Albert Camus – Committed Writings – Comment.

 

The French Algerian philosopher, Albert Camus, (1913 – 1960) is more widely known for his novel’s The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947). In French philosophical circles his writings on Absurdism, expressed in his novel, The Stranger, was seen as a direct refute of French Existentialism, brought into the mainstream by French philosopher, J.P Sartre. Camus was a prolific writer of essays and plays, and won world acclaim for Caligula, The Just, and the theatrical adaptation of Dostoyevsky's The Possessed. Famous as a left-wing activist, his actions in The French Resistance during WWII were extensive. In 1957, at the age of 44, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Contained in Committed Writings are ‘Letters to a German Friend’, that inform his loyalty to France and criticisms of the Nazi regime, ‘Reflections on the Guillotine’, arguments against Capital punishment, and his Nobel Prize speeches, expressing his views on politics, writing and the engagement of art as a form of resistance. 

The more persuasive piece is “Reflections on the Guillotine” arguing against the use of capital punishment by the state. The state does not have the right, either morally or socially, to execute its citizens. To argue that imposing the death penalty on a convicted criminal to any extent poses as a deterrent against future crimes has proven over time simply not to be true. Public executions as spectacle acted more as entertainment for the mob rather than a warning for people not to kill. Currently executions are performed in private with only a few acting as witnesses. Camus argues that waiting for one’s eminent execution while on death row is worse than the execution itself. As our western justice system is far from perfect, juries get it wrong, and the state ends up killing the innocent. Camus proposes many other arguments that are all similarly persuasive. 

In the essay, ‘Create Dangerously’, he proposes that artists and writers, in their efforts to reveal reality, have become writers of consumer society, hiding away from communal misery, hiding behind mere works of entertainment. The movement of “arts for art's sake” was a justification as an artist to express “beauty”, when in fact it was an act of cowardice, a denial of social and political responsibility. The writer must speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, avoid the ego, and engage in solid brotherhood. Camus writes: 

Art develops between two chasms: frivolity and propaganda. Along the high ridge where great artists keep moving forward, every step is dangerous, extremely risky. Yet it is within that risk, and only there, that true artistic freedom lies...Like all freedom, it is a never-ending risk, a grueling experience, and that is why today we flee from such risk, just as we flee from freedom, which demands so much of us...

We live in dangerous times, and the artist must face political repression, war, genocide and bloodshed, and use them with ‘careful consideration’ in the creative process. 

The artist’s days of irresponsibility are over. 

These essays, despite being written over 70 years ago, are arguments that are relevant today. The rise of arrogant fascism that claims righteousness based on spurious ideals and violence. Does the State have the moral right to execute its own citizens? Art as ‘entertainment’ created merely for a consumerist society, has lost its meaning, and must now take risks, moving beyond received wisdom. 

Those interested in these subjects will find Camus’ Committed Writings educational and a desire for further investigation.

The Continued Threats and Rhetoric of Nuclear War is Troubling.

 

World leaders and major pundits across the spectrum have spoken about destroying entire civilizations and threatening nuclear war. NATO and the EU as of late are discussing a full-fledged war with Russia. President Putin has declared that if Russia feels threatened the use of the nuclear option is a realistic possibility. In the middle east, Israel sustains its genocide in Gaza and is currently on a bombing campaign in South Lebanon. Despite what you hear in western legacy media, this assault is an ethnic cleansing exercise, thinly disguised by Israel as self-defense against Hezbollah. If you push the “self-defense” argument, I will refer you to the recent comments by Israel’s Minister of National Security, Ben Gvir, “All of Lebanon must burn.” Israel also has what is called the Samson Option. Having Nuclear weapons, Israel would use them if they believed they were militarily backed into a corner. Considering their genocidal behavior in Gaza, and the mass murder of South Lebanese civilians, there’s no doubt that these Zionist lunatics would use nuclear weapons. 

The notion of world-wide nuclear holocaust is an event that has not really captured the imagination of many of the younger generation. The pundits on legacy media throw nuclear war around like it’s a video game. Many do not see that any ‘normal’ human being would even consider dropping the bomb on another country. Unfortunately, this is not true. 

As of 2026, the Doomsday Clock has been set at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been. The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist as a symbolic representation of how close humanity is to total annihilation. When we observe the EU leaders escalating their aggressions against Russia, pushing their lies and propaganda, “poking the bear” will have its consequences. In the middle east, Israel is a foaming at the mouth mad dog off the chain. As said, from their past behavior, these Zionist warmongers are capable of anything, including launching nuclear weapons. 

If you have studied to any extent ‘nuclear fallout’, it is devastation on a grand scale. The sun would be blocked out, so growing food is impossible. The deaths from the bombs will be monumental, though the domino effect of starvation, disease and death will be greater. The world’s billionaires are building or have built nuclear bunkers, in the event of earth’s destruction. Eventually they’ll have to come up for air at some point and will find the surface unlivable. 

To really grasp the outcome of our civilization, that is for a rogue state actor decides, for example, they're “between a rock and a hard place” like Israel, and launches their nuclear arsenal, our current civilization will end. It will set off a chain reaction that will leave the entire planet in ruins, and there will be no turning back. So, to hear and see our so-called world leaders and their mouth pieces bandy about the use of nuclear weapons as an option in war, my heart rate rises, and I think you’re either naive or a psychopath. Perhaps both. 

