Hello, and
welcome! My name isn’t Scrin, but that
doesn’t matter. I read things, say
things, and, very rarely, even know things.
I’ve created this blog for a class on existentialism; I’ll be posting
responses to the class readings and discussions on a weekly basis. Come in, say hi, and explain to me why I don’t
know what I’m talking about! This first
post discusses Albert Camus’s The
Stranger, centering around its lead character (Mersault)’s general lack of
affect.
I don’t
think it’s quite fair to say that Mersault lives in a world without meaning; as
soon as he admits his (inevitable) care for heat or discomfort, as soon as he
presumes to do anything at all, he lives in a world with meaning. Even if he doesn’t care whether his mother
lives or dies, he still recognizes that there’s a mechanistic difference
between the two states. That (admittedly,
pedantic) point made, I think it’s fair to say that Mersault places much less
value on the items outlined by his perceptual lens than is usual. If to sympathize is to comprehend another’s
emotions, and to empathize is to feel them, I empathize with Mersault heavily. Therein lies my self-justifying bias; I want
to defend Mersault’s worldview, for it has important similarities (and
important differences) to my own.
It might be
silly to empathize with the man with no empathy; but, like Mersault, I don’t
think anything inherently matters, though I arrived at the point via argument
rather than intuition. Repeated interrogation
of any value or claim must lead to an arbitrary, unprovable presupposition. It goes something like this:
“Why is
Mersault wrong not to grieve over his mother’s death?”
“Because a
son ought to grieve for his parents’ death.”
“Why should
a son grieve?”
“Because a
son should love his parents.”
“Why should
a son love his parents?”
“Because
they gave him life and raised him.”
“Why does
any of that matter?”
“Because of
affection and obligation.”
“Why do
affection and obligation matter?”
“Because of
common decency.”
“Whence
arises common decency?”
“It’s
self-evident.”
Which it’s
not—very few things, possibly one or none, as I’ll outline in a moment, are
self-evident. So, the prescriptive value
(the imperative to care about anything at all) that Mersault violates, is, so
far as I can tell, arbitrary. All
prescription, and, on some level, all description, is arbitrary. Even shooting a man, as Mersault does, or a
million people, or the entire human race, is not inherently wrong. But
inherence, as I see it, isn’t all that important.
You see, as
far as I can tell, nothing inherently has meaning, and that’s okay; in fact, it’s
even beautiful. I’ll get into why in a
bit; but first, to claim that anything has meaning—or that it doesn’t, for that
matter—one needs a definition of meaning.
Here’s mine: meaning is value,
both in a descriptive and a prescriptive sense.
It is the quality that makes some characteristic or piece of information
among the nearly infinite ones available in the universe relevant; it is the filter
and lens that makes some reading or view of the world possible. Meaning is the difference between a chair and
the air around it, or between my two hands, or, to be less physical, between an
act of kindness and an act of cruelty—or rather, it is the thing that makes
those differences matter. Meaning shapes
the nigh-infinite information within reality into comprehensible and valuable
shapes; it filters out the majority to create a bounded, simplified, nearly
metaphorical model of reality that the human mind can comprehend. My mind, at least (I cannot truly know any
other), cannot help but assign meaning at all times; for the only alternative is
to receive the unfiltered press of everything at once, a situation that I can’t
comprehend even in imagination. With
this contextual, contingent definition of meaning in mind, I cannot conceive of
inherent meaning.
I am, at
least, a solipsist and, at most, a pyrrhonist; that is, I don’t believe that
one can be entirely certain of anything but one’s own existence, and I’m not
even certain that I know that. I believe
that any sort of inherent meaning to life or existence would have to be
self-evident, indubitable, demonstrable from utterly unquestionable first
principles; and since, so far as I can tell, only the present experience of
consciousness can be so demonstrated, I, on a very fundamental level, can’t
understand the idea of inherent meaning. Thus, I can’t appeal to the idea of some
objective truth to justify adhering to societal norms, upholding a system of
morality, eating, breathing, or, really