On a Variety of Kierkegaard's Essays

Starting on Either/Or, I thought it would be easy to pick out which camp I fell in, either the Aesthete or the Judge.  To begin with the Aesthete’s writings, his ideas about boredom seemed petty.  I couldn’t imagine wanting to be around someone who thinks about life and people that way (minus one point).  The Judge’s ideas about self-knowledge and transparency were more exciting.  I wanted to sit and ponder how others’ expectations prevent transparency (plus one point).  Yet when the Judge talked about the inevitability of regret, I balked (minus five points).  And when the Aesthete talked about a passionate demand for either/or, I jived (plus five points).  It would seem it's not as easy to pick as I first thought.  Now I can see why my classmates kept coming back to fence-sitting. 

An interesting insight was shared during discussion.  Someone noticed that the Aesthete would advocate for his hedonism by describing the ways it is ethically justifiable, while the Judge would advocate for his moralism by describing the ways it is personally satisfying.  It seems to be go around in a circle, so I'm not sure what quality is really being measured.  Picking a side is difficult for me because I don’t see pleasure and discipline as mutually exclusive. 

The excerpt from The Present Age was amusing.  I like Kierkegaard best in comparison with the other philosophers I’ve encountered since the start of the semester.  It's that wry sarcasm.  I haven’t determined if his sarcasm is marred by conceit, but it’s certainly perceptive and funny anyway.  Reading his works, I can see a resemblance between his beliefs and contemporary Christian teachings.  Currently, it’s emphasized that a person must have a personal relationship with a personal God, personally.  This emphasis seems similar to Kierkegaard’s insistence that Christianity be meaningful to the individual, versus a systematic school of thought.

In The Individual, Kierkegaard observes that for some, having a majority rule validates truth.  He also observes that for others, a majority rule discredits truth.  He finished by saying that he wants honesty.  I don’t exactly understand how honesty cuts across majority rule.  Is it “honest” to hold an opinion no matter what anyone else says?  Or is he saying it’s honest to hold an opinion no matter who praises or denounces it?  The latter makes sense.  Somehow, honesty is very important to Kierkegaard but I’m not sure what he means by "honesty".  He mentions it also in The Concept of Anxiety when he talks about responding to possibility.  He has some complicated idea of learning finitude or infinitude though treating possibility with honesty or cheating.  Still not clear on it.

Kierkegaard’s views on apologetics in On Becoming a Christian were insightful, too.  He noted that the incarnation measures individual faith because it’s such an absurd claim.  That’s rather biblical: to say the cross is foolishness to those who don’t believe.  It’s an interesting twist of the traditional faith versus reason conflict, because it moves to the arena of the individual.  Reason is pitted against faith because using reason to back up faith contradicts the definition of faith.  Of course, this argument relies on functional definitions of reason and faith, so the argument can come to any sort of conclusion (or lack thereof).  I think it’s most effective to discuss personal obstacles to faith instead of arguing about metaphysics and theology.  He says that “the speculative philosopher is perhaps the most removed from Christianity,” and I can see why.  If a person asks questions for intellectual reasons instead of existential reasons, the answer will not matter, regardless of what the answer is.  In order for answers about faith and religion to be meaningful at all, something about the questioner his-/herself must be contingent upon the answer.  It has to make a difference.     

On The Fall and The Myth of Sisyphus

Before I run commentary on The Fall, I want to mention that I’ve enjoyed reading Camus’ works.  They have proved worthy of time and effort.  He makes strong claims in his elegant narratives, it’s great stuff.  

