The Myth of Sisyphus

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

Well this thread has made me want to re-read M of S and so I'll post pertinent sections as I come across them.

Even if the city is noisy, its noisy because of man, and even the tall red-wood-like skyscrapers, the rivers of concrete, and the growling four-wheeled beasts all confront one as inhumanly aloof, beyond sympathy or meaning, unlike a numinous Grecian river with its attendant deity and its mythical story and its centaur inhabitants. They actually bestowed upon rivers personality and will, unlike we who reduce rivers to natural scientifically rather than spiritually coherent phenomena.

Walk to the ocean or lake-side on a clear day. Look upon the illimitable landscape of water and sky. Try and regard it as it is - a great amalgamation of molecules composed of basic chemical ingrediants, hyrdogen and oxygen and such. See it as that and only as that. Its hard, but without man, without us imposing meaning and beauty upon it, its nothing more than that. Its terrifying really, just how mute and unfeeling is this world, this universe we inhabit. Without God or gods we are utterly insignificant and alone, like ants on a mound of dirt.

Or if you want to undertand the absurdity of the actor, imagine some epic scene at the end of an epic film. Imagine right before Martin Sheen is about to plunge the blade into Brando, the great and mysterious and awe-inspiring Colonel Kurtz, in the thick of the deep dark jungle as forboding drums play and hellish flames dance in a flickering rage.... imagine the passion and terror of the scene, the actors and the audience taken wholly in, every thought and every breath arising with utmost profundity and trepidation, totally rapt... and all of a sudden a small smiling caucasion child holding a bright blue balloon on a string wanders through the shot. The emotion and meaning and everything about the scene have suddenly become strikingly absurd. When God died, when world war 1 introduced into the world and the mind of man such utter depravity as had never been imagined or seen, all the fabricated layers of meaning, of truth and morality, were then cataclysmically rent, and man's absurdity became henceforth plainly and unavoidably known. His script was made up, his passions and beliefs false, his setting natural, turned out by the amoral and purposeless cosmic machine.

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I'm reading it now but I won't get far without chatting about it with someone. I did find an English version in the library as part of a collection, but it was all in the fiction section.

Camus also has an ethics of "solidarity" which I find suspect, but I guess is the only antidote to his projection of absurdity onto the world. Richard Rorty doesn't like it because it seems to claim that a metaphysical humanness exists to back up Camus' morality making compassion possible. Rorty is too post-modern to accept anything to back up the language we project as meaning.

Recalling Rorty helped me to possibly understand your objection to my claim that meaning is what we project onto the world. When I said that the world "just is" that made it appear unfriendly. For the world to be friendly, there needs to be some others--angels, gods, muses--outside of other humans and the animals and plants around us, who project a powerful, fulfilling, friendly meaning onto us for the world not to be "absurd". We need to be individually the target of meaning as well as the source of meaning for the world to feel like a home.

But I'm not saying those friendly sorts of reality that can project meaning back onto us don't exist when I say the world "just is". The world "just is" with all the gods and demons and angels and what-have-you that we have tried to name by projecting meaning onto the world. When we project meaning onto the world, it is like turning on a flashlight in the dark. It helps us see what is there.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

But I'm not saying those friendly sorts of reality that can project meaning back onto us don't exist when I say the world "just is". The world "just is" with all the gods and demons and angels and what-have-you that we have tried to name by projecting meaning onto the world. When we project meaning onto the world, it is like turning on a flashlight in the dark. It helps us see what is there.

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Camus' idea of the absurd depends, in the context in which we are speaking now, on the inhuman character of the cosmos, on there not being angels and demons, no numinous presences whatsoever. The world itself is not hostile, not anything. I agree that it "just is." But to us, from our human perspective, this world divested of the divine can seem hostile, foreign, like an alien planet next to the earth of our forbears which was as a playground of Gods and mythical beasts and was created with a purpose by a conscious deity.

I really have to read the book again in order to discuss the other meanings Camus has for the absurd. I probably will tonight. Another is the sheer futility of human existence, as like Sisyphus we must push day after day the banal tedium of passionless modern life. Also, we can imagine immortality, we can imagine ourselves as gods, but men we remain, our lives to be extinguished like candles some soon day. There is so wide a chasm between what we want and what we can want, and what we are and will for our short lives always be. There are many facets of the absurd. Its a rich concept.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

Camus' idea of the absurd depends, in the context in which we are speaking now, on the inhuman character of the cosmos, on there not being angels and demons, no numinous presences whatsoever. The world itself is not hostile, not anything. I agree that it "just is." But to us, from our human perspective, this world divested of the divine can seem hostile, foreign, like an alien planet next to the earth of our forbears which was as a playground of Gods and mythical beasts and was created with a purpose by a conscious deity.

