Life is it worth living ?

          Life, every moment of one's life could be summarized in a succession of pain. We are all born into suffering, the child is raised, coached so as to respect the social rules, the teenager knows a terrible existential crisis, the student must work time and time again, every day the adult has to faced the world of work in order to survive, the elderly is facing a slow decline. Furthermore, our time on earth is not a long quiet river. We must faced the illness, life's accidents, wars, depression, despair, poverty, loneliness and the loss of loved ones. So, life is it worth living in these circumstances ?

          Each of our lives could be brought closer to the mythological figure of Sisyphus of Albert Camus. Indeed, Camus describes the nature of life as an eternal absurd restarting. Thus, Sisyphus is sentenced because he had insulted the gods. As a consequence, he is sentenced to push a rock to the top of a mountain. But, each time he arrived at the top of this mountain, the rock tirelessly falls down. So, Sisyphus must start again and again. Actually, this story, Sisyphus' behavior is absolutely absurd. Nevertheless and contrary to our first feeling, Sisyphus is truly conscient. He knows that what he is doing seems, and is, absurd. Thus, there is no sense. Moreover, Camus said that « we must imagine Sisyphus happy ». Indeed, we do not have to look for the happiness felt by Sisyphus into the accomplishment of his punishment, but rather on the meaning of this sanction. This mythological figure is used by Camus so as to illustrate the pointless effort. In fact, Sisyphus only wants to accomplish his forfeiture to defeat it, to achieve his destiny. He is looking for the finality of the castigation while there is not. Moreover, isn’t it the story of our lives, of humanity ? We want to push up our rock into the top of our mountain, time and time again, in order to achieve our fate. However, it is useless, but Camus considers the happiness as a way of living our lives in the awareness of the absurdity of existence. He learned from philosophers like Kafka or Dotoïevski. The consciousness permits us to maintain into control our existences, our time on earth.

          Nevertheless, we have to focus on a fundamental issue which had truly seized Albert Camus. This is the question of suicide. Indeed, if life is not worth living, the better solution could be suicide. According to Camus, suicide is the only serious philosophical issue. This is the story of the futility of life. So, what is the purpose of life, if we are conscient that all we are doing is totally absurd and deprived of sense ? We see no necessity to answer the question of existence. We cannot find our place into this world. A world which is not made for us, humans beings. It is all our ideal which falls down. So, I can observe that the only sense of life seems to be those we invented to it. However, we are not all Sisyphus we have not his courage and dexterity. In our everyday’s life there are other things that eternal sufferings. Plus, human beings are used to give up quite quickly. If we are in this state of mind, what are our solutions ? I think, there are only two : suicide and unconsciousness. Indeed, when we are conscient of the absurdity of existence, how to continue doing, every day, absurd things. I am talking about, for instance, the famous french expression « metro-boulot-dodo ». While we are conscious of that, all we do seems unbearable. The consciousness makes this world worst, a burden. And, what is the value of an incompetent reason if our entirely life is fruitless ? Suicide is a way to make the world quiet, to obtain a piece of peace. The world determines what we are, so, we are its things. We are contained during our whole lives, as far as our thinkings.

«We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking ».

          So, Albert Camus rejects suicide. He categorized three ways of life. First of all, there is the absurd hero who faced the absurdity of life. He loves life and he is always looking for the same thing, the same essence of life. It is the figure of Dom Juan which is tirelessly looking for the same women. Then, there is the suicidal which makes the « leap ». He wants to escape of absurdity of life which is destroying him. Finally, there is the believer who is not preoccupied by existential issues. According to Camus, we have to be revolted, to be involved with our conscious in the political, social, questions of our time. Camus was a revolted human being ! And you, who are you ? 

#JESUISBEAUVOIR

Hi buddies!