Stefan Zweig - Six Stories - Comment.

Most of Zweig's work was only translated from German to English around 2007-8. Although a famous and bestselling author in Europe, he was little known in the US, Canada, and Australia. For years I've read and written about Zweig's work, and to come across Six Stories, turned out to be a pleasant experience. What is most striking about these stories is Zweig's uncanny insight into the thoughts and behaviors of the human being. In one story, it's told from the perspective of a young boy at the beginning of adolescence. The boy's active imagination and frantic emotional extremes lift from the page, where this reader's early memories rose to the surface in a visceral way. In fact, most of these stories had a similar reader response. 

In much of Zweig's work, he explores the consequences of war as experienced by the common man. In Buchmendel, a man enters a cafe/restaurant and recalls an old Jewish bookseller, that sat at a particular table, his books and catalogues around him, running his business. This was no ordinary bookseller, for he had an extraordinary memory and a vast knowledge of thousands of texts, so when a customer asked about a specific book, if certain editions remained in circulation or were out of print, and more often than not, could locate any book upon request. He came to Germany as a young migrant, and never formally organized his citizenship. As WWI was then raging, all correspondence was closely watched and censored. The bookseller would send his requests for certain texts and accounts to a person in France, then Germany's enemy. The man was so cloistered in his world of books, that the war was out of sight and mind. The authorities corner the bookseller at the restaurant, and discovered he is an illegal immigrant, and send him away to prison. After two years he appears again a broken man, and as the cafe is under new ownership, he is banned from the establishment. Now homeless, he disappears into poverty. The consequences of war. 

In The Invisible Collection, the war has ended, and Germany's economy is in shambles. A dealer of antiques and valuable artifacts, hunts down a once renowned collector, to possibly purchase a few items. When he arrives at the collector's home, he finds the old man has gone blind. The man's wife and daughter had to sell all of his collection to merely survive. The old collector doesn't know this but has his beloved catalogues. The dealer goes along with the charade, to save the man from heartbreak, that his collection is now gone, The consequences of war.

Of course, Zweig experienced the consequences of war both physically and psychologically. As an exiled Austrian, ending up living in South America. The man was terrified of the Nazis and believed that Hitler would come to South America and destroy him. This psychological fear of the Nazis was so acute, that the writer and his young wife committed suicide. 

Six Stories are all different in circumstances and characters, though the theme of war and its effects on the common person, runs through many of them. 

A wonderful read. 

The Consequence of War is so Easily Forgotten.

 

War is indeed hell.  

Despite the pain, suffering and millions of deaths in the 20th century and the last 26 years due to unending war, the wealthy and the politicians they finance, continue to warmonger, and their paid stooges in the media continue to promote and justify the mass killing as something necessary for humankind. From any perspective, morally, economically or otherwise, war only benefits the few, while the rest of humanity suffers during war, and those brief pauses between them.  

As a people we seem to have chronic amnesia, that war only brings death and mass suffering.  

To give a general overview of the number of estimated deaths in war through the 2 centuries: 

WWI – 15-22 million deaths. 6-13m were civilian. 

WWII – 70-80 million deaths. 52m were civilian. 

Korea – Between 1.5 to 3 million civilian deaths. 

Vietnam – 3.1 million deaths. 2m were civilian.  

Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan – 2.4 million have been killed because of the U.S. invasion of Iraq while 1.2m killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  

This does not include U.S. and their allies dirty war in Syria and NATO’s bombing Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan.  

In the Israeli genocide in Gaza, it is estimated that over 75,000 deaths and 30% of that number are children.  

The above statistics in no way reflect the number of deaths in other US adventures, including famine, disease, and its long-term effects after a particular “incursion” has ended.  

The United States has been at war 229 years out of 249 years since its founding in 1776. From this number we can accurately conclude that the US thrives on war and is the essential thrust for its economy.  

Aside the soldiers who fought in these wars, currently in the West, particularly those who cheerlead war, have never experienced the impact that war brings to noncombatants or civilians. This is changing slightly with the advent of the internet, witnessing the slaughter and deprivation of the Palestinian people since 7/23. I would argue that for many, war remains an abstract notion because physical reality has not been directly experienced.  

A prominent journalist that I admire once stated that for the elite and their willing stenographers, see war as a form of entertainment. One can see this on social media, where individuals cheer bombing and post with glee about the murder of soldiers on the battlefield.  

The elites start these wars – banksters and corporations – profit from them, sit back and are entertained. Revealing the amount of people who have died in these wars, mainly noncombatants, we should become more aware that as a common people, we are led like sheep to our slaughter for the sole benefit, mainly financial, of the psychotic few.  

More specifically, my concern in present time: Will Trump and the brutal Israeli regime prolong this war of aggression against Iran, and the result being extreme economic hardship world-wide? This is when those in the West who have never been touched by the consequences of war, finally feel the sting, thereby “waking up” to understand that we’ve been lied to from the beginning?  

War is indeed hell but more accurately war is a racket.  

War and its consequences should never be forgotten.

Note: Image is of Picasso's Guernica. (Famous anti-war painting - 1937)