I really have to read the book again in order to discuss the other meanings Camus has for the absurd. I probably will tonight. Another is the sheer futility of human existence, as like Sisyphus we must push day after day the banal tedium of passionless modern life. Also, we can imagine immortality, we can imagine ourselves as gods, but men we remain, our lives to be extinguished like candles some soon day. There is so wide a chasm between what we want and what we can want, and what we are and will for our short lives always be. There are many facets of the absurd. Its a rich concept.

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I agree with your description of Camus' view. His universe has no gods in it. What is more, the people in his world have no "god within" either.

Currently, I am seeing Camus as an intellectual manic-depressive. The depressive part is his description of our lives as "absurd" and our work as futile (le travail inutile et sans espoir). The manic part is when he believes Sisyphus is happy which I find as hard to accept as his view of Sisyphus as representing us as workers. From my metaphysics, or more generally, my worldview, Camus flips between delusion and sentimentality.

The delusion is in thinking that what we do as work is anything like what Sisyphus is doing. Sisyphus receives no reward for his labor nor do the gods benefit from it. It is truly "inutile". I don't know of any worker employed by someone else who is in this situation. The worker receives a wage and the employer receives a benefit from the work.

The sentimentality comes from the happiness that Camus links with the absurd. He expects Sisyphus, and by his own projection, any worker, to put up with futility. Cacian, earlier in this thread, asked why Sisyphus continues with his labor. Why doesn't Sisyphus just stop doing what is futile? I think it is part of the problem with Camus' philosophy that he doesn't ask this very thing when retelling the myth.

Yeah I really have to read the book again to discuss it. Right now I have my head already buried in so many. I'll get to it though.

I do often feel like Sisyphus. I cut a bucket of onions or I build another house and each bucket and each house is just another grain of sand in the great Sahara of this world. Its not delusional to see the analogy between the stone and our work, our lives. Tomorrow there will be more vegetables to chop, more stacks of lumber to move. It can feel like I and everything is nothing but water running endlessly and pointlessly downhill. What real reward do I get for my labor? A small paycheck that goes towards food, housing and tuition? Its better than being a slave for sure. But I still draw no real meaning or pleasure from what I do. For that, for meaning and for delight all I have is love and art really, and I remember some character in some novel of Camus saying precisely that. And for many real love and real art are things unknown. Dulled and deadened by the never-ending quest to move the great stone of necessity and fear and limitation, nothing is really felt, nothing really thought, nothing arises or strikes them with any true profound poignancy.

His novel The Plague is really worth reading. It follows a doctor struggling to keep up with the sheer toll of death wrought upon him and his town by a nasty virulent plague. The doctor maintains this detached but determined air throughout as he faces this impossibly over-powering enemy. It almost seems pointless after a while. The absurdity of opposing this incredibly mighty, almost super-powerful presence occurs to him but does not deter him. He and his friends fight it and fight it, not as heroes but as regular men. They just do it. And they take pleasure in the things we take pleasure in despite our mortality, despite the futility of all that we do and of our very lives themselves. In friendship, in food, in hobbies they find pleasure, solace, a reason to continue.

The book Myth of Sisyphus is about suicide. Why not just give up? I'm still not entirely sure how Camus answers this question but I know he does. As long as there is something then that something is everything and that is more than enough. That's my answer. I probably came up with it after reading Camus years ago.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

The sentimentality comes from the happiness that Camus links with the absurd. He expects Sisyphus, and by his own projection, any worker, to put up with futility. Cacian, earlier in this thread, asked why Sisyphus continues with his labor. Why doesn't Sisyphus just stop doing what is futile? I think it is part of the problem with Camus' philosophy that he doesn't ask this very thing when retelling the myth.

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Sisyphus doesn't stop because the gods have made the stone his punishment. Its like asking why a prison laborer does not stop making license plates. He can't.

The whole point of the book actually is why we, the Sisyphuses, do not commit suicide and escape the futility of life that way.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

Sisyphus doesn't stop because the gods have made the stone his punishment. Its like asking why a prison laborer does not stop making license plates. He can't.

The whole point of the book actually is why we, the Sisyphuses, do not commit suicide and escape the futility of life that way.

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Even the prison laborer is not engaged in a futile activity the way Sisyphus is. The license plates provide others with a benefit.

