← Return to search results
Back to Prindle Institute

camus

Posted on

COP26: What’s the Point?

image of Sisyphus rolling bolder uphill

The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference is taking place in Glasgow, Scotland. COP26 – as it’s otherwise known – has been touted by many as one of, if not the last, chance to avert the existential threat brought on by man-made climate change, biodiversity collapse, and deforestation.

In an impassioned speech, the naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough urged delegates to set aside their differences, stop chasing short-term gains, and see the bigger picture. He highlighted that actions, not promises, are necessary to reduce carbon in the atmosphere and save the global ecosystem alongside countless human and non-human lives. Sir David stressed that when discussing the people impacted by climate change, we no longer think about those yet to be born. Indeed, gone are the days when we talk about our grandchildren or great-grandchildren feeling climate change’s impacts. Instead, the effects are being felt by people alive today, and these impacts will affect the next generation in ways almost unthinkable.

Despite the seriousness of the topic (and indeed, the task at hand), Attenborough struck a hopeful tone, concluding:

If working apart we are a force powerful enough to destabilize our planet, surely working together, we are powerful enough to save it. In my lifetime, I’ve witnessed a terrible decline. In yours, you could, and should, witness a wonderful recovery. That desperate hope, ladies and gentlemen, delegates, excellencies, is why the world is looking to you and why you are here.

COP26 may be the turning point that so many of us hope it will be. While the effects of the increased levels of carbon already in the atmosphere will be felt for decades to come, some claim it is not too late to reverse course in the long term. Apocalyptic climate change might be avoided if every industry, country, company, and conglomerate bands together and acts not in self-interest but the interest of others. Technologies and policies need creating, not to improve things now but to benefit the planet and those living on it for decades or even centuries to come.

But, history’s shown that humanity’s terrible at thinking long-term and long-distance. After all, we’ve suspected that climate change would cause global devastation for over a century. Yet, when called upon to act, we’ve collectively shrugged and said it was someone else’s problem – that someone else being future generations. As British Prime Minister Boris Johnson noted, “[h]umanity has long since run down the clock on climate change. It is one minute to midnight on that doomsday clock, and we need to act now.” If our past is any indication, while we may need to act now, we probably won’t.

So, one has to ask what the point of COP26 is? If the chances of us doing anything to avoid sleepwalking (or, more accurately, apathetically stumbling while distracted by our brilliance) into a man-made climate oblivion are minute, why should we expend time, effort, and collateral worrying about the inevitable? How can we carry on knowing it’s all going to come crashing down and that our efforts are ultimately pointless?

The latter question was of central focus for the French Philosopher Albert Camus with both his philosophical essays and fictional works addressing life’s meaninglessness. Or, more accurately, how to grasp meaning when all our worldly achievements amount to nothing. As he illustrates in the opening line to his work, The Myth of Sisyphus, “[t]here is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” His reasoning for this is simple. Everything rests upon answering this question. Without knowing why life matters, we can’t be certain anything we do in our lives has a point, including morality, knowledge, passion, justice, etc. Without a clear answer to why life matters, we are left with no reason why we shouldn’t just end it all right now. As a quote often misattributed to Camus captures nicely, “[s]hould I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” Without meaning, both are valid options.

Unlike other philosophers, Camus thought the correct response to existence’s triviality was not through ignorance, evasion, or despair, but embracement. Camus proposes we should accept that our efforts will amount to naught and that our lives and accomplishments will quickly be forgotten. These things are simply part and parcel of living in a universe lacking a benevolent god’s preordained plan. It is just the way things are, and to try and do anything other than embrace those facts is to deny life itself. To illustrate this, Camus draws upon the titular Myth of Sisyphus.

In most versions, Sisyphus was a feature of ancient Greek mythology punished by the gods for twice tricking Thanatos, the literal embodiment of death. By way of punishment, Sisyphus is forced, for all eternity, to roll a boulder up a hill all day, only to have it roll back down whenever he gets near the top. Thus, never seeing any progress and benefit for his actions; a purposeless task occupying a pointless existence.

