Albert Camus reinterprets the Sisyphus myth to find the tragic heroism in all of us
“If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him?” - Albert Camus
The alarmingly high number of people suffering from depression and anxiety can be a sign of how much our life may seem meaningless or, according the philosopher Alber Camus, absurd. If life looks like that, it’s important to read what he has to say, thoughts coming straight from the Cold War days.
A personality hard to categorize due to his ideas and personal life, Albert Camus maintain his importance to the present days. In his essay “The myth of Sisyphus” published in 1941, he delves into the classic to shed light upon the absurd and chaotic world surrounding him.
“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.”
With Sisyphus being his “absurd hero” due to his love for life, a tragedy shared by all of us, he says:
“At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.”
Camus not only defines his concept of heroism, but also the kind of happiness possible in an absurd world: the consciousness and the rebellion against the lack of hope. An argument he develops by creating a parallel with the story of Oedipus:
“Thus, Oedipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same time, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Oedipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism."
If even Sisyphus can be happy and this would be greatest rebellion against the divine punishment. However, Camus do not talk about possibility. To him, it is necessary to imagine Sisyphus being happy:
“Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Camus received the Nobel Prize in 1957 and became part of the great group of writers like José Saramago and William Faulkner that not only marked their time but also keep their relevance. Read also the idea Saramago proposed in his Nobel speech and the interview given by Faulkner at the University of Virginia.
How Bioy Casares redeemed himself 25 years after writing a harsh preface
“If a writer live long enough he will discover in his works plenty of mistakes and not to be conformed with this fate is a sign of intellectual presumption.” – Adolfo Bioy Casares
Any reader who have found the works of Adolfo Bioy Casares, Jorge Luís Borges or Silvina Ocampo knows the power contained in the writings of these icons of south American literature. And they themselves read and considered important? According to Bioy, in one of their reunions they decided to gather the best fantastic tales they knew and edit them in a single volume. That’s how in 1940 the “Anthology of Fantastic Literature” was born, a book made famous both by it’s anthologists and the stories it contains.
However, in 1965 a post-scriptum was added to the book in order to fix certain affirmations made in the first preface from 1940, both written by Bioy Casares:
“To console myself, I once argued, if a writer live long enough he will discover in his works plenty of mistakes and not to be conformed with this fate is a sign of intellectual presumption. However, I’ll try not to waste the possibility of rectification.”
Borges (left) and Bioy Casares (right).
In the first preface he criticized of Kipling’s stories and Marcel Proust’s writing. Joking about a curse in the text and trying to remember the mindset under which he wrote these words he not only denies his attacks but also pays homage to the authors.
“Such critic and not a word about merits configure an opinion that’s not mine. Probably the paragraph in question was cursed. In it I not only attack a favorite story but also find a way, despite the natural rhythm of the language, that do not tolerate such long parentheses, of adding a reference to Proust, as arbitrary as depreciating. I accept when many things remain unsaid, but not saying what I don’t think. Occasional irreverence can be healthy, but to aim it at those we admire the most? (Now I think I remember that there were a moment in youth when the incomprehensible sacrifice filled me with pride.)”
He also explains his attack were a reflex of an understanding, at that time, that the romance had forgotten the essential to him: to tell stories. However, he himself accepts that the psychological romance wasn’t at risks because of the critics and the same would happen to the fantastic literature:
“The fantastic short stories is also safe against those whose disdain demand a more serious literature, capable of bringing answers to the perplexities of the – do not detain yourself here my nib, write the glorious words – modern man. Hardly the answer will mean a solution, out of the reach of the novelists and writers; probably it will insist in commenting, considering, divagating, maybe comparable to the act of ruminating, about some contemporary theme: politics and economics today and yesterday or tomorrow, the corresponding obsession. The fantastic short story corresponds to an aspiration of a man less obsessed, more permanent along the course of life and history: the unending desire of hearing tales; this satisfies him more than anything, because it’s the story of the stories, those of ancient and oriental collections and, as said by Palmeirin of England, imagination’s golden pommel.”
The preface and the post-scriptum this Anthology are, by themselves, a lesson about critic and respect, a way of redemption lacking for many of us. The texts compiled there are rich and deserving of a full reading. Read also the interview where Borges talks about his love for literature and what it takes to be a great writer.