I noted before that Meursault from The Stranger didn’t seem monstrous to me.  Never fear: I found my monster The Fall’s protagonist, Jean-Baptiste.  Someone in class said it was eerie to read Jean-Baptiste’s long flowing speeches about his own modesty.  Uh, yeah.  And it was extremely creepy to read his self-satisfied pronouncement of justice and penance.  I was shocked to learn that Jean-Baptiste had run through his ruse of being a judge-penitent with many people before "us," the listening lawyer and us readers.  If it had been me, at that point of revelation, I would have been looking for the quickest, most effective way to get out of the room and away from such a calculating, deceitful, manipulative man.  However, speaking as an artist, it’s interesting to see how far Camus could push my disillusionment; from mere disappointment in The Stranger to shock and horror in The Fall.  Referencing my commentary on The Stranger, monologuing arch-villain style is another aspect that makes Jean-Baptiste like the monster I didn’t find in Meursault.  The whole entire book is an arch-villain monologue, good grief!  

Someone said they’d consider Jean-Baptiste a role model for all the good deeds he did.  My question is, are we reading the same book?  I don’t understand how it’s possible to look up to such a person.  It’s not a simple matter of acknowledging that “nobody’s perfect” and “everything anybody does has some degree of hypocrisy/ulterior motive. ”  Jean-Baptiste recounted (in detail!) the way he willfully seduced, used, and abused a woman just because she’d hurt his pride.  That is beyond being a player.  He fantasized about beating an old motorcyclist within an inch of his life just because the motorcyclist was rude to him in front of other drivers who were pressuring him.  That is beyond being a bad driving experience.  My problem is his monologue.  The very fact that he talks about his misdeeds, repeatedly, without remorse, without change—how does that qualify as penance?  What is it worth, to “realize” you’re wrong, to plumb the depths of your evil thoughts and actions, and continue in evil?  Let’s not get confused here.  Jean-Baptiste was perfectly clear that he did not want forgiveness.  He didn’t even want to evade punishment.  He wanted to be lofty, above reproach!  Oh Camus, how you lure me into a false sense of security.  A love for high places sounded so sweet in the beginning.  But Jean-Baptiste soured in the end, just like Meursault.  The way Jean-Baptiste ACTUALLY wanted to be lofty was by escaping judgment, not by being virtuous and thus deemed innocent.  He wanted to dodge just judgment and remain “just as he was,” haha? 

Now that we’ve read a few things by Camus in class, I’m starting to wonder how much of Camus books reflect his mind.  No author can divorce his own mind from his own writing.  No matter how much anyone would like to attribute an idea or speech to a character, let’s get real: the character’s thoughts and actions are a figment of the author’s imagination, just as the character itself is.  I’m well aware that a person can write a murder mystery and not be a murderer his- or herself—that’s not what I’m saying.  Camus talked about absurdity in The Myth of Sisyphus.  It made me wonder how Camus can be so sure that life is absurdly without meaning and at the same time do anything at all.  How does an artist not despair if simultaneously he's proud of his work and believes it to be meaningless?  How can he even open his mouth to speak?  I guess he covers that in the revolt, the idea of tossing your head at despair and speaking anyway.  I can admire that in a survival capacity, but I think that’s a sad worldview to keep for one’s entire life.  To illustrate, sometimes it’s necessary to do things I don’t understand and push past feelings of despair when it seems stupid/absurd to even try.  But that’s for a reason, to get to a better place, another perspective.  I can hardly imagine what it’s like to do that every day for years as a personal philosophy when mere episodes of revolt are exhausting!  

Someone once refused to believe that defeatism is honest.  So do I.  I don’t think it’s logically imperative to accept the proposition that life is meaningless.  For one thing, a single person can’t assert that definitively.  People are too small, too brief to make such a claim.  For another thing, logically speaking, the claim that "no meaning is in life" is a universal negative, which is unsustainable.  All I have to do is contradict that statement by finding at least one instance of life which is meaningful.  Here’s one: the fact that you’re reading this blog about my ideas and comparing them to your own ideas.  This exchange of ideas is significant, expressive,  purposeful.  Furthermore, wouldn’t you say that in the continuum of all that is meaningful, my blog is comparatively less meaningful?  Surely there is something else in your life which has greater meaning than this particular exchange of ideas.  One last thing: at this point, it could be said that this exchange is not only less meaningful on a continuum, but it is meaningless altogether.  It could be said that ultimately, my blog and your reading of it will come to naught.  But entertain me for a minute: what kind of ultimate meaning are you looking for, anyway?  Really, what kind of immutable, imperishable, perfect, and supreme reason/purpose/meaning are you looking for?  Do you know what would satisfy your idea of “ultimate meaning” and could you explain why it’s not fulfilled?  Because that discussion would definitely have to take place before I could be able to consider, much less accept, that idea that life is in fact meaningless.