Like us, Sisyphus is trapped by circumstances beyond his control and forced to undertake a meaningless undertaking. The difference is that our pointless task is life itself. Much like Sisyphus, when we die, nothing ultimately changes. No universal plans will have been advanced, nor any of our impacts on the earth last for more than a couple of millennia.

But, Camus sees Sisyphus not as a depressive cautionary tale but as an inspiration. For him, despite being faced with an existence devoid of a grand meaning, we should simply do what we can. We must triumph over the hopelessness of life by seeking out meaning where we can find it and acknowledge that while this is absurd, so is the universe. When concluding The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes, “[o]ne must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Yes, acknowledging this leads one to oblivion’s edge, but it also forces one to engage with life more fully. Embracing existence’s absurdity gives one license to disregard the nay-sayers, enjoy life’s pleasures (something Camus did with enthusiasm), and “to live and to create, in the very midst of the desert.” Thus, Camus provides a road map for dealing with life’s meaninglessness.

This approach to existence provides us with more than mere despair when considering the likelihood of addressing climate change. It might be the case that our efforts to address the impending man-made climate crisis fail. That our nature as finite beings, devoid of divine guidance, prevents us from looking beyond our shortsightedness. But, this doesn’t mean that the task of trying to make a difference is itself meaningless. On the contrary, this task can be given meaning if we imbue it with such. Fighting against the inevitable may seem absurd, but so is everything else we do. Indeed, the universe itself, with its gravity, black holes, hummingbirds, earthquakes, x-men, and suntan lotion, is nothing but absurdity. So, why should we think that our lives should be any different? Why should the absurd task of saving the world from climate change be notably outrageous compared to everything else?

Posted on

The Virtuous Life and the Certainty of Death

painting of sailboat at sea with darkening clouds

In the winter of 2019-2020, people in the United States and around the world watched the events unfolding in Wuhan, and, later, across China more broadly, with disbelief. News coverage showed hauntingly empty streets occasionally populated by isolated figures wearing hazmat suits and facemasks. The mystery illness unfolding there was horrifying, but it seemed to many of us to be a distant threat, something that could affect others, but not us, not here.

The human tendency to think of illness and death as misfortunes that happen only to other people is a form of bad faith that is discussed at length in existential literature.

Tolstoy explores these themes in The Death of Ivan Ilyich. The titular character suffers a minor accident which leads to his unexpected and untimely demise. He discovers with horror that he must die alone — no one around him is having his set of experiences, so no one can empathize with what he is going through. His friends and family can’t relate because they live their lives in denial of the possibility of their own respective deaths. Tolstoy describes the reaction of one of Ilych’s friends and colleagues on the occasion of his funeral,

“Three days of frightful suffering and then death! Why, that might suddenly, at any time, happen to me,” he thought, and for a moment he felt terrified. But—he did not himself know how—the customary reflection at once occurred to him that this had happened to Ivan Ilyich and not to him, and that it should not and could not happen to him, and that to think it could would be yielding to depression which he ought not to do…After which reflection Peter Ivanovich felt reassured, and began to ask with interest about the details of Ivan Ilych’s death, as though death was an accident natural to Ivan Ilyich but certainly not to himself.

There is something relatable about Ivanovich’s response to his friend’s death, but when Tolstoy presents it to us in the third-person we can’t help but to recognize the absurdity of it. Of course death will come for Ivanovich — as it will for us all. Denial doesn’t change anything. Yet, denial is a common response when death and devastation surround us.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a tragic example of this. At the time of this writing, it has killed a (conservative) estimate of over 4 million people. Despite this fact, many refuse to recognize the severity of the threat and resist safety measures and vaccination. Throughout the pandemic, news agencies have reported the stories of families who deeply regret that they did not take COVID-19 seriously, often because they contracted a debilitating case themselves, or they have lost a friend, family member, or significant other to the virus. Missouri resident David Long commented, after losing his wife to the virus, “If you love your loved ones, take care of them.”