No... I'm not here to launch a new trend about Simone de Beauvoir (actually, nothing more can happen with her, right now...) but to talk about how I agree with her thesis and how it teaches us about the actual world.
In The Second Sex, Beauvoir talks about the myths that are made around the woman. She explains how historic and mythic facts have altered the image of the woman in our societies. She says that the "woman" is a construction, a social construction. She explains that the human beings learn to be men or women as they are socially determined by their sex. In her book, she draws the life of a typical woman as she becomes a young girl whose dream is to being married as the little boy doesn't even expect any woman to have a significant role in his future. Then she experiences her first love affairs, her disappointments, goes through phantasms, erotism and sexuality. Thus she becomes a woman, have children and then feel the decrepitude of her maturity
until he dies. She's always, in Beauvoir's point of view, the result of the man's will. She's a good girl because her mother told her to be so as she has to look right for men's sake. She's having sex because men ask her to. She marries because she accomplishes a little girl's dream and can't consider her life complete without a man. She has babies because the man want her to perpetuate his family. And she keeps making choices according to the man's will.
What is more sad about the woman's situation is that she's not helping for it to be changed. The man can be as authoritarian, misogynist or conversely keen to the feminist's cause as possible, if the woman doesn't make it an effort to overcome man's command, she's destined to remain a slave - if not sexually or physically - psychologically.

Woman is a woman as she's biologically determined to be so. She's the biological function of being a mother and the social one of being a wife, a daughter or a sister. Beauvoir has made a huge work on woman's condition. She points out all the struggles women have to go through in order to remain proud. What I personally think is that we're mistaking the debate. It's not about telling if the woman is inferior to the man or if the man has to be more incisive in his behavior than her ; it's not about telling that they should both overcome all of their differences and become the same. It's about showing that woman is not the same as man and that it doesn't inform us about the fact she's less favored than him. We should not focus on the differences between them both but on how they are additional. It's funny how people think being a man and having a penis is preferable of having a vagina ; while the same people would say that it's an inconvenient for women to have a breast and men not. It's the same debate about the hair, the way both should dress, the way both should be spoken to, etc. Finally, even those who take woman's defense are stuck in the Westerner's trick, considering that every biological aspect of the woman is inferior to the man's. I agree with Beauvoir saying that the social functions given to the women are likely to be degrading but I believe - and this is the limit I point out to her work - that her analysis is a Western lecture. I'm not talking of the women being considered weak and being raped or abused all over the world, but I talk about primitive societies, countries like South Africa or even the religions - even though people think they're all androcentric, that's another debate - who consider the woman in a different way as in our societies.

Beauvoir has a remarkable analysis and made people focus a lot on woman's condition. But in some ways, where she sees differences, I see complementarity.

Hope y all did get my point. And if not - because my mind is a bit messy - don't hesitate asking me questions.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

      The fundamental question explored by the Woody Allen movie Crimes and Misdemeanors is the question of values. This movie deals with the issue of meaning of life and the existence of God. The film begins with the successful and wealthy ophthalmologist Judah Rosenthal being honored. As a speech, Judah remember the religious teachings of his father and the crisis caused by his lover, Dolores Paley, who is pushing him to abandon his wife Miriam and so he decides kill Dolores. Judah tells his problems and listen to the good advice of his patient, Ben rabbi. Beyond that story, the documentary Cliff Stern film a biography of his hated brother Lester, a famous TV producer.  In the end, Judah and Cliff are at a party and they talk about crimes and misdemeanors in real life.

      In the story of Judah and Dolores, the question of morality is extremely linked with the existence of God and the meaning of life. The central theme of this story is that life is only meaning if God exists and so there is a moral structure. However, if God does not exist, life has no meaning and consequently we do not have any bases to follow and know how to live, in others words, there is no moral.

      There is an interesting part of the movie when Sol, the Judah’s father is interrupted by his sister, Judah’s Aunt May. Their conversation is about the nature of truth and morality. The message here is that God is opposed to the truth and that God does not exist:

      An uncle says “And if all your faith is wrong, Sol, I mean just what if?” The father answers, “Then I’ll still have a better life than all those that doubt.” The aunt asks, “Do you mean that you prefer God to the truth?” The father responds, “If necessary I will always choose God over truth.”