On the Stranger - Postdiscussion

The class discussion on The Stranger was refreshing and entertaining.  We didn't explicitly cover Meursault's desire to go free after being condemned to die, or the mindset that preceded his rage/self-justification at the priest.  But there was a recurring sentiment: in general, questions about desire and mindset don’t apply to Meursault because he’s just too Other. 

One interesting thread was regarding Camus’ possible thesis.  It was suggested that Meursault’s passivity pre-condemnation was bad existentialism and his self-assurance post-condemnation was good existentialism.  I guess I can appreciate why that might be so, but I remain unconvinced that The Stranger had a point.  The main reason I’m stuck is Meursault’s outburst.  He berated and throttled the priest—it’s not like he was a calculated man who had distilled human experience into an elegant philosophy.  He’s not an archvillain whom a good-guy can trigger into monologuing. 

Another sticking point is that it kept being said that Meursault was emotionless, but I don’t think that’s accurate.  In addition to his outburst, he said that he felt like crying when he realized that everyone at his trial hated him, and when he contemplated the hope of his appeal being granted.  Actually, I think his tears are evidence for the bad/good existentialism thesis, because it shows that Meursault only realized that he cared about his own life during his judgment, thus previously he was living “unconsciously.”  And I don’t think he would have bothered to live unconsciously/in the moment UNLESS he had emotions.  He chose his actions based on enjoyment—happiness counts as an emotion.

It occurs to me that he not only chose his actions based on pleasure, but also on convenience, like the time he went to bed hungry so he wouldn’t have to go shopping for groceries.  He also made decisions based on conscientiousness, because even though he was unattached, he did actually go to his mother’s wake/funeral; even though he was disturbingly unambitious, he did show up to work on time everyday and felt a twinge of guilt for taking a lot of time off.  Maybe that’s why Meursault is slightly scary, because he kind of is like anybody else, as he claims during his hearings.  He’s not a simple imbecile or a simple psychopath.  He’s not a logician, he’s not a monster, he’s not a child.  He’s a man with a mind and a heart who can somehow live this way without inner conflict.  That’s why he’s scary, because there isn’t something “wrong” with him that can’t ever possibly go wrong in me.  There’s nothing necessarily excluding me from being like him.

It would seem that I agree that bad/good existentialism was Camus’ thesis, and that I disagree that Meursault was just too Other to be questioned for his motives.  I’m still not convinced that Meursault changed.  Although he realized self-justification and would live purposefully post-condemnation, if his appeal had been granted he’d have gone back to his life and made the same choices.  Making the same choices seems to be remaining unchanged.  But I grant that my reservation is partly due to my peculiar inklings of what qualifies as change/difference. 

Two more questions struck me as philosophically delicious: what does it mean to live an absurd life?  And, can you damn a soulless creature?  The first arose when Meursault’s quote about “his whole absurd life” was brought up, and the second arose when we watched the court scene from cinematic version of The Stranger.  I would define “absurd” as something that doesn’t follow, something that creates dissonance in a pattern.  With that definition, it would seem that Meursault’s “whole” life could be considered absurd in the context of the greater world he lived in.  Or maybe saying “whole” was hysterical hyperbole and he really thought that part of his life made sense and another part was absurd.  I think that readers would subscribe to the former and the character would subscribe to the latter.  I wonder to which Camus would subscribe.  Regarding damning a soulless creature, it's a proposition that is absolutely absurd to me.  That would be like damning the innocent or damning the ignorant.  You don’t damn the innocent, you protect them.  You don’t damn the ignorant, you instruct them.   I do believe that justice was ultimately served in Meursault’s trial, but by lucky chance.  Meursault probably would have gone on being an incorrigible menace to society if he hadn’t been condemned to death, but I also believe that his trial was bizarre and malicious.  The Prosecutor stirred up emotions and then appealed to reason; that’s just sneaky.  The entire affair is rather depressing.  The more I think of it, the more it seems like it’s impossible to people to get it right, so to speak.  I hope reading additional works by Camus will give me more insight and will aid my understanding.