Intellectual cooptation and justifying the savagery. The Vietnam War by Noam Chomsky
“When we consider the responsibility of intellectuals, our basic concern must be their role in the creation and analysis of ideology." - Noam Chomsky
An intellectual with studies ranging from linguistics and philosophy to history and philosophy, Noam Chomsky was a great critic of the American military campaign in Vietnam and the consequences of the imperialistic politics. In the essay “The responsibility of intellectuals”, published in February of 1967, Chomsky bases himself in the previous work of Dwight Macdonald to think this subject under the specificities of the Vietnam War.
Chomsky starts affirming a concept that to him, should be obvious. And as we still see today, there are moments where even what’s is obvious can be put in danger due to general passivity and the intellectual dishonesty of those in power:
“It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies. This, at least, may seem enough of a truism to pass over without comment. Not so, however. For the modern intellectual, it is not at all obvious.
[…]
The deceit and distortion surrounding the American invasion of Vietnam is by now so familiar that it has lost its power to shock. It is therefore useful to recall that although new levels of cynicism are constantly being reached, their clear antecedents were accepted at home with quiet toleration. “
Due to public cynicism and apathy the critics are divided as rational or hysterics, a category that has a lot to say about the role attributed to the intellectual in a society:
“The “hysterical critics” are to be identified, apparently, by their irrational refusal to accept one fundamental political axiom, namely that the United States has the right to extend its power and control without limit, insofar as is feasible. Responsible criticism does not challenge this assumption, but argues, rather, that we probably can’t “get away with it” at this particular time and place.”
In this scenario, the sharpest critics are silenced while some discourses are legitimated by a rise of the authority under the appeal of the specialist:
“Should decisions be left to “experts” with Washington contacts—even if we assume that they command the necessary knowledge and principles to make the “best” decision, will they invariably do so? And, a logically prior question, is “expertise” applicable—that is, is there a body of theory and of relevant information, not in the public domain, that can be applied to the analysis of foreign policy or that demonstrates the correctness of present actions in some way that psychologists, mathematicians, chemists, and philosophers are incapable of comprehending?
[…]
Responsible, nonideological experts will give advice on tactical questions; irresponsible, “ideological types” will “harangue” about principle and trouble themselves over moral issues and human rights, or over the traditional problems of man and society, concerning which “social and behavioral science” has nothing to offer beyond trivialities. Obviously, these emotional, ideological types are irrational, since, being well-off and having power in their grasp, they shouldn’t worry about such matters. “
Being an technician serving the State, we have the intellectual incapable of seeing the structure under which he lives and when he affirms his position he is also nodding to the very society he should be analyzing in order to criticize:
“When we consider the responsibility of intellectuals, our basic concern must be their role in the creation and analysis of ideology.
[…]
we might say that the Welfare State technician finds justification for his special and prominent social status in his “science,” specifically, in the claim that social science can support a technology of social tinkering on a domestic or international scale. He then takes a further step, ascribing in a familiar way a universal validity to what is in fact a class interest: he argues that the special conditions on which his claim to power and authority are based are, in fact, the only general conditions by which modern society can be saved; that social tinkering within a Welfare State framework must replace the commitment to the “total ideologies” of the past, ideologies which were concerned with a transformation of society.”
This way Chomsky brings the intellectual closer to the role of a dissident and skeptic so his actions can be conscious not only of himself but also of the society he’s part of:
“Quite often, the statements of sincere and devoted technical experts give surprising insight into the intellectual attitudes that lie in the background of the latest savagery.
[..]
Let me finally return to Dwight Macdonald and the responsibility of intellectuals. Macdonald quotes an interview with a death-camp paymaster who burst into tears when told that the Russians would hang him. “Why should they? What have I done?” he asked. Macdonald concludes: “Only those who are willing to resist authority themselves when it conflicts too intolerably with their personal moral code, only they have the right to condemn the death-camp paymaster.” The question, “What have I done?” is one that we may well ask ourselves, as we read each day of fresh atrocities in Vietnam—as we create, or mouth, or tolerate the deceptions that will be used to justify the next defense of freedom.”
