Doctrine of the Absurd
(Absurdism)
&
Nihilism
Anam Saeed
Kelsey Lipman
Ash Nair
Casey Filler
Wiyun Shepperson
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Although many label him as an existentialist- he saw a potentially fatal
flaw in existentialism
Camus dug deeper into the problems of our freedom and how our
freedom would ultimately affect our ethics.
Camus’ search for ethics starts with three basic statements of the
human situation
These statements formed Camus’s 3 basic principles:
- God is dead
- Life is Absurd
- Life is meaningless
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Camus sees absurdity in a bilateral relationship between the human
being and the world he lives in.
Absurdity does not reside in the world itself, or in a human being, but in
a tension which is produced by their mutual indifference.
Human existence is in its essence completely different from the
existence of things outside the human subject.
➢ “This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But
what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild
longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd
depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment it is all
that links them together. It binds them one to the other as only
hatred can weld two creatures together”
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“If I were a tree among trees, a cat among animals, this life would
have a meaning, or rather this problem would not arise, for I should
belong to this world. I should be this world to which I am now opposed
by my whole consciousness and my whole insistence upon familiarity.
This ridiculous reason is what sets me in opposition to all creation”.
The world becomes alien and the human being becomes estranged from
it, he feels isolated and limited.
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Absurdity appears in the moments when man realizes his situation, in
the moments of awareness of his position in the world.
"Rising, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the
same rhythm-this path is easily followed most of the time. But one
day the "why" arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged
with amazement. ...Weariness comes at the end of the acts of a
mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of
consciousness".
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“The workman of today works of everyday in his life at the same
tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare
moments when it becomes conscious."
In other words, absurdity arises from moments when all the acts of life that flow
mechanically stop, and when consciousness starts to wake up and move.
·Absurdity is a permanent conflict, it is a contradiction and a struggle
It seems that it is impossible to escape from the absurd fate, to stay here means
to face it, to commit suicide means to consent to it, and therefore it must be
accepted.
Absurdity does not have any sense, does not have any reasons, any aims, that is
why it does not reflect yesterday, nor tomorrow. The absurd man misses any
hopes, plans, and troubles about his future. He is offered only an instant moment
and that is what his freedom consists of.
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For Camus, life has no rational meaning or order. We have trouble
dealing with this notion and continually struggle to find rational structure
and meaning in our lives. This struggle to find meaning where none exists
is what Camus calls, the absurd. So strong is our desire for meaning that
we dismiss out of hand the idea that there is none to be found.
The hero, or anti-hero, of The Stranger is Meursault. His life and
attitudes possess a strange rational order. His actions are strange to us,
there seems to be no good reason behind them.
Mother
Marie
Arab
Raymond
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Meursault refuses to accord himself with custom, and asserts his freedom
by doing what strikes him as appropriate at any given moment. This
includes smoking and showing indifference at the vigil for his dead
mother, going to the beach and sleeping with a woman the day after his
mother's funeral, and forging a letter for his friend Raymond, who is a
thug and a pimp. This exercise of freedom also represents a revolt
against any attempt to place restrictions on his life.
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“ Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram
from the home: "Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours."
That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday”
Camus’ opening sentence of the novel embodies Meursault’s absurdist outlook on
life, his emotional indifference and detachment to people. Meursault is unaware, he
doesn’t know which day his mother died, and it doesn’t mean anything to him
anyway.
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“ I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as
good as another and that I wasn’t dissatisfied with mine here at all”
Meursault’s response to his boss’s offer of a position in Paris betrays his belief that
a certain hopelessness surrounds change and human existence. His comment also
implies that each person’s life is essentially equal to everyone else’s, and that there
is no sense in change
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When confronted with the absurdity of the stranger's life, society reacts
by imposing (accepted) meaning on the stranger
In the second half of The Stranger, Camus depicts society's attempt to
manufacture meaning behind Meursault's actions. The trial is absurd in
that the judge, prosecutors, lawyers and jury try to find meaning where
none is to be found. Everyone, except Meursault, has their own ‘reason'
why Meursault shot the Arab but none of them are, or can be, correct. In
life there are never shortages of opinion as to why this or that thing
occurred.
As a result, he is a stranger amongst us. And when confronted with the
absurdity of the stranger's life society reacts by imposing (accepted)
meaning on the stranger.
In his final outburst to the chaplain in prison, Meursault sums up a great
deal of his absurd worldview, forcefully asserting that nothing really
matters, that we all live and we all die, and what we do before we die is
ultimately irrelevant.
"And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if that blind rage had washed
me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with
signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.
Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had
been happy and that I was happy again."
Meursault recognizes himself in a universe without meaning and without
hope. At the end of the novel, he comes to a full acceptance of his absurd
position in the universe and cannot but conclude that he is happy.