In times like this (and in all times, really) the attitude that senseless death won’t or can’t affect you or those you love is the very thing that hastens it.

Unsurprisingly, many schools of philosophy have focused on adopting a healthy and virtuous perspective toward death. The ancient Stoics taught that we ought not to live in denial of it; living virtuously involves accepting the inevitable features of existence over which we have no control. This approach to death emphasizes coming to terms with that which we cannot change rather than denying our powerlessness.

Some schools of Buddhism offer similar guidance. Mindfulness of death (maaranasati) is an important aspect of right living. Diligent Buddhists frequently engage in the practice of focusing on the image of a corpse during meditation. Doing so reminds the practitioner of the inevitability of death, but at the same time reduces anxiety related to it through a process of familiarization and acceptance.

The senseless ways in which pandemics maim and kill threaten our sense of control over our circumstances. They reveal to us the absurdity of the human condition. This is something that many people would rather not think about, and the result is that many refuse to do so. As Camus writes in The Myth of Sisyphus,

Eluding is the invariable game. The typical act of eluding, the fatal evasion … is hope. Hope of another life one must “deserve” or trickery of those who live, not for life itself, but for some great idea that will transcend it, refute it, give it a meaning, and betray it.

Escapism has the potential to do much harm, not just to the self, but to others. When we think of death and disease as experiences that happen not to us, but only to others, we create in-groups and out-groups, as humans predictably do. When we see another living being as a member of an out-group, we have less compassion and empathy for their suffering.

We all die alone, and COVID-19 reminds us of that more starkly than other ways of dying. Often, the victims are quite literally alone when they experience their last moments. When we see suffering and death as a universal experience for sentient beings and that we are no different, the barriers that keep us from understanding one another fall away. We all are in a position to relate to the suffering and death of another regardless of the identity categories to which that other belongs.

As Camus puts it in The Plague,

One can have fellow-feelings toward people who are haunted by the idea that when they least expect it plague may lay its cold hand on their shoulders, and is, perhaps, about to do so at the very moment when one is congratulating oneself on being safe and sound.

And as his character Tarrou says of another character, Cattard, while in lockdown due to plague,

like all of us who have not yet died of plague he fully realizes that his freedom and his life may be snatched from him at any moment. But since he, personally, has learned what it is to live in a state of constant fear, he finds it normal that others should come to know this state. Or perhaps it should be put like this: fear seems to him more bearable under these conditions than it was when he had to bear its burden alone.

All of these considerations provide us with compelling reasons to think of the COVID-19 pandemic as relevant to each of us, regardless of whether we are young or old, or suffer from health ailments or are temporarily healthy. We should treat the frailty of human life as seriously in the case of others as we would want it treated in our own case.

Posted on

A Boulder Rolls Downhill

photograph of silhoutted man leaning against boulder at dawn

On occasion a philosopher will be asked, sometimes seriously but often tongue-in-cheek, “What’s the meaning of life?” Stereotypically this conversation happens at a bar or party—somewhere that involves a mind-altering substance. A few weeks ago I had such a conversation at a bar. The novel coronavirus was not yet being taken seriously across the US (though it should have been). Nonetheless the theme is applicable—what should we do, and how should we feel, when things are bad? Does it matter? It’s easy to get to a negative answer: there is no meaning, and it doesn’t matter what we do. We can pick out at least two philosophical viewpoints from these sentiments.

If we think what we do doesn’t matter we might be affirming fatalism. This the view that future events are fixed and immutable, not susceptible to alteration by even our greatest efforts. This may be because, in some sense, the future has already happened. (Or more accurately, is continuously “happening,” just as the past is.) Several arguments for fatalism hinge on the premise that the future has, in some sense, happened. In order for statements about the future to be true (Aristotle), or for it to be possible that God has perfect knowledge about the future (Nelson Pike), some philosophers have argued that the future must be fixed and immutable.