“The responsibility of intellectuals” was the essay that gave Noam Chomsky a political projection and this short work was later developed in his book “American power and the new mandarins”. Sadly, his words are still much needed and, as Roland Barthes essay on the specialized critics, an advertence we should not dismiss.
When Edgar Allan Poe taught how to write “The Raven”
“I say to myself, in the first place, “Of the innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select?” - Edgar Allan Poe
When Jorge Luís Borges says that his life would be over if his accident left him incapable of writing literature, there's a feeling of devotion to art that finds ressonance in other great artists. His vision can be romantic to others, among those is the writer Edgar Allan Poe. In 1946 the essay “Philosophy of composition” was published in the Graham's Magazine, on it he not only questions this “inspiration” but also explain how his creative method can work in such a calculated manner.
“Most writers — poets in especial — prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy — an ecstatic intuition — and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought...”
He goes right to the point when talking about his writing: “the work proceeded, step by step, to its completion with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem”. It may be frigid and rough but he uses his famous poem – The Raven – to explain these uncommon positions. Along the essay he lists the steps taken to compose. One of them relates to the length of the poem:
“...the extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit (…) to the degree of the true poetical effect which it is capable of inducing; for it is clear that the brevity must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect: — this, with one proviso — that a certain degree of duration is absolutely requisite for the production of any effect at all. “
He wanted a poem to be aprecciated by everyone, that's why he believedthat the intensity of the poem should be in the reach of the popular reader but not too low to be dismissed by the critics. This decision influenced also the extension of the poem that had 100 verses as objective. The final version have 108. However, he defends that the way to convey this intensity passes invariably through the Beauty:
“Now I designate Beauty as the province of the poem, merely because it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring from direct causes — that objects should be attained through means best adapted for their attainment — no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation alluded to, is most readily attained in the poem.”
The Beauty presents itself in the poem through the dead lover and form this come the extreme melancholic tone. Poe sees the melancholy as “the most legitimate of all the poetical tones”. And why a raven? When he chose the word “nevermore” as a conductor of the poem he needed to create a way to insert it's repetition. It could be a parrot, but the raven was more adequate to the melacholic tone and fit his desire for repetition because he knew it had to be an animal able to speak in some manner, since a person wouldn't work in the poem if she was to say the same thing over and over again.
In this poetic work, as in his prose there's a element of strangeness that generates the melancholy and the fear. Despite everything laying in the border between fantasy and improbable reality, in this essay he explains that his intention is to never go beyond what is really possible. In the poem he imagines the student dialoguing with the raven that can only say “nevermore”, but the disposition of the student in hearing the answers that he can foresee as all the same and asking questions accordingly come from, according to Poe, a “thirsty for selftorture” and “in part due to superstition”. Yet, he understands that this calculated approach can undermine the artistic quality of the poem:
“But in subjects so handled, however skilfully, or with however vivid an array of incident, there is always a certain hardness or nakedness, which repels the artistical eye. Two things are invariably required — first, some amount of complexity, or more properly, adaptation; and, secondly, some amount of suggestiveness — some under-current, however indefinite of meaning. It is this latter, in especial, which imparts to a work of art so much of that richness (to borrow from colloquy a forcible term) which we are too fond of confounding with the ideal.”
To create this underlying suggestiveness he uses the first metaphoric expression “myheart” proposing a emblematic image of the raven that only reaches it's full meaning in the end of the poem representing the “Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance”.
“Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore!”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted — nevermore."
Of all the recommendations that he suposes inherent to his creative method, maybe the most important also the one he puts first in his essay:
“I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view — for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest — I say to myself, in the first place, “Of the innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select?”
Old fashioned? Frigid? Maybe, but his importance to literature is undeaniable. With this honest exposure of his writing process, Edgar Allan Poe also make visible the daily effort behind the creative works we appreciate. And is there any problem in writing like this if the result if “The Raven”? So many years passed and there's still people making mistakes that he can teach how to avoid in “Philosophy of composition”.
Another interesting tip is to read interviews as a easier way to study and gather information. If you want to forget some of this cold-hearted calculation of the poem I recommend readingsome of what Lygia Fagundes Telles has to say about the mission of the writer.