EXCERPT FROM AN ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF ALBERT CAMUS COMPLIMENTS OF THE INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY What then is meant by the notion of the absurd? Contrary to the view conveyed by popular culture, the absurd, (at least in Camus’ terms) does not simply refer to some vague perception that modern life is fraught with paradoxes, incongruities, and intellectual confusion. (Although that perception is certainly consistent with his formula.) Instead, as he himself emphasizes and tries to make clear, the absurd expresses a fundamental disharmony, a tragic incompatibility, in our existence. In effect, he argues that the absurd is the product of a collision or confrontation between our human desire for order, meaning, and purpose in life and the blank, indifferent “silence of the universe.” (“The absurd is not in man nor in the world,” Camus explains, “but in their presence together. . . it is the only bond uniting them.”) So here we are: poor creatures desperately seeking hope and meaning in a hopeless, meaningless world. Sartre, in his essay-review of The Stranger provides an additional gloss on the idea: “The absurd, to be sure, resides neither in man nor in the world, if you consider each separately. But since man’s dominant characteristic is ‘being in the world,’ the absurd is, in the end, an inseparable part of the human condition.” The absurd, then, presents itself in the form of an existential opposition. It arises from the human demand for clarity and transcendence on the one hand and a cosmos that offers nothing of the kind on the other. Such is our fate: we inhabit a world that is indifferent to our sufferings and deaf to our protests. WHAT COULD OVERCOME THE ABSURD AND MAKE LIFE MEANINGFUL AND FULFILLING IS FUNCTION IN THE CONTEXT OF CIVILITY WHICH CAN ONLY BE PRODUCED BY A MORALITY BASED ON THE NOTION THAT MIGHT IS RIGHT. WHICH I SUGGEST CAN BE ONLY BE PRECIPITATED BY SOCIAL SYSTEMS THAT ARE FUNCTIONING DEMOCRACIES COMPOSED TO RATIONAL, MORAL BEINGS WHO HAVE OVERCOME THE ULTIMATE PARADOX AND CONSUMMATE IRONY OF SENTIENT EXISTENCE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE PREMISE THAT SENTIENCE CAN ONLY RESULT FROM THE MYRIAD AND MILLIONS OF ADAPTATIONS PRECIPITATED BY A NASCENT PLANET STRIVING FOR ECOLOGICAL EQUILIBRIUM. WHICH IMPLIES THAT THE SENTIENT SPECIES MUST EVOLVE INTO A PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT THAT REQUIRES FOR SURVIVAL THAT MEMBERS OF THE SPECIES BECOME ADEPT AT USING FORCE WHICH IN TURN DETERMINES THE INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC NATURE OF THE CULTURE OF THE SENTIENT SPECIES ONE DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED TO THE POTENTIAL OF THE SPECIES FOR CIVILITY WHICH WHEN REALIZED TO BE REALIZED REQUIRES THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL CULTURAL CHANGE IMAGINABLE FROM THE IDEOLOGY THAT MIGHT IS RIGHT TO THE WORLD VIEW THAT RIGHT IS MIGHT. COMMENTS ARE MINE WILLIAM EDWIN VIRTUE
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 16:08:38 +0000
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