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.