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Watching or observation
Endless search for meaning.
We are all looking for a purpose in our lives. The characters of The
Stranger all watch each other and the world around them. Meursault
watches the world go by from his balcony. He later passively watches his
own trial. The world around him is a fascination to Meursault. He keenly
observes the sun, the heat, the physical geography of his surrounding. The
eyes of the other are also depicted by Camus. Antagonism behind the
eyes of the Arabs, as they watch Meursault and his friends. The eyes of
the jury and witnesses at his trial. Finally the idea of the watching crowd,
representing the eyes of society
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The motif of observation appearing
frequently emphasizes existential Nihilism.
“I felt my eyes getting tired from watching
the street filled with so many people and
lights” (24).
Meursault constantly observes everyone; he
is separate from the world he lives in.
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The term comes from the Latin word ‘nihil’, means ‘nothing’.
It is a theory consisted of:
- An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence.
- Claims that there is no value or meaning to life.
- All values are baseless and nothing can be communicated or
known.
- Lack of belief in anything at all.
Nihilism extended Kierkegaard’s (a Danish philosopher) ideas,
believing that the individual must decide which situations are moral
situations.
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No meaning of life
Nihilism is the rejection of morals.
Nihilists rejected moral absolutes and Christian beliefs.
“God is dead”
They believed that:
- Values were relative.
- Self-interest is to the end of perfecting social problems.
- Ethics should be based on scientific claims.
- Man could create a perfect society.
- Live according to the principle of self-enlightened interest.
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Nihilism is most associated with philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
who argued that its destructive effects would eventually destroy
all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate
the greatest crisis in human history.
In the Mid 20th century, the existentialists helped popularize
tenets of nihilism in their attempts to blunt its destructive
potential.
By the end of the century, existential despair as a response to
nihilism gave way to an attitude of indifference.
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The narrator knows that he may be partly responsible for his mother’s
death but doesn’t really care much because he has no morals
“Then I felt like having a smoke. But I hesitated, because I didn’t know if
I could do it with Maman right there. I thought about it; it didn’t matter”
(8)
o The narrator feels as if he can smoke in the presence of his dead
mother because morals do not exist and he can do as he pleases
without his actions having true meaning.
“I felt like telling her it wasn’t my fault… It didn’t mean anything.
Besides, you always feel a little guilty” (20)
o For once, the narrator feels a little guilty about his mother’s death,
but just when he feels this way, he decides guilt does not matter and
forgets about it.
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Existential:
No value or meaning of life
all existence is senseless and empty
Political:
destruction of order will result in future improvement
Anarchism
Ethical:
no absolute moral or ethical values
good vs evil does not exist.
Epistemological:
no truth or knowledge
postmodernism
Mereological:
humans cannot see the smallest individual objects
senses can’t perceive objects without parts and objects can never truly unify as a whole.
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Camus, like the other existentialists, was convinced that
nihilism was the most annoying problem of the twentieth
century.
Although he argues passionately that individuals could endure
its destructive effects, his most famous works betray the
extraordinary difficulty he faced building a convincing case.
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In The Stranger, Meursault has
rejected the existential beliefs on
which the uninitiated and weak
rely.
Through Meursault’s character,
Camus confronts the definition of
existence and how life has no
immediate purpose.
He decides that life is valuable
even if it has no purpose right
before he is about to commit a
murder.
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Imagery, or lack there of, is used to convey existential
Nihilism.
“I felt a little lost between the blue and white of the
sky and the monotony of the colors around me - the
sticky black of the tar, the dull black of all the
clothes, and the shiny black of the hearse” (17).
Camus uses imagery to describe the physical world
only.
Look for:
● -examples of absurdism: tension between the world and the human
being
-examples of existential, political, ethical, epistemological, or
mereological nihilism
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The opening sentences of the novel embody very well Meursault’s
absurdist outlook on life, his emotional indifference and detachment to
people, and his passive but quiet alienation from the rest of society.
It’s also a big flashing clue that our protagonist is unaware – and
apathetically so. He doesn’t even know which day his mother died, and
to him, it "doesn’t mean anything" anyway.
[A] soldier smiled at me and asked if I’d been traveling long. I said,
"Yes," just so I wouldn’t have to say anything else. (1.1.4)
Very typical of his particular brand of passivity and/or detachment
(i.e., Absurdism), Meursault does something just so he won’t have to do
something else.
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Meursault takes on a Nihilist standpoint when he treats
his mother’s death with the same casual demeanor with
which he will later treat the death of the Arab:
indifferent and meaningless
Selfishness and moral lack is seen when Meursault says
that seeing his mother “took up his Sunday” (pg.5 par.2)
He is more concerned with the time and money he must
spend than the well-being of his own mother.