On The Stranger

When I started Albert Camus' The Stranger, I was pleasantly curious about how it would develop.  A quarter into the book, I still wasn’t able to sympathize with Meursault, the protagonist, but I was willing to be patient.  I wanted to find something admirable.  Initially I was enchanted by his attention to detail.  I soon realized the sour note to his paradigm. 

It was pleasant to learn of Meursault’s focus on landscape and atmosphere.  He enjoys common daily occurrences.  He is courteously good-mannered.  But he is a brittle and accidental person, dispassionately moved from here to there by external events.  Mostly a conglomeration of unimpressive appetites, and passive desires for comfort, he has no real attachment or intention towards his friends, family, or lover.    

There was a shimmering moment when I thought Meursault showed something good inside, but that was false.  On the beach, Meursault is in the midst of a heated situation—someone has brought at knife to a gun fight, and Meursault talks down the gunman and confiscates the weapon tactfully.  Reading this, I was relieved and satisfied.  I thought that at last, I’d seen intention and attachment, some virtue and wit in him.  However, after this moment, Meursault promptly returns to empty-headedness.  So empty-headed is he, that he goes back to the same place on the beach, approaches the knife wielder, and shoots him dead.  As if he didn’t know what was going to happen.  How is that possible?  How can a grown man, of any mental capacity, not know that walking up to a man whose life has been threatened and has already proven manically vengeful, is a bad idea?  It is clear and apparent to any thinking person that that’s a bad idea.  Oh, Meursault,I cannot sympathize with this.

It’s not until the end of his story, when he’s condemned to execution, that passionate opinions come out of him at last.  It stands at odd contrast with the rest of his narrative, actually. Meursault frowns on his sentence, not because he wants another chance or thinks he’s wrongfully condemned, but because he doesn’t like it.  He feels that his sentence is a “blood-thirsty rite” of society.  He imagines that his execution ought to have a small possibility of being ineffective, in the event of which he should go free.  What of justice, then?  Can it be right for a criminal to be sentenced to a grey punishment?  What purpose would it serve to build-in an escape for the convicted?  That would be dashing away from consequences without a care in the world.  There would be nothing to fill the void the crime created, without any sort of penitence or payment.  I cannot sympathize with this, either.

I’m tempted to write Meursault off as an imbecile or a psychopath, but when he’s confronted by a priest, additional opinions are revealed which give me pause.  The priest comes to visit even though Meursault has refused religious services.  It is a bland exchange and Meursault is bored until the priest says he will pray.  This throws Meursault into a rage somewhat inexplicably (74).  What sparked that?  It must have something to do with his next musings, where he says all people are privileged and all people are “condemned” to die.  Unequivocally, every person is guilty of being mortal—what does anything matter, one way or the other?  With this view, it must be frustrating to have others foist eternity and immortality upon oneself.  Knowing this, I can better understand his whimbling between various courses of action.  It gives me insight as to what he means that every choice comes to the same end.  I can almost sympathize with this.   

Lastly, Meursault says that it is common knowledge that life isn’t worth living (70).  But why then does he want to go free?  Why then does he fly into a rage at the priest, feeling the need to assert the justification for his decisions, his life? I’m still wondering.  I look forward to the discussion in class, maybe someone else can shed some light.