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Albert Camus An Absurd Hero Michel It's better to bet on this life than on the next. Albert Camus and Politics Spoke out against totalitarianism. – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Albert%20Camus%20


1
Albert Camus An Absurd Hero
  • Michel

It's better to bet on this life than on the
next.
2
Albert Camus and Politics
  • Spoke out against totalitarianism.
  • Despite joining The French Communist Party in
    1935, eventually rejected communism with his book
    The Rebel in 1951.
  • He was a pacifist
  • Fervently fought against capital punishment

3
Albert Camus and Politics
  • During the 1950s he devoted himself mostly to
    Human Rights, primarily speaking against the
    Soviet Unions treatment of its citizens.
  • Left UNESCO after the UN accepted Spain and its
    leader Francisco Franco as a member because he
    refused to recognize a fascist country in the UN.

4
World War II
  • Albert Camus was a well known resistance fighter.
  • Directed the famous resistance journal Combat
    which railed against French cooperation with the
    Nazi occupiers.
  • During the Liberation of Paris from occupation,
    he covered the fighting for eventual publication
    in Combat.

5
The Rebel
  • A treaties on the motivation for revolution and
    rebellion. This work, more than others, servers
    the friendship between himself and several
    companions who sympathized with the communist
    ideals.

6
Reflections on the Guillotine
  • An essay which outlines his reasoning for the
    complete rejection of capital punishment. Forms
    the basis for his belief that government does not
    have the right to plan and carry out murder,
    including war.

7
Neither Victims nor Executioners
  • A series of articles written in the French
    Resistance paper Combat in which he details the
    role of murder and violence in the life of
    political beings.

8
The State of Siege
  • A play about a town gripped in the rule of a
    leader who keeps them in line through fear.

9
The Tenets of Absurdism
  • There is such a thing as meaning or value.
  • If there is inherent meaning in the universe,
    humans cannot understand it.
  • Individuals can create meaning in life
    themselves, but it is not essential.

10
The Tenets of Absurdism
  • The pursuit of intrinsic or extrinsic meaning in
    the universe is not possible, but it may add
    meaning to the personal life
  • There is a solution to the individual's desire to
    seek meaning, and it is the acknowledgement and
    embracing of absurdity.

11
Camus View of Absurdism
  • Life is not useless or without purpose.
  • The universe lacks logic.
  • Meaning in life comes from a persons ability to
    affect his/her own destiny.
  • Human existence is defined by our relationships
    with each other, not an absurd and illogical
    universe.

12
Absurdism and Religion
  • Religion and absurdism is a paradox. The absence
    of God in a persons life can simultaneously be
    accompanied by a longing for salvation and
    meaning that only God can provide.

13
Absurdism and Religion
  • Camus was influenced by the ideas of St.
    Augustines work Confessions, where Augustine
    promotes the idea of a connection between God and
    the rest of the world.
  • Camus identified with the idea that a personal
    experience could become a reference point for his
    philosophical and literary writings.

14
Absurdism and Religion
  • This gave birth to his practice of exploring
    absurdist philosophy by writing about individuals
    caught up in an absurd world.

15
An Important Decision
  • The Absurd arises out of the fundamental
    disharmony between the individuals search for
    meaning and the apparent meaninglessness of the
    universe.

16
An Important Decision
  • Humans have three ways of resolving the dilemma
  • Suicide
  • Religious belief in a transcendent reality,
    commonly called the leap of faith.
  • Acceptance of the Absurd

17
Suicide
  • (Escaping existence) Camus dismissed the
    viability of this option because death only adds
    to the absurdity of the Universe it does not
    solve the riddle.

18
Religious belief
  • Camus called this option Philosophical Suicide
    because it requires the individual to reject
    their personal ability to seek out meaning
    rationally.

19
Acceptance of the Absurd
  • One must accept and even embrace the Absurd and
    continue to live in spite of it, Camus endorsed
    this option deciding that life can be given
    meaning through its struggle against the Absurd
    and meaninglessness.

20
The Mount Everest Allegory
21
Work Cited
  • Camus, Albert. "Niether Victims nor
    Executioners." November 1946. Online Texts. 10
    April 2010 lthttp//www.spunk.org/library/writers/c
    amus/sp001174.txtgt.
  • . "The Blood of Freedom." 24 August 1944. Online
    Texts. 10 April 2010 lthttp//members.bellatlantic.
    net/samg2/freedom.htmlgt.
  • . "The Myth of Sysiphus." 1942. Online Texts. 10
    April 2010 lthttp//members.bellatlantic.net/samg2
    /sysiphus.htmlgt.
  • . "The Night of Truth." 24 August 1944. Online
    Texts. 10 April 2010 lthttp//members.bellatlantic.
    net/samg2/truth.htmlgt.
  • Camus, Catherine. SPIKE interviews Catherine
    Camus, daughter of Albert Camus Russell
    Wilkinson. October 1995.
  • Crystal, Garry. Who is Albert Camus? - WiseGEEK.
    24 April 2010 lthttp//www.wisegeek.com/who-is-albe
    rt-camus.htmgt.
  • May, William F. "Albert Camus Politcal
    Moralist." 24 November 1958. Religion Online
    Website. 24 April 2010 lthttp//www.religion-online
    .org/showarticle.asp?title397gt.
  • The European Graduate School. Albert Camus -
    Biography. 10 April 2010 lthttp//www.egs.edu/media
    /library-of-philosophy/albert-camus/biography/gt.

22
Further Readings
  • Camus, Albert. The Plague. The Plague, The Fall,
    Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays. New
    York Everyman's Library, 2004.
  • Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. The Plague,
    The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected
    Essays. New York Everyman's Library, 2004.
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