The Myth of Sisyphus

The Sisyphus of Greek mythology was cursed to roll a boulder up to the peak of a mountain for all eternity. The Myth of Sisyphus is an extended essay by Albert Camus, published originally in French in 1942 as Le Mythe de Sisyphe, and published in English in 1955. The essay's title comes from a story from Greek mythology. In the essay, Camus discusses the question of suicide and the value of life, using the myth of Sisyphus as a metaphor for life itself. In doing so he introduces the philosophy of the absurd, which holds that our lives are meaningless and have no values other than those we create. Given such a futile world, he asks, what is the alternative to suicide? Sisyphus was a character in Greek mythology who was lauded as one of the cleverest, yet most devious men in history, with a propensity for flouting the traditions of Greek hospitality by murdering his guests. He was eventually condemned after deceiving first Death himself and then Hades, Lord of the Underworld, in order to escape his inevitable demise. As punishment for his audacity, he was sentenced to be blinded and to perpetually roll a giant boulder up a mountain to the peak, only to have it inevitably roll back down the mountain into the valley. Camus develops the idea of the "absurd man", the man who is perpetually conscious of the ultimate futility of life. This, he says, is the only acceptable alternative to the unjustified leap of faith which forms the basis of all religion (and even of existentialism, which Camus therefore did not fully accept). The search for truth is seen as futile, as science has and will continue to change doctrines once thought irrefutable. Drawing on numerous philosophical and literary sources, and particularly Dostoevsky, Camus describes the historical development of absurd awareness and concludes that Sisyphus is the ultimate absurd hero. In his essay, Camus has Sisyphus experiencing freedom for the one brief moment when he has stopped pushing the boulder before he has to start back down the mountain again. At that point, Camus felt that Sisyphus, even though blind, knew the view of the landscape was there and must have found this uplifting: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy", he declares. Returning to his original question, he concludes that suicide is never justified. Camus presented Sisyphus' ceaseless and pointless toil as a metaphor for modern lives spent working at futile jobs in factories and offices. Some people find this metaphor comforting, since it makes them feel they are not alone, and indeed can draw a parallel between their life and the life of a character from the dawn of time. A major difference between Sartre and Camus is that the latter suggests that some things and situations are out of human control (for example, death), whilst the former believes everything can be changed and manipulated, regardless of the situation or individual.

Summary of Absurdism
Many writers have written on the Absurd, each with his or her own interpretation of what the Absurd actually is and their own ideas on the importance of the Absurd. For example, Sartre recognizes the absurdity of individual experience, while Kierkegaard explains that the absurdity of certain religious truths prevent us from reaching God rationally. Camus was not the originator of Absurdism and regretted the continued reference to him as a philosopher of the absurd. He shows less and less interest in the Absurd shortly after publishing Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus). To distinguish Camus's ideas of the Absurd from those of other philosophers, people sometimes refer to the Paradox of the Absurd, when referring to Camus's Absurd. His early thoughts on the Absurd appeared in his first collection of essays, L'Envers et l'endroit (The Two Sides Of The Coin) in 1937. Absurd themes appeared with more sophistication in his second collection of essays, Noces (Nuptials), in 1938. In these essays Camus does not offer a philosophical account of the Absurd, or even a definition; rather he reflects on the experience of the Absurd. In 1942 he published the story of a man living an Absurd life as L'tranger (The Stranger/Outsider), and in the same year released Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), a literary essay on the Absurd. He had also written a play about a Roman Emperor, Caligula, pursuing an Absurd logic. However, the play

was not performed until 1945. The turning point in Camus's attitude to the Absurd occurs in a collection of letters to a fictitious German friend, published in the newspaper Combat.

Camus' ideas on the Absurd

In the essays Camus presented us with dualisms; happiness and sadness, dark and light, life and death, etc. He wanted us to face up to the fact that happiness is fleeting and that we will die. He did this not to be morbid, but so we can love life and enjoy our happiness when it occurs. In Le Mythe, this dualism became a paradox; we value our lives and existence so greatly, but at the same time we know we will eventually die, and ultimately our endeavours are meaningless. Whilst we can live with a dualism (I can accept periods of unhappiness, because I know I will also experience happiness to come), we cannot live with the paradox (I think my life is of great importance, but I also think it is meaningless). In Le Mythe, Camus was interested in how we experience the Absurd and how we live with it. Our life must have meaning for us to value it. If we accept that life has no meaning and therefore no value, should we kill ourselves? Meursault, the Absurdist hero of L'tranger, is a murderer who is executed for his crimes. Caligula ends up admitting his Absurd logic was wrong and is killed by an assassination he has deliberately brought about. However, Camus, while obviously suggesting that Caligula's Absurd reasoning is wrong, exalts Meursault as the only Messiah we deserve. Le Mythe de Sisyphe raises questions it cannot satisfactorily answer. Camus' work on the Absurd was intended to promote a public debate. His various offerings entice us to think about the Absurd and offer our own contribution. Concepts such as cooperation, joint effort and solidarity are of key importance to Camus. In the essay Enigma, Camus expressed his frustration at being labeled a philosopher of the absurd. None of his previous work was intended to be a definitive account of his thoughts on the Absurd, although the Le Mythe de Sisyphe is often mistaken as such. Camus made a significant contribution to our understanding of the Absurd, but was not himself an Absurdist. "If nothing had any meaning, you would be right. But there is something that still has a meaning." Second Letter to a German Friend, December 1943.

The Rebel
The Rebel (French title: L'Homme rvolt, which may perhaps be translated more closely as The Man in Revolt) is a book-length essay by Albert Camus, which treats both the metaphysical and the historical development of rebellion and revolution in societies, especially Western Europe. Camus relates writers and artists as diverse as Epicurus and Lucretius, the Marquis de Sade, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Andre Breton in an integrated, historical portrait of man in revolt. Examining both rebellion and revolt, which may be seen as the same phenomenon in personal and social frames, Camus examines several 'countercultural' figures and movements from the history of western thought and art, noting the importance of each in the overall development of revolutionary thought and philosophy. One of Camus' primary arguments in The Rebel is that the urge for revolt stems from an urge for justice, or, to be more accurate, a rejection of then-accepted norms of justice, as these lead to a feeling of dissatisfaction in an individual subjected to them. Another theme is the idea that once a revolution is successful, it can become more tyrannical than the original government, as the pursuit of a utopia is a pursuit that often justifies anything, even atrocities, to those who pursue it (e.g. the French Revolution), and that further this process is an irresistable one once a rebellion makes the successful transition into a larger-scale (and necessarily better-organized) revolution. Camus also argues that it is the rejection of religion and the idea of divinity that leads to utopian, materialist, political philosophies such as communism, in part as a way to replace traditional divinely-justified moralities with pragmatically-based ones, although he does not present this as a defense of religious sentiment. Faced with a divorce of reality and ideal along secular lines, the rebel attempts to unify the two, often using a variety of Hegel's concept of the utopia at the end of history. A third is that of crime, as Camus discusses its role in the rebellious nature, as well as defenses of crime that have been presented by such natures through various historical epochs.