To envision how fatalism plays out, consider Chinese engineer and author Liu Cixin’s short story “Moonlight.” An unnamed man receives a call from himself, far in the future. The Earth has suffered a climate disaster and the only way to avert it is to change how the world’s power needs are met. The future-caller offers advanced technology, and tells his past self to get it implemented. Immediately after the man resolves to get the technology built, he receives another call from the future. Though the plan worked, a different ecological disaster occurred instead. A new technology is offered, but another call but minutes later reveals that Earth is still doomed. The man and his future self resolve to destroy any plans sent from the future and have no further contact. The world will suffer an ecological catastrophe no matter what, in the world of “Moonlight.” It is fated.

What about nihilism? Nihilism is the view that there is neither negative nor positive moral value to anything we do. That is, there is nothing that we must or mustn’t do, morally speaking. To be clear, this isn’t a form of moral subjectivism claiming that what is good or bad—right or wrong—is different for each person depending on their beliefs and desires. Instead it is the view that nothing is good, bad, right, or wrong. Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s character Dmitri Karamozov opines that atheism leads to nihilism when he says in The Brothers Karamozov, “But … how will man be … without God? It means everything is permitted …”

A pandemic disease like coronavirus, with its attendant economic and social disruption, can provide fodder for fatalism and nihilism. When there is so much suffering and when years of work can be undone in a matter of weeks it can appear that everything is meaningless and pointless. In this situation arguments like the famed Problem of Evil ring plausible. This argument asserts that, if God exists it must be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. If God has these qualities then it would know about all evil (omniscience), be able to prevent all evil (omnipotence), and desire to prevent all evil (omnibenevolent). However pandemics, wars, natural disasters, and their like happen consistently. These are evils. Therefore no omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent being exists. Therefore no God exists. If Dmitri Karamozov is right, this means that everything is permitted. That is, nihilism is true.

Whether arguments like the Problem of Evil are valid, they have an emotional appeal when things are bad. There is a reason for this in the view of phenomenologists (i.e., philosophers whose method is to focus on the structure of lived experience) like Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre. As humans we experience this disruption as anxiety. We are accustomed to a seamless experience of actions, objects, and interactions being jointly conducive to a clear end. In anxiety we feel as if all of these things are separated from each other by an untraversable space. When thinking in this disengaged fashion we can’t see any essential, objective (i.e., perspective independent) connections between anything. There is a reason for this, too, according to Heidegger and Sartre. It’s because there are no essential, objective connections. Life has no meaning of its own.

So are nihilism and fatalism true? No—or, maybe yes, but so what? For Sartre, humans are free and life has meaning because of the lack of any essential or objective connections and purposes. This is the upshot of his famous statement “existence precedes essence.” For Sartre nihilism and fatalism are the conditions of human freedom and meaningful life. Humanity’s quest for some prepackaged meaning and value is an effort to shirk the enormous responsibility of what he calls “radical freedom.”

But what about the futility of it all? After all everyone dies, and in life we may work for years to see all those efforts come to nothing. Albert Camus dramatizes this facet of life with his interpretation of the story of Sisyphus. Punished by the gods, Sisyphus is doomed to roll a great boulder up a long hill only for it to roll back down, over and over again. But Camus does not assume that Sisyphus’ toiling brings only despair. While he pushes the boulder up, Sisyphus is too engrossed in his task. This is the seamless experience of practical engagement described by Heidegger and Sartre. Camus asserts that the interesting thing is to think of Sisyphus as he walks back to the bottom of the hill. He imagines that Sisyphus claims ownership of his “fate.” By claiming ownership he creates a meaningful connection between the endless pushing-up and rolling down. He knows it will never end, but he does not despair. Camus imagines Sisyphus is happy.

Many people have been yanked from the feeling of seamless practical engagement by the coronavirus and its knock-on effects. Feelings of anxiety rise as people doubt the inherent worth and meaning of their lives. In the face of this how can people go on, and why should they? Because that’s what life is like, and there’s nothing else to do. Push the boulder back up the hill. It’ll roll down again, but at least we’ll have something to do.