      So if we conclude that God does not exist, there is no value or moral structure in the universe and life has no meaning. Therefore, we can say that everything is acceptable. This lesson can be seen in the fact that Judah have gotten away with the murder. He is not punished in the end, and he lives happy and without guilt.

      But if God does not exist, why our lives cannot have meaning?

      The movie defend that value and meaning needs permanence. The real meaning of life has to be something absolute that never changes. Without God,everything in the universe is always changing. Therefore, there is no permanence and so there is no meaning or value in life. In other words, without God, there is no absolute truth, so no moral and no punishment.

      The fact that God does not exist implies that no one will be punished. This can be symbolized by Rabbi Ben’s progressive blindness. Since the Ancient philosophy, sight can be a metaphor for the truth as we can see in Plato’s “Allegory of the cave”. The real blindness of Ben can be seen as a metaphor to the truth about God. Ben believes in God and consequently he blinds himself to the reality.

      Nevertheless, the end of Crimes and Misdemeanors seems to show something different. In the scene when Ben dances with her daughter in her wedding, we can hear Professor Levy’s voice:

      “We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. it is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more”

      This scene suggests that even if God does not exist, we can still have meaning in life. However, I still think that there is some irony in the end of the movie as we can see in the scene of the conversation between Judah and Cliff. Cliff thinks that Judah is really talking about a film and so he suggest a different ending.

      Clifford Stern: Here's what I would do: I would have him turn himself in. Then your story assumes tragic proportions. I mean, in the absence of a God, or something, he's forced to assume that responsibility himself. Then you have tragedy.

      Judah Rosenthal: But that's fiction, that's movies. You see too many movies. I'm talking about reality. I mean, if you want a happy ending, you should see a Hollywood movie.

The voice of Levy is like the end of Hollywood movies that Judah rejects. The end of Crimes and Misdemeanors is naively optimistic. In order to accept this end of Hollywood movies we have to choose do not see the reality like Ben does. So I think the movie is extremely pessimistic.

       This question about morality is also explores by Simone de Beauvoir in her work “The Ethics of Ambiguity.”  According to her, one can accept the values made by others, or one can bravely decide to embark on the journey of making his own.  We can say that Judah Rosenthal and Clifford Stern, attempt to negotiate this question. However, I think maybe this movie wanted to show us that the value of life, in fact, cannot exist. The movie defends Dostoevsky’s claim that without God everything is permissible while Simone de Beauvoir opposes it.

      Beauvoir rejects the familiar charge against secularism made by Dostoevsky: “If God is dead everything is permitted”. As she sees it, without God to forgiven us for our “misdemeanors” we are inexcusably responsible for our actions. According to her, Dostoevsky was wrong. The problem of secularism is the problem of the “we”. Can separate existing individuals be bound to each other? Can they forge laws binding for all? She insists that they can. She does this by arguing that evil resides in the denial of freedom (mine and others), that we are responsible for ensuring the existence of the conditions of freedom and that I can neither affirm nor live my freedom without also affirming the freedom of others.

The answer I found in Camus

To say that existentialism is not the happiest kind of philosophy would be an understatement. It is quite the shady picture that we brushed through the class after all. We talked about despair, ambiguity, bad faith; about how God is dead and the idea of what humanity is supposed to be with him; about how we are trapped in an absurd life, in a Sysyphus myth that will end in the void of death. We learnt that our life has no meaning anymore or, at the very least, that its meaning is no so easy to find now.

I would say that existentialism made a great job to destroy our preconceived ideas and our illusions on death and life. We can’t say nobody warn us, that we didn’t know now, can’t we? The existentialist philosophers are fascinating for that reason, I think, but they also let one’s alone, asking oneself the question: how are we supposed to carry on with life when we are facing such a dreadful destiny?

I cannot know for sure if it was on purpose or not, but reading Camus’ myth of Sysyphus, as a conclusion for this class, makes me think a lot about the answer to that question. In a way, I find this text to give the perfect solution to our now-meaningless-life.

WE ARE CONDEMMED TO BE FREE.

