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Camus's Curious Humanism or the Intellectual in Exile

1997; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 112; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/mln.1997.0058

1080-6598

Lawrence D. Kritzman,

Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism

Camus’s Curious Humanism or the Intellectual in Exile Lawrence D. Kritzman (bio) In the Company of Critics the social theorist Michael Walzer characterized Albert Camus as “a man of principle, a good man . . . in a bad time.” 1 From his critique of Marxism in L’homme révolté (1951) to his multiple anxieties concerning the destiny of Algeria, Camus opted for an ethic embedded in a humanism distinguished by an generalized sense of justice and a universal commitment to human value. 2 At the core of Camus’s critical approach was the politics of love and the classical ethos of measure that substituted reflective action and understanding for absolute values. Within that perspective Camus’s moral imperative is the result of a critical observation postulating the possibility of a world free from evil. Human choices, Camus believed, have a moral dimension that endowed them with ethical authority. In effect, the focus of moral concerns for Camus was not rooted in a legislative operation capable of generating both prescriptive and proscriptive behavior. Instead it was situated in the exercise of human judgment culminating in the formation of an “imagined community” whose sense of togetherness was based on a belief in harmony and justice with intuition functioning as the oracle of truth. 3 Accordingly, [End Page 550] as early as Le mythe de Sisyphe (1942) Camus suggests that judgment has consequences and individual political agency has implications that impact on the world. “Toutes les morales sont fondées sur l’idée qu’un acte a des conséquences qui le légitiment ou l’oblitèrent. Un esprit pénétré d’absurde juge seulement que ces suites doivent être considérées avec sérénité. Il est prêt à payer” (MS, 150). Starting with the presupposition that the scandal of human existence is the absurdity of death, Camus’s L’homme révolté condemns Marxist revolution and with it a critical epistemology based on an absolutism derived from the notion of totalization. On its publication in 1951 Camus’s essay made a deep impression on the ideological issues of the day and in a way ignited a debate concerning the value of what we today call the “metanarratives of liberation” and the possible dangers of moral absolutes. “Quand on veut unifier le monde entier au nom d’une théorie, il n’est pas d’autres voies que de rendre ce monde aussi décharné, aveugle et sourd que la théorie elle-même” (HR, 402–3). Motivating Camus’s critical vision is a desire to unequivocally dis-approve of terrorism while adhering to the Greek ethos of measure and finitude. “La révolution du XXe siècle a séparé arbitrairement, pour des fins démésurées de conquête, deux notions inséparables. La liberté absolue rallie la justice, la justice absolue nie la liberté. Pour être fécondes, les deux notions doivent trouver, l’une dans l’autre, leur limites” (HR, 694). As Camus sees it, the end of freedom and justice is paradoxically found in a commitment to the Marxist conception of history and as such justice and freedom have no future in that name. Yet if justice is an issue for Camus it is to be taken neither in the sense of right nor of law, but in the context of self-identification with human value. In criticizing the outcome of modern social revolutions Camus emphasized humankind’s possibility of engendering evil when rebellion assumes the power of God-like absolutism and degenerates into the contemporary reenactments of a Robespierre-like Reign of Terror. Beyond the missionary zeal that he associated with the legislators of historical materialism, Camus put forth an ethical stance whose underlying premise was that humans construct the world as it is and that goodness can only be realized if we reject the socio-political architects of absolute ideals. Camus’s cognizance of limits renders the legislative power of the post-enlightenment intellectual’s radical critique irrelevant to a certain extent. As a thinker somewhat before his time Camus attempts to demystify the philosophical technology of social thought in the name [End Page 551] of a more balanced...