Why Bush Can't Possibly Agree With Camus, Part 2

I've been thinking way too much about this, but there's no way Bush believes Camus' writings. That's a hard statement to make because Camus' writings differ; just because the characters think one thing doesn't mean Camus thinks it. The Stranger is an amazing book, but I prefer The Plague. Side note: Do you think Bush watched Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, saw the French villain reading a French edition of The Stranger while driving his race car and, intrigued, decided to read it? Probably.

Anyways, if we look at The Plague and Camus' points about humanity, we can clearly see that Bush doesn't understand a thing he's reading this summer in his Crawford Book Club. Lucky for you, I wrote my term paper in my Existentialism & Literature class on "Albert Camus, La Peste, and Religion." I'll include bits of it here. I stayed up all night writing it, so it's pretty bad, but it has its moments. (I've tried to abridge it as much as possible. Yes, there are holes in the attempted logic, but that's what happens when you try to write from midnight to 8 a.m. the last day of finals, a day before graduation.)

First off:

"I am not an existentialist in the current sense of the term," wrote Camus in a 1956 letter to Harvard student Nicolas Daniloff. "Sartre's existentialism seems to me a contradictory philosophy in which confusions and bad faith abound ... Far from leading to a decent solution of the problem of freedom versus authority, [existentialism can only lead] to servitude." Camus cringed at being labeled an existentialist, especially as "existentialism'’s number two man," behind fellow Frenchman Jean-Paul Sartre. Although he didn'’t accept the label, many of Camus'’ works are still considered existential in that they examine human nature and our approach to dealing with our existence and, ultimately, our death.

Next:

Published in 1948, The Plague depicts an Algerian village struck with the bubonic plague and how its citizens reacted to the enormous death toll -- an allegory for the Nazism and occupation of the time during World War II. Dr. Rieux is the novel's protagonist, if he can be called that, but of main concern here is the village's priest, Father Paneloux, who gives two dramatically different sermons during the plague to his parishioners. Paneloux first speaks at the onset of the plague, chastising the villagers, who are hoping the plague will just go away, for their sinful lives, claiming it was this that brought on the plague. "The just man need have no fear, but the evildoer has good cause to tremble. For plague is the flail of God and the world His threshing-floor, and implacably He will thresh out His harvest until the wheat is separated from the chaff." ... Camus' use of religious figures is interesting, especially here and in The Stranger where he shows how many use religion as a crutch and an excuse to not think critically about their existence and whether or not their actions are genuine or meaningful. Paneloux didn't want to accept the plague and its death toll and chose to chalk it up to a demanding God who strikes fear in his creations and does what he pleases when he pleases. (Pat Robertson, anyone?)

Once the plague begins to spread, however, and the death toll raises, Paneloux's and the villagers' views on the destruction alter. The priest's second sermon comes in stark contrast to his first, and here we are able to glimpse into Camus's character and perhaps his true feelings about religion, or at least his feelings on how one who is religious should approach issues such as human suffering. After witnessing the absurd destruction caused by the plague with the deaths of thousands, Paneloux changes his positions and makes comments in his sermon that appear to the listening Rieux to be borderline heretical. The priest still holds fast to his faith and convictions, but is now edging away from the bombastic claims he once had and admits he doesn't understand everything about God and his reasons behind human suffering. He again clings to what he's been taught, but this time it's because it is all he has left. In his first sermon, he could blame mankind for causing the atrocities of the plague, but now, seeing how innocent mankind actually was in regards to the problem, he takes them off the stand. Even so, he's still reluctant to put God on the stand, saying he'’d rather keep faith with the great symbol of all suffering -- Christ hanging on the Cross -- than denounce God or question him. (This is hard for me to translate when considering the Nazis - they were a part of humanity, therefore humanity can't really be innocent.)

His situation has made him categorize his options into two extremes: either to believe everything, or deny everything. "And who among you, I ask, would dare to deny everything?" We must believe in God no matter what, he says, because he can't imagine a life without doing so. The priest's faith was weaker than he thought it had been and, even in the face of human suffering, he chose to have it remain weak. Paneloux's main virtue comes, though, in his call for action, which shines through his existential breakdown onto a line of hope that Camus seems to find as well. Paneloux describes in his sermon the chronicles of the Black Death at Marseille and how only four of the 81 monks in the stricken Mercy Monastery survived the epidemic, and of the four who survived, only one remained to stay with the ill. Paneloux slams his fist on his pulpit, declaring, "My brothers, each one of us must be the one who stays!" It is not enough to just get by in life, or provide sympathy to those suffering; rather, we are required to stay with the suffering, no matter if it brings us harm as well. "We should go forward, groping our way through the darkness, stumbling perhaps at times, and try to do what good lay in our power."

Camus was highly involved in the French Resistance during the war, editing an underground newspaper called Combat and using his writing platform to speak out against the Nazi occupation and the absurdity of the suffering the Nazis caused. He took action -- something that appears to almost go hand in hand with many existentialists who, although they have no answers for their suffering, choose to protest, question, debate, consider and examine life in its every aspect instead of sitting idly by why the absurdity trudges on. Paneloux can't explain why the suffering is occurring, though he won't hold God accountable, but he chooses to not run from it and places himself in the midst of it, treating victims of the plague until he succumbs to his own, mysterious sickness soon after his second sermon and dies.

Finally:

It's not enough for those who claim religion to only cling to the ideals they've been raised with and not question God at all. Camus is showing the dangers of false hope and, ultimately, the dangers of religion when those who claim it do so shallowly and without regard for humanity. At the end of the novel, Rieux has a sense of hope that future generations will continue and hopefully learn something from their predecessors, each group trying to make due with the hands they've been dealt. His hope is in humanity, not in God or any other form of god. He puts his trust in man, though he knows man is fallible, but in light of the plague, Rieux decides to take his chances. Neither Camus nor the reader can blame him.
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The Bush administration and countless others could learn a thing or two from this. Bush's callous comments about the death toll of innocent Iraqis, guessing about 30,000 had died thus far in the war but chalking it up to collateral damage for the sake of spreading democracy, is anyintellectuallyellectualy honest. I'm glad he found The Stranger a "quick read." I suggest The Plague. Here's praying some of it will sink in.