Existentialists taught us a lot of things, but mainly that we are free and that our lives will eventually end in death; and it appears to me that Camus cared about our freedom first and foremost. Freed from God, from the authority of our presupposed destiny, our “essence”, we are to be the only masters of our lives. We have choices to make and we are responsible for their consequences. Basically, we construct our existence, our surroundings according to our linking, without restraint. Sysyphus, even if he’s forced to roll his rock to the top of the mountain for the rest of his existence, his the master of his environment.

He’s the master of his own body, of the rock, the mud, the sky and the grass; and he is free to make his choices – hasn’t he been punished, after all, because he made his own choices? Obviously, this absolute freedom is both terrible and empowering. We need to make choices that nobody will do in our place, and this might be scary, because we fear the consequences that we will be the only one to bear. Sysyphus made a choice to defy the Gods and thus he must face the consequences of this choice. But still, while he is facing the tedious task he had been assigned to as a punition, Camus points out how he stays the master of his life and his environment.

HAPPY SIMPLE MINDS

Should we hope to escape from this terrible truth of our conditions? Maybe, if we don’t know about the reality of our existence, it wouldn’t be so terrible? Maybe if we ignore the fact that we are free and carry on with our life in a blissful ignorance, we will be ok, right?

On the contrary, Camus advices not to be a “happy simple mind”, but rather to be conscious of your humanity, in all its complexity and pain : you exist only thanks to hazard, there is no higher plan or destiny that define your existence and you are doomed to a death that will make all your life achievements useless and quite absurd.  Yes, it might be depressing, but you should not escape the truth. You should be aware of it so you can transcend it. If you accept the condition you are somewhat trapped into – the mortal death – you can thus build the lifestyle that suit you the more and make you the happiest, without being blinded by illusions or ideals that will set unrealistic goals for your existence.

CARPE DIEM

I found Camus’ intakes on the myth of Sysyphus to be an incitation to enjoy the everyday life and every moment it gives ourselves to express ourself and confirm our existence. To accept that we are mortals who will ultimately disappear and to find happiness in the futility and the absurdity of our existence, that must be the key of a-somewhat-meaningful-life.

If you are a nietzschian, you might find this happiness in art, as it is a way to both face the despair inherent of human lives and to transcend your self through a process of creation that result into a piece that will remain long after your death and will contain your subjectivity, as if you were defying death.

If you are a sartrian, you might find happiness in engagement, in fighting oppression and in being in action in society, as you will use your freedom so you can rebuilt in a way it will stop closing possibilities to people because of their gender, race or class. Once again it will help you transcend your self by using your freedom not only in your daily life but also in a bigger prospect, to find the universal freedom.

Perhaps you will find happiness in others things, in friends, love, family, education; in the smallest or the most important things. The key, in the end, is not how you succeed to find some meaning in your life. The key is to to find joyce into our condition so we can accept the oh-so-terrible destiny we discover this semester. 

The Groundhog Day: here's how Sisyphus has become happy

The Groundhog Day: here's how Sisyphus has become happy

"The struggle itself [...] is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." Wrote Camus in the Myth of Sisyphus. It is what The Groundhog Day is about, the Nietzschian concept of eternal recurrence of life. The 2nd February is being lived infinitely by Phil; he cannot do anything to stop it. I think it helps to understand the meaning of the other major Nietzschian concept of the « Übermensch », someone who finally find happiness in an absurd continuous same-day life. Nietzsche explains that the eternal recurrence of life is an ideal of perfection to catch all the opportunities of a day.

From denial to acceptance of the on-going process of existence 

Phil firstly believed that the eternal recurrence is a malediction; he did no know how to pass through it. Then, he understand that he can us it to go over the moral values and norms, for instance he drives drunk, he only search pleasure to avoid the boredom of the continuous same-day life. He spends his time with fun and avoids the despair of his condition; he lives, as Kierkegaard called, an aesthetic life. Nevertheless, when he began to look for physical pleasure, he understands that he needs someone else to help him to carry his burden: he wants to connect to another soul; he wants an ethical life with Rita. He does anything he can do to attract her, but it does not work.

