Albert Camus

Some ten years ago, in an essay¹ remarkable for its generosity and perception, Sartre analysed Camus L’Etranger in the light of Le Mythe de Sisyphe, a book of philosophical essays which had appeared soon after the novel. Of the author he had this to say: “By the chiseled style of Le Mythe de Sisyphe, by the subject of these essays M. Camus takes his place in the great tradition of those Frenclh moralists whom Andler rightly calls the precursors of Nietzsche; as for the doubts that he raises as the extent of our reason, they are in the most recent tradition of French epistemology.” The first part of this judgment is most crucial. As a student of philosophy (he wrote a thesis on Plotinus), as a writer in a tradition where literature and philosophy intersect at many points, Camus had experiencedI the growing influences of existentialism and phenomenology; but from the beginning Camus took what he could from these doctrines and turned it to the singleness of his own moral purpose. Just as the literary forms he used—récit, essays, plays—were chosen to explore aspects of the problem he had proposed. Now ten years later we can see how incisive was Camus’ concern, how free of complication his enterprise, which has recently come to a partial halt with the publication of L’Homme Rétolte‘.² He asked one of those pure questions: “What does it mean to be a man?” Nothing more than that.

The question is metaphysical; as are most of Camus’ assumptions. It must be considered against the possibility that there is no essential core of humanity apart from man’s relation to his natural and social background, and no peculiarly human value separate from the web of values which are developed in this interaction. It was to these qualities that the traditional moralist addressed himself. Sometimes he judged and criticized them in the world about him; sometimes he turned to his own action and passions as the material for his analysis. The fundamental question of the essential nature of man was occasionally probed but always assumed. Inhumanity was glimpsed, but it did not seem the ghastly alternative which could negate life itself. But this century can boast, as one French writer put it: “…de ces trois belles trouvailles: I’État totalitaire, le monde concentrationnaire et la guerre totale.” A hundred years of social, economic, intellectual and artistic ferment were consolidated in a short space of time in these three political phenomena. Politics assimilated everything; it pushed in upon the most private gardens. And whether we have a direct, immediate sense of its intrusion or not, it has become the insistent presence with which our thinking about man must be carried on. There is a growing literature about these “three lovely discoveries” of this century—e.g. the works of Orwell, Arendt, Rousset—which try to show how inhumanity rests at the heart of them. If he accepts the thesis of these works, the serious moralist must face up to the challenge which this radical denial of the traditional view of man poses. He may meet this threat in many different ways, but inevitably he will be dealing with the most pressing questions of contemporary political life. It is not surprising that Camus devotes two extraordinary chapters in L’Homme Révolté to the totalitarian state.