One of the problems with the book is the claim that we are like Sisyphus, but that is not true. I can't think of even one laborer who is like Sisyphus receiving no wage and providing nothing for the employer in return for the wage. Since we are not like Sisyphus, there is nothing absurd about our work and the question of suicide is irrelevant.

Here is something from the book which confirms my assessment, at least for me, of Camus' delusion and sentimentality. It is in the chapter that is also called "The Myth of Sisyphus".

Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness.

Here the absurdity is the delusion and the happiness in the face of that absurdity is the sentimentality. I might add that the above quote seems a bit inane or at best meaningless, but it is just a text, after all. It is not reality and texts can be meaningless.

I don't see why one must be Sisyphus in order to be like Sisyphus. There are degrees of futility, of meaninglessness and of the absurd. Extreme examples help us flesh out the truths of average norms. The prisoner making license plates does work that may contain some benefit and even some reward, but does that make it worthwhile and rewarding? I don't think so. We are like Sisyphus, we are not actually in the exact same situation. The absurd is an almost spiritual experience and truth. Its quite akin to love and to faith. Just because you don't feel it doesn't mean others don't.

Sorry for the late response. I got sidetracked.

If people want to feel like Sisyphus, I have no power to stop them. I hope they enjoy themselves and get whatever "happiness" Camus thinks this provides.

One thing I think I've been wrong about is that I claimed that only texts have meaning. Well, other species of animals communicate and so there is meaning even outside language texts. To attempt a definition I think I would be defining meaning as a property of a message that some form of consciousness created which points to something else. Meaninglessness would be a characteristic of a message in this broader context that failed to point to something else.

So the universe could be meaningful if it were a message from some form of consciousness. If that form of consciousness were sending drivel to us then it would be meaningless, but that would still imply the existence of some kind of consciousness that created the message. Since the universe had a beginning 13.73 +/- 0.12 billion years ago (http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/), it could be a message and possibly meaningful.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Even the prison laborer is not engaged in a futile activity the way Sisyphus is. The license plates provide others with a benefit.

One of the problems with the book is the claim that we are like Sisyphus, but that is not true. I can't think of even one laborer who is like Sisyphus receiving no wage and providing nothing for the employer in return for the wage. Since we are not like Sisyphus, there is nothing absurd about our work and the question of suicide is irrelevant.

Here is something from the book which confirms my assessment, at least for me, of Camus' delusion and sentimentality. It is in the chapter that is also called "The Myth of Sisyphus".

Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness.

Here the absurdity is the delusion and the happiness in the face of that absurdity is the sentimentality. I might add that the above quote seems a bit inane or at best meaningless, but it is just a text, after all. It is not reality and texts can be meaningless.

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You seem completely incapable of comprehending the analogy Camus was actually making. Every single human being is involved in a futile activity the same as Sisyphus, because it is life itself that is the futile activity - he thus seeks to answer the question of why a human being should continue toiling in his effort to push the boulder up the hill, when no positive outcome can arise from it, and eventually the weight of the boulder will become too great, crush and kill us.

You are calling Camus delusional and sentimental, but you have completely misread him, and your posts throughout this thread attest to that lack of comprehension. The sentence you quote is quite simple, and its meaning quite obvious. Feelings of happiness can quite quickly turn to thoughts of futility, and even melancholy at your own happiness and its obvious transience - hence the feeling absurdity arising from these contradictions.

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Originally Posted by Phocion

You seem completely incapable of comprehending the analogy Camus was actually making. Every single human being is involved in a futile activity the same as Sisyphus, because it is life itself that is the futile activity - he thus seeks to answer the question of why a human being should continue toiling in his effort to push the boulder up the hill, when no positive outcome can arise from it, and eventually the weight of the boulder will become to great, crush and kill us.

You are calling Camus delusional and sentimental, but you have completely misread him, and your posts throughout this thread attest to that lack of comprehension. The sentence you quote is quite simple, and its meaning quite obvious. Feelings of happiness can quite quickly turn to thoughts of futility, and even melancholy at your own happiness and its obvious transience - hence the feeling absurdity arising from these contradictions.

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I would have to agree with you. I think yes/no misterpreted this. In particular, what does Camus statement that happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth have to do with them springing from a marriage of the two? Ridiculous.

Way to flog that zombie!

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Originally Posted by Phocion

You seem completely incapable of comprehending the analogy Camus was actually making. Every single human being is involved in a futile activity the same as Sisyphus, because it is life itself that is the futile activity - he thus seeks to answer the question of why a human being should continue toiling in his effort to push the boulder up the hill, when no positive outcome can arise from it, and eventually the weight of the boulder will become too great, crush and kill us.