When he realizes that he cannot build any relation in one day, he despairs and refuses his burden. He wants to suicide, but it does not work: he cannot escape from the absurdity of his condition.

After more and more day of despair, he understands the price of life when he sees a vagabond death.

It is only at this moment that he accepts to carry his burden; to over through despair of life to learn how appreciate every single moment of his life. He learn French, piano, sculpture… He develops abilities that transform him to one another, he stops to see his life as a fate, he understand that he can actually change who he is thanks to existence.

 An explanation of the Myth of Sisyphus

For explain his state of mind at this moment, I think we can compared him with the coyote in the cartoon. He stops to be the coyote that run after “Beep beep” in a continuous fail, he starts to live his life not for a goal (beep beep) but for being happy himself, he understand that his only possibility to live with this malediction is to appreciate the only feeling of being existent. For use a Nietzschian concept, he is on the way to be an Übermensch. He finally develops his abilities, his self-confidence and began a day with a determination to save the all the lives he can, to take all the opportunities he can and to be happy in every moment. This is why Sisyphus is happy, because he realises himself thanks to his work, he transforms his malediction into a passion, he cannot do anything to stop his task, it is not under his control. 

Phil chooses action to go over his absurd situation, he revolts and he passionately committed himself to exceed the eternal recurrence, he achieves to live his live in an absurd world. This is why he becomes happy, this is why the malediction come to an end. 

To conclude, I think that the Groundhog day come be explain with the different existentialist approaches. It allows to understand how an eternal return may permit the acceptance the on-going process of existence, how a man should accept that there is no fate and he can change his life and finally how over go the absurdity of existence and prevent suicide or obscurantism thanks to a passionate commitment.

(...) 

Rebellion and freedom

In The Rebel (1951) by Albert Camus, Promotheus chooses to devote his whole life to the others, to fight against the adversity. For him it is the only way to respond to the absurdity of the human condition. It is precisely because of this absurdity that Sisyphus committed suicide in an ultimate act of despair, as if it was the only exit door to escape from this human malediction. Camus juxtaposes the both characters and makes of the refusal an act of affirmation.  A rebel is a man who says no, but his refusal does not necessarily mean that he is renouncing. 

The myth of Sysyphus

Camus admitted to be pessimist regarding the human destiny but optimist about the human being since he is the only creature which refuses to be itself.

Facing the absurdity, every single human being has to revolt so he can give a sense to his existence, and refuse his condition. The rebellion is motivated by a feeling of injustice, an injustice which has whether been committed against one personally or against the human species in its whole: I can revolt myself when I consider that the human as such, whose I am an example, has been attacked.

Albert Camus gives to the revolt a role that we can compare with the Cartesian cogito. According to the philosopher, the revolt justifies the belonging to a group, to a whole which goes beyond the simple individual existence. “Je me révolte, donc nous sommes” (“I revolt myself, so we are”). The revolt allows the individual to go out from his loneliness, hence the revolt can create a solidarity between men. 

The rebel is not a resent man, he is not full of hate and disdain. On the contrary, the rebellion creates values and that’s why, we have to revolt to be. The rebellion has a moral goal which is to make the world recovering its moral order. Without revolt, the man is only a consciousness of his freedom but it is nothing more than a formal freedom: it is only through the revolt that the individual can experiment what to be free really means. In other words, the rebellion is the purest expression of freedom. As Camus said, “the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion”.

When we talk about Tiananmen Square protests that took place in Pekin in 1989, I guess that the first thing most people have in mind is this famous photo:

 In my opinion, the image of this man standing alone in front of military tanks embodies perfectly the concept of rebel man. Facing the injustice, he decided not to renounce but to express his refusal in a peaceful and powerful way. At this very moment, he is absolutely free, he definitely is. Besides, even if he is alone on the photo, he is actually standing in the name of all, in the name of an injured humanity. We will never know who this man is. By remaining anonym, he is become a symbol, he embodies the ideas of rebellion and freedom.