![]() This does not negate consideration for the future, but it does not allow the future to rob man of his present.”Ĭamus suggests that revolt often leads to what he terms “rebellion,” which inspires us to seek a unity beyond absurdity and realize that everybody faces the same difficulties in the face of it.ĭone improperly, this can lead to horrible things. With the realization that man has only this present life as a certainty and with the further realization that no transcendent beyond this life is admissible, comes the freedom and release to live the present life fully. Rather, freedom is now seen as founded on the certainty of death and the absurd. Freedom is no longer seen as coming from God or some transcendent being or idea, nor is it freedom to work toward some future goal. Caraway explains in his essay “Albert Camus and the Ethics of Rebellion,” the person in revolt realizes the liberation this can bring: That revolt is the certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it.”Īs James E. It challenges the world anew every second… It is not aspiration, for it is devoid of hope. It is an insistence upon an impossible transparency. It is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity. “One of the only coherent philosophical positions is thus revolt. This encourages us to affirm a better existence. For, as he puts it, “The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but a beginning.”Ĭamus argues that awareness and acceptance of absurdity tends to drive people towards “revolt,” a feeling of rage and defiance towards the situation we’re in and a powerful drive to resist being broken by it. So Sisyphus accepts the meaningless of his universe and carries on, so Camus thinks you can, and must, too. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. “ I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. For one moment during each cycle, he looks at the rock rolling back down and is free and happy. By finding joy in the struggle, he embraces and overcomes the absurdity of the situation. He knows that the rock will roll back down again but pushes it up the hill anyway. While this meaningless, unending, dreary task is intended as a punishment for the king, Camus suggests that Sisyphus can overcome it by accepting his effort’s pointlessness while also grasping that he alone gets to decide how to live and feel within the confines of his punishment. He explains this in one of his most famous essays, “ The Myth of Sisyphus,” where he compares human existence to the Greek king condemned to roll a boulder uphill for eternity.
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