Albert Camus

[Amphictyonis]

To be (an anarchist) or not to be? He wrote for Le Libertaire, La Revolution Proletarienne and Solidaridad Obera but did this make him an anarchist in your opinion? He also wrote for a socialist paper and separated himself from marxism early on.....a supporter of syndicalism as well.

What's your opinion of Camus?

[The Feral Underclass]

I personally think Camus is one of the most important contributors to literature and existential philosophy. It's easy to claim him as an anarchist, because of the things we said and wrote. I think it's fair to say he certainly leaned that way, but he never officially stated his positions for anarchism and he opposed Algerian independence.

[Amphictyonis]

I personally think Camus is one of the most important contributors to literature and existential philosophy. It's easy to claim him as an anarchist, because of the things we said and wrote. I think it's fair to say he certainly leaned that way, but he never officially stated his positions for anarchism and he opposed Algerian independence.

Well, he actually did write for anarchist publications, wouldn't that be stating his position? Would a capitalist write for a Marxist paper? I'd say his personal views were anarchist but he wasn't a huge public advocate. I think he may have been more into the personal rather than political.


From what I gather he rejected the existentialist label and put forth absurdism when he wrote the Myth Of Sisyphus. He had a few differences in opinion with Sartre regarding existentialism (and Marxism). I think even Sartre became an anarchist late in life after giving up on Marxism. This is why Camus and Sartre went separate ways, an early disagreement on Marxism. Camus saw it as authoritarian and detrimental to the individual.

I think he (Camus) was afraid to take on the label but stood with the cause.

[IllicitPopsicle]

To be (an anarchist) or not to be? He wrote for Le Libertaire, La Revolution Proletarienne and Solidaridad Obera but did this make him an anarchist in your opinion? He also wrote for a socialist paper and separated himself from marxism early on.....a supporter of syndicalism as well.

What's your opinion of Camus?




Haha, it's funny how I was just talking to people about Camus earlier tonight, and the topic shows up here.

He did have contacts in the French Anarchist community, but he wasn't really ever considered one. I'd say he was his absurd man. He lived not according to doctrine or theory but according to his own decisions. The reason why we remember him favorably is because he made many choices that to us look anarchist or communist or generally leftist. He was against the death penalty, suicide (though in The Myth of Sisyphus he makes sure to separate suicide from "revolutionary" suicide... which is not to say the latter is any less absurd), religion... but this is not indicative of his general politics.

In The Rebel, for example, he argues against not only Marxism or "totalitarianism," but mass revolutionary politics altogether.

Ultimately, Camus' Absurdism has many good points, especially regarding religion and existentialism. But it's pretty individualistic. I'd say it stands as a good candidate for the position of "leftist objectivism" if such a thing were to exist.


What still had meaning for Camus is that despite humans being subjects in an indifferent and "absurd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism)" universe in which meaning is challenged by the fact that we all die, meaning can be created, however provisionally and unstably, by our own decisions and interpretations.

That about sums up Absurdism in a nutshell.

[The Feral Underclass]

Well, he actually did write for anarchist publications, wouldn't that be stating his position?

Not really.


I think he may have been more into the personal rather than political.

Then he wasn't really an anarchist.


I think even Sartre became an anarchist late in life after giving up on Marxism.

No he didn't.

[ed miliband]

I place him in the 'radical liberal' tradition, seeing him almost as a French Orwell. His potential anarchism was more anti-totalitarianism than anarchism proper, and I do believe he sort of turned his back on socialism / communism, so I don't think you could accurately describe him as a libertarian socialist or whatever. Also, in the little I've read of The Rebel, Camus seems to have quite a negative attitude towards human nature, and rejects revolution entirely. He was apparently very interested in the Fabian Society, which should pretty much confirm he wasn't even slightly an anarchist.

[JimFar]

See Richard Seymour's obit for Francis Jeanson (who wrote a famously harsh critique of Camus's The Rebel in Sartre's journal, Les Temps Modernes:

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/08/francis-jeanson-rip.html

[Amphictyonis]

Not really.



Then he wasn't really an anarchist.



No he didn't.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/sartre-p/

"In interviews late in life Sartre allowed himself to be called an “anarchist” and a “libertarian socialist”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF9t3NtUPhM&feature=related

Also the end of part 5 is telling.

[Amphictyonis]

I place him in the 'radical liberal' tradition, seeing him almost as a French Orwell. His potential anarchism was more anti-totalitarianism than anarchism proper, and I do believe he sort of turned his back on socialism / communism, so I don't think you could accurately describe him as a libertarian socialist or whatever. Also, in the little I've read of The Rebel, Camus seems to have quite a negative attitude towards human nature, and rejects revolution entirely. He was apparently very interested in the Fabian Society, which should pretty much confirm he wasn't even slightly an anarchist.

Ya, I don't think "forefront of anarchism" when I think Camus. I think he agreed with but was not dedicated to the cause. I enjoy his works none the less.

[The Feral Underclass]

http://www.iep.utm.edu/sartre-p/

"In interviews late in life Sartre allowed himself to be called an “anarchist” and a “libertarian socialist”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF9t3NtUPhM&feature=related

Also the end of part 5 is telling.

Provide me with the transcripts of the interviews or the interviews themselves and I'll believe you.

[Amphictyonis]

(See “Interview with Jean-Paul Sartre” in The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, ed. P.A. Schilpp, p. 21.).

http://www.questia.com/read/95603243?title=Part%20One%3a%20An%20Interview%20wi th%20Jean-Paul%20Sartre

[Pawn Power]

I have read a bunch of camus, fiction and philosophy stuff, and wouldn't say there is much there to label him as an anarchist.

I think the piece on his opposition to algeirian independence is important.

edward said talks about this; that camus needs to be understood as writing in the position of a colonizer, a part of colonizing nation. He was very much against the FLN and their aims.

one can pull different vague metaphors from his books, the plague victims as faceless algerians, the nameless algeria shot in the stranger- these characters are autonomous because they are algerians. they don't need faces because they are not people.

I wouldn't say this sort of colonizer positioning of camus dictates his complete political ideology but it is important thing to factor.