Posted on

Moral and Existential Lessons from “Chernobyl”

Photograph of Pripyat ferris wheel from inside abandoned building

HBO’s five-part mini-series documenting the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster in the Soviet Union is powerful because of the existential and moral messages it conveys—critical messages for our time.

The explosion takes place in the opening moments of the first episode. Right out of the gate, there is a clear juxtaposition between the childlike naiveté demonstrated by the control room operators on one hand, and the microcosm of the universe that is the nuclear explosion on the other. For many of the characters, the magnitude of the event is, quite literally, beyond comprehension. At one point, a disbelieving middle manager orders an employee to climb to the top of the tower and stare directly down at the ruptured core. We are reminded of Nietzsche’s admonition that, “if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” He turns back in a silent report on what he has seen—his face like a Munch painting, signs of deadly radiation damage already clear.

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus describes the absurdity of the human experience. There are moments when this absurdity hits us with full force—the universe is not the kind of thing that cares about the desires of human beings. Camus describes these moments of recognition, “At this point of his effort man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for rationality. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.” At Chernobyl, rather than silence, the indifference is signaled by a ceaseless, pulsating hum.

Camus also describes absurd heroes—people who, in full recognition of the absurdity of their situation, respond to that absurdity authentically. The miniseries tells the true stories of the truly stunning number of people who were willing to charge into situations in which completion of the required task was unlikely and death was seemingly certain. In this way, it is an inspiring tale of human resilience and spirit.

In fact, despite the existential premise, much of the story motivates the intuition that, despite our insignificance from the perspective of the universe, the choices we make now really do matter now, and that virtue should be pursued and vice avoided. Chernobyl was a disaster of unimaginable proportions, but were it not for the actions of those who gave their health and even their lives in the service of others, it could have been much worse. The series highlights the value of courage as a virtue. It also explores the perils of blind ambition as a vice. The accident happened as a result of decisions that had foreseeable bad consequences, but those involved in the bad decision-making valued their own promotion over the safety of others.

Some of the most significant lessons from Chernobyl are epistemic—they have to do with how we form our beliefs and what we regard as knowledge. The tragedy of Chernobyl highlights the consequences of confusing power with expertise. This message is always important and is especially salient today. Chernobyl demonstrates how dangerous fallacious appeals to authority can be. Sometimes, powerful figures are presumed to be truth tellers or experts simply because they happen to be in power. Attaining knowledge can be hard work, and we should respect the process. This doesn’t mean that we should blindly accept the pronouncements of anyone with a PhD, but we should recognize that, for example, physicists know more about nuclear reactions than government bureaucrats. Similarly, climate scientists know more about global warming than presidents or the CEOs of oil companies.

Viewers are left with a better understanding of how dangerous it can be when people are put in charge of things that they know very little about. Powerful positions should not be doled out based on nepotism or on past support or level of loyalty, but should instead be based on knowledge base and experience level. Lack of qualification is easily obfuscated when times are good. Perhaps these appointments should always be made with the understanding that times can get very, very bad extremely quickly.

The series also speaks to the peril to which wishful thinking can give rise. Some beliefs are comforting, pleasant, and familiar. These aren’t good reasons for thinking those beliefs are true. When lives are on the line, it is important that we believe and act on what the best evidence supports, rather than believing whatever our strongest desires motivate us to believe.

Finally, the series is about the importance of speaking truth to power. Truth telling is important because lies have consequences—especially when those lies are about the finer details of nuclear power plants. When the government is the body doing the lying, the effects are vast. Speaking truth to power is about more than consequences however; it is also about dignity and authenticity. A person exercises autonomy of a crucial sort when they refuse to abandon their responsiveness to reasons when faced with the coerciveness of power. Such an act makes the statement that facts don’t cease to be facts because they are inconvenient for the powerful. 

We learn from Chernobyl that the consequences of letting lust for power and the fear of looking foolish can be, in the right circumstances, complete global catastrophe. There are forces that dwarf the significance of fragile human egos. Perhaps those forces should properly humble us, as we do our best to understand them.