You are calling Camus delusional and sentimental, but you have completely misread him, and your posts throughout this thread attest to that lack of comprehension. The sentence you quote is quite simple, and its meaning quite obvious. Feelings of happiness can quite quickly turn to thoughts of futility, and even melancholy at your own happiness and its obvious transience - hence the feeling absurdity arising from these contradictions.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Whether the "absurde" is just blandness as G L Wilson suggests or not makes me wonder if Camus really has anything that is worth writing an essay about. We all have bad days. So what? We'll feel better tomorrow.
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For Sisyphus, every day was the same. For you, you might feel better tomorrow, but as a result of what?

I particular like the Myth. Camus thought that the only real question in life was whether to commit suicide or not, but you can still interpret this myth however you like. To me, it's an allusion to the monotony of a life based on going to school, getting a job, raising a family, waiting to retire, then not being able to enjoy it because by then you're senile.

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Originally Posted by G L Wilson

I'm committing suicide one day at a time.

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Ok cool.

As far as The myth of Sisyphus is concern, it's a good book. Really depends on how you took it. If you think that every day or the confrontation of you and the unreasonable fvcked-up silence of the world (which is the absurd) is an attempted suicide, that's yours.

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Originally Posted by Phocion

You seem completely incapable of comprehending the analogy Camus was actually making. Every single human being is involved in a futile activity the same as Sisyphus, because it is life itself that is the futile activity - he thus seeks to answer the question of why a human being should continue toiling in his effort to push the boulder up the hill, when no positive outcome can arise from it, and eventually the weight of the boulder will become too great, crush and kill us.

You are calling Camus delusional and sentimental, but you have completely misread him, and your posts throughout this thread attest to that lack of comprehension. The sentence you quote is quite simple, and its meaning quite obvious. Feelings of happiness can quite quickly turn to thoughts of futility, and even melancholy at your own happiness and its obvious transience - hence the feeling absurdity arising from these contradictions.

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How do you know life is futile? It sounds like an assumption that one is trying to build a case to support using the transience of life as the main argument.

If Camus is not correct about the futility of life, then he would be delusional, or at best, mistaken. If he wants to maintain the metaphysical futility of life and then add an ideology of "happiness" onto that, then I would say he is being sentimental.

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Originally Posted by hypatia_

For Sisyphus, every day was the same. For you, you might feel better tomorrow, but as a result of what?

I particular like the Myth. Camus thought that the only real question in life was whether to commit suicide or not, but you can still interpret this myth however you like. To me, it's an allusion to the monotony of a life based on going to school, getting a job, raising a family, waiting to retire, then not being able to enjoy it because by then you're senile.

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Whose fault is it that life feels monotonous? It seems as if Camus is portraying us as victims of some sort, but who is making victims out of us?

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Originally Posted by YesNo

How do you know life is futile? It sounds like an assumption that one is trying to build a case to support using the transience of life as the main argument.

If Camus is not correct about the futility of life, then he would be delusional, or at best, mistaken. If he wants to maintain the metaphysical futility of life and then add an ideology of "happiness" onto that, then I would say he is being sentimental.

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I don't know.

Camus purported a random universe where humans inhabit a tiny planet which hurtling to its doom. His assumption is only that consciousness and memory are all that we are, and based on the evidence we have, that is the most realistic assumption that can be made. Once we die we lose everything we have gained through life, and thus our attempts at life are axiomatically futile and our efforts absurd. Of course it cannot be proven, you surely did not expect Camus to do that? It is not even that he has to prove it: it is the contradiction between the human want for meaning and significance, and the sheer inability of the universe to provide any.

Nor is he merely 'adding' an ideology of happiness to his prior conclusions. Recognition of our absurd condition is what makes us free and thus the individual can give his life whatever meaning he wants - that being an act of rebellion, perhaps.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

Whose fault is it that life feels monotonous? It seems as if Camus is portraying us as victims of some sort, but who is making victims out of us?

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Why do you assume that someone causes it? Camus is arguing that it is human nature.

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Originally Posted by Phocion

I don't know.

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That's a good starting point. From that you can't draw too many conclusions.

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Originally Posted by Phocion

Camus purported a random universe where humans inhabit a tiny planet which hurtling to its doom. His assumption is only that consciousness and memory are all that we are, and based on the evidence we have, that is the most realistic assumption that can be made. Once we die we lose everything we have gained through life, and thus our attempts at life are axiomatically futile and our efforts absurd. Of course it cannot be proven, you surely did not expect Camus to do that? It is not even that he has to prove it: it is the contradiction between the human want for meaning and significance, and the sheer inability of the universe to provide any.

