Sunday, June 22, 2008

• Imagine

  As punishment for defying Death, the Greek gods condemn Sisyphus for eternity to roll a stone up a hill.  Once it reaches the top, it rolls down again.  He must begin again and each time the stone rolls down the hill again.  Camus's way out of the absurd existence of Sisyphus is that "one must imagine Sisyphus happy." 

  There are several problems with Camus's use of this myth to explain life's inherent absurdity and lack of meaning and his proposed alternative to suicide.

  In Camus's worldview, there is no God, there are no values, "everything is permitted."  Hence the meaninglessness.  But in Sisyphus's world, there is a reason for his absurd life - disobedience to the gods and serving an eternal sentence.  Thus, Sisyphus is condemned to live forever for a task that is inherently useless and pointless.  We, however, know our time here is limited and uncertain.

  The difference between the myth and Camus's version of reality is that Sisyphus's absurd task can be explained away against the grand scheme of things.  Sisyphus can contentedly accept his absurd life because he knows why he is doing it even though the very doing is itself pointless.  He does not have a reason to roll the stone up the hill every time it rolls down again.  But he knows the reason why he has to do it, and therefore he can sanely accept his lot. 

  As for the man in Camus's world, not knowing why he exists in the first place, and not having a real reason to do anything with his life, he cannot be expected to suddenly come to terms with his absurd life and accept this fact with contentment.  Imagining we are happy cannot really free us from questioning our fate.  It does not help us disconnect ourselves from our daily tasks.  

  Yet, perhaps to know that your life for eternity is devoted to something meaningless is not as easy to accept as to know that you have to deal with the meaninglessness for only a brief time.  Either way, I don't see how Camus's solution of "revolt, freedom and passion" has any real effect when, according to him, our initial position is that of bondage and coercion.  We're condemned by virtue of being alive since there is no reason to be alive.  Unless freedom and revolt consist in joyfully rolling the stone up the hill just for the sake of rolling the stone up the hill.  The only real choice is between suicide or God, not imagining one is happy. 

  Since his framework is what it is precisely because of his conclusion that there is no God, Camus's man is left with either suicide, or rolling the stone up the hill without thought, feelings, without contented acceptance nor bitter misery, nothing, like an automaton.  Camus, too ernest to live, had to convince himself that there is a relative "reason" in the small scheme of things in the absence of a grand scheme of things.  He must make man happy.

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