Res (The Absurd Revolution): A Short Commentary on the Absurd of Camus' The Rebel
To My Invisible Audience,
What does it mean when I describe something as absurd? On the surface, it is obvious that I am making a reference to the disparity between bare fact and certain reality. Yet such an understanding of my implications would most certainly be superficial, failing to communicate the more subtle nuances that I am thinking of when I use the term. And if the impressions I seek to convey when I advance the concept of absurdity are lost, then what use are the rest of my words that build upon them?
There are many instances of the absurd in the world around us. Some of these absurdities of life are common, others are not. In this day and age, the thought of a calvary charge against a nest of machine-guns is quite an absurd thought. Yet if I was the spectator of such a debacle, I could only understand the sights and sounds that assault my eyes and ears as absurd in a detached manner. If it was a comedy, I would giggle at the silly sight that is being played out before me. If it was a tragedy, I would gasp and cover my mouth in horror at the meaninglessness of it all. The nature of this type of absurdity is to be a farce, nothing more and nothing less - it is a macabre joke that cannot be reconciled with my rationale. My intellect cannot pierce the veil of absurdity that shrouds the futility of the act - I am merely an observer, watching without judging.
But absurdity has another, more malicious, aspect. At one time or another, each of us have come to grips with the horror of this malignant reality. Over time, it has become banal to us - we suppress our gut reactions, we try not to think about the darkness that lurks just beyond our peripheral vision. We have become jaded, the entire adulthood of humanity has lost its capacity to judge - we look but do not see, we watch with detachment but do not react to the despair and suffering around us. With despair, we have accepted the absurd, and this betrayal of our conscience festers within us, an insidious tumor that rots us from within. We have lost our innocence. We have ceased asking the question with the ernest conviction that a naive child has - "Maman, maman! Why do bad things happen to good people?"
Ils sont les innocents.
The world does not make sense to us. The world is absurd. We look around us, taking in the meaninglessness of effort in the face of an uncaring reality. We can only shake our heads in reaction: the universe is unjust. Of course, it doesn't make any sense to accuse the universe of being absurd or unjust - we are not obsessive paranoiacs cowering at the thought of a massive conspiracy of universal proportions being brewed to confound and frustrate us. No, the universe is absurd because we have interpreted the aspects we have seen as absurd - in a sense, one may say that we have anthropomorphized the universe, ascribing to an unthinking, unfeeling universe the human quality of justice (and thus injustice).
Chance - the mad game we play with the universe when we try to live our orderly lives, only to watch in hapless fury as the dice of chaos turns against us and shatters our comfortable existences. Our lives are tiny shoals of order in an ocean of chaos, and we can do naught but watch as the unthinking tides of disorder blow our best-laid plans astray. Gazing at the funeral pyre of our hopes and expectations, the words of Shakespeare echo in our ears - The best laid plans of mice and men, go oft astray. - we solemnly kneel to once again begin the long, slow process of salvaging what we can from our frustrated efforts. And as we do so, we remember - we remember each sweat of effort that went into the ordeal of creation, each droplet of blood we sacrificed to succeed, each tear of pain that silently fell along the way - all our efforts had been in vain. The universe does not care, the world continues to turn - our efforts have been meaningless, and we laugh at the absurdity of it all.
The absurdity is different now - when we laugh at the absurdity that frustrated our efforts, we see the chasm between what is and what should be. To look at the farce as an example of the absurd is no different from my dispassionate regard of an everyday occurrence - there is no judgment, no expectation. There is no expectation because the farce has been doomed to failure from the beginning - the absurdity of the farce is in its expectations. It is absurd to expect victory when one is incapable of bringing about the desired conclusion - this divergence between ability and reality is what reduces the seriousness of the situation into a farce. Yet when I see the effort exerted in an endeavor that should have lead to success ending in a tragic failure, I do not just see absurdity: I am outraged - this is not fair!
My judgment of the Absurd is not that it exists, but rather that it should not. Every man has faced the madness of the Absurd. Every man experiences the absurdity of failing through no fault of one's own. Every man has felt helpless in the face of the Absurd that permeates the world around him. Our question is not one concerning the existence of the Absurd - in a sense, we have always felt presence of the Absurd - the question that matters is the one we face each time we ascertain a problem: What are we going to do about it? Are we to follow the path of Epictetus, removing ourselves from the absurdities of the world to live a shadowy half-existence for the rest of our lives in an effort to flee from the Absurd? Or are we to bravely turn and face the Absurd in its terrible glory, to not be satisfied with merely defying the Absurd but to actively fight against it? We do not rebel against the Absurd - it is not enough for us to accept and live with the Absurd - we must destroy it! From the moment the masses of humanity had been gifted with the flame of creation, we have worked against the Absurd to impose our will over the world around us. It is a battle that has raged for eons, the struggle between man and the Absurd - the prize of this struggle is freedom, the sweet nectar of living in complete control over one's existence. Rebellion is insufficient - we must unite in revolution against the Absurd!
The woesayers say that this is impossible. Our revolutionary efforts are likened to the efforts of a madman charging a machine-gun nest, waving our blades above our heads and screaming bloodcurdling war-cries. They shake their heads and call us fools. They sigh and proclaim the meaninglessness of it all. They sneer at our efforts, calling them a farce. Our hope has been ridiculed, our foe the Absurd is said to be too terrible to defeat. We do not care. We cannot see the future. We cannot divine the outcome of our struggle. We are borne by the wings of hope as we sally forth upon Pegasus to slay the Chimera of the Absurd. All we have is hope. Our time is now. Our revolution has begun!
Give me liberty or give me death!
Most Humbly,
Kahlyban.
What does it mean when I describe something as absurd? On the surface, it is obvious that I am making a reference to the disparity between bare fact and certain reality. Yet such an understanding of my implications would most certainly be superficial, failing to communicate the more subtle nuances that I am thinking of when I use the term. And if the impressions I seek to convey when I advance the concept of absurdity are lost, then what use are the rest of my words that build upon them?
There are many instances of the absurd in the world around us. Some of these absurdities of life are common, others are not. In this day and age, the thought of a calvary charge against a nest of machine-guns is quite an absurd thought. Yet if I was the spectator of such a debacle, I could only understand the sights and sounds that assault my eyes and ears as absurd in a detached manner. If it was a comedy, I would giggle at the silly sight that is being played out before me. If it was a tragedy, I would gasp and cover my mouth in horror at the meaninglessness of it all. The nature of this type of absurdity is to be a farce, nothing more and nothing less - it is a macabre joke that cannot be reconciled with my rationale. My intellect cannot pierce the veil of absurdity that shrouds the futility of the act - I am merely an observer, watching without judging.
But absurdity has another, more malicious, aspect. At one time or another, each of us have come to grips with the horror of this malignant reality. Over time, it has become banal to us - we suppress our gut reactions, we try not to think about the darkness that lurks just beyond our peripheral vision. We have become jaded, the entire adulthood of humanity has lost its capacity to judge - we look but do not see, we watch with detachment but do not react to the despair and suffering around us. With despair, we have accepted the absurd, and this betrayal of our conscience festers within us, an insidious tumor that rots us from within. We have lost our innocence. We have ceased asking the question with the ernest conviction that a naive child has - "Maman, maman! Why do bad things happen to good people?"
Ils sont les innocents.
The world does not make sense to us. The world is absurd. We look around us, taking in the meaninglessness of effort in the face of an uncaring reality. We can only shake our heads in reaction: the universe is unjust. Of course, it doesn't make any sense to accuse the universe of being absurd or unjust - we are not obsessive paranoiacs cowering at the thought of a massive conspiracy of universal proportions being brewed to confound and frustrate us. No, the universe is absurd because we have interpreted the aspects we have seen as absurd - in a sense, one may say that we have anthropomorphized the universe, ascribing to an unthinking, unfeeling universe the human quality of justice (and thus injustice).
Chance - the mad game we play with the universe when we try to live our orderly lives, only to watch in hapless fury as the dice of chaos turns against us and shatters our comfortable existences. Our lives are tiny shoals of order in an ocean of chaos, and we can do naught but watch as the unthinking tides of disorder blow our best-laid plans astray. Gazing at the funeral pyre of our hopes and expectations, the words of Shakespeare echo in our ears - The best laid plans of mice and men, go oft astray. - we solemnly kneel to once again begin the long, slow process of salvaging what we can from our frustrated efforts. And as we do so, we remember - we remember each sweat of effort that went into the ordeal of creation, each droplet of blood we sacrificed to succeed, each tear of pain that silently fell along the way - all our efforts had been in vain. The universe does not care, the world continues to turn - our efforts have been meaningless, and we laugh at the absurdity of it all.
The absurdity is different now - when we laugh at the absurdity that frustrated our efforts, we see the chasm between what is and what should be. To look at the farce as an example of the absurd is no different from my dispassionate regard of an everyday occurrence - there is no judgment, no expectation. There is no expectation because the farce has been doomed to failure from the beginning - the absurdity of the farce is in its expectations. It is absurd to expect victory when one is incapable of bringing about the desired conclusion - this divergence between ability and reality is what reduces the seriousness of the situation into a farce. Yet when I see the effort exerted in an endeavor that should have lead to success ending in a tragic failure, I do not just see absurdity: I am outraged - this is not fair!
My judgment of the Absurd is not that it exists, but rather that it should not. Every man has faced the madness of the Absurd. Every man experiences the absurdity of failing through no fault of one's own. Every man has felt helpless in the face of the Absurd that permeates the world around him. Our question is not one concerning the existence of the Absurd - in a sense, we have always felt presence of the Absurd - the question that matters is the one we face each time we ascertain a problem: What are we going to do about it? Are we to follow the path of Epictetus, removing ourselves from the absurdities of the world to live a shadowy half-existence for the rest of our lives in an effort to flee from the Absurd? Or are we to bravely turn and face the Absurd in its terrible glory, to not be satisfied with merely defying the Absurd but to actively fight against it? We do not rebel against the Absurd - it is not enough for us to accept and live with the Absurd - we must destroy it! From the moment the masses of humanity had been gifted with the flame of creation, we have worked against the Absurd to impose our will over the world around us. It is a battle that has raged for eons, the struggle between man and the Absurd - the prize of this struggle is freedom, the sweet nectar of living in complete control over one's existence. Rebellion is insufficient - we must unite in revolution against the Absurd!
The woesayers say that this is impossible. Our revolutionary efforts are likened to the efforts of a madman charging a machine-gun nest, waving our blades above our heads and screaming bloodcurdling war-cries. They shake their heads and call us fools. They sigh and proclaim the meaninglessness of it all. They sneer at our efforts, calling them a farce. Our hope has been ridiculed, our foe the Absurd is said to be too terrible to defeat. We do not care. We cannot see the future. We cannot divine the outcome of our struggle. We are borne by the wings of hope as we sally forth upon Pegasus to slay the Chimera of the Absurd. All we have is hope. Our time is now. Our revolution has begun!
Give me liberty or give me death!
Most Humbly,
Kahlyban.