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What evidence specifically are you referring to? Regarding the axiomatic part, if you assume a metaphysics of futility, then axiomatically you get futility. That doesn't mean that life is futile, only that you assume a metaphysics of futility.

Of course, I expect him to prove his point.

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Originally Posted by Phocion

Nor is he merely 'adding' an ideology of happiness to his prior conclusions. Recognition of our absurd condition is what makes us free and thus the individual can give his life whatever meaning he wants - that being an act of rebellion, perhaps.

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I would maintain that "recognition of our absurd condition" does not "make us free". That is an "absurd" thing to claim.

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Originally Posted by hypatia_

Why do you assume that someone causes it? Camus is arguing that it is human nature.

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No one actually is causing it but the person who feels that life is monotonous. Human nature certainly isn't causing it because there exist people who don't feel life is monotonous.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

No one actually is causing it but the person who feels that life is monotonous. Human nature certainly isn't causing it because there exist people who don't feel life is monotonous.

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Camus argues that people who don't feel life is monotonous are simple-minded. It is easy to be content when you don't understand the problem.

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Originally Posted by hypatia_

Camus argues that people who don't feel life is monotonous are simple-minded. It is easy to be content when you don't understand the problem.

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Of course, he does. He has to discredit the experience of those who disagree with him. He has no other argument. However, it is just as possible that he doesn't understand the problem and his position is simple-minded, indeed, sentimental, as I've tried to argue.

The sentimentallity in his case is real. For example, Phocton claims he said something like:

Recognition of our absurd condition is what makes us free

Consider for a moment what actually makes you free. A reasonable answer would be "the ability to make a choice". Note, freedom doesn't require accepting your absurdity or anything else for that matter. It doesn't require standing on your head to accept some BS ideology or theology or atheology. It doesn't require believing in Christianity or Buddhism or pick-whatever-belief-you-want. What makes you free? Just the ability to make a choice. There are some today who claim you can't even do that, but that's another discussion for a different thread.

So why did Camus link "freedom", a nice mushy sentiment many people in his audience valued, with believing in just what he happened to be preaching? I think for the same reason some Christians might say you would be "siding with the devil" if you didn't agree with them. He was appealing to your sentiment, not your reason. He was being sentimental.

A plausible hypothesis, but one just as valid is that he is right. perhaps he is referring to a dimension of freedom more profound than "making a choice." his argument is that the very essence of life prohibits choice, so realizing that gives you it. a form of nonduality.

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Originally Posted by hypatia_

A plausible hypothesis, but one just as valid is that he is right. perhaps he is referring to a dimension of freedom more profound than "making a choice." his argument is that the very essence of life prohibits choice, so realizing that gives you it. a form of nonduality.

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I don't actually know that Camus said what I quoted Phocton as claiming he said. Do either you or Phocton have a source? However, from what I remember, it wouldn't surprise me that he linked freedom with some belief in his version of the futility of life. That and the quote on "happiness" I mentioned earlier in the thread are the kinds of pronouncements that make Camus sound sentimental to me. What I am trying to say is if he is going to promote the futility of life, he should stop sugar-coating it.

Regarding a "dimension of freedom more profound than 'making a choice'", does it even exist?

What do you mean by "the very essence of life prohibits choice, so realizing that gives you it. a form of nonduality"? The "nonduality" part sounds a bit too mystical for me.

What I am trying to say is if he is going to promote the futility of life, he should stop sugar-coating it.

Okay I understand where you're coming from now. That's true, if life is meaningless, it does seem he is trying to extract some meaning from nothing

Regarding a "dimension of freedom more profound than 'making a choice'", does it even exist?

That is the definition of freedom. The problem arises when people think they are making a choice. The illusion of freedom is very powerful. I'm not saying it is the case, but that is Camus' argument.

What do you mean by "the very essence of life prohibits choice, so realizing that gives you it. a form of nonduality"? The "nonduality" part sounds a bit too mystical for me.

At it's most primal level, you are not given a choice to be born or to exist. The nonduality from my understanding arises in giving in to something to obtain the opposite. It's similar to the concepts of good not existing without evil. They depend on each other. In terms of this discussion, freedom depends on constraint. Giving up the pursuit of freedom (realizing the absurd) is what allows you to obtain it. I don't 100% agree with it, but that's what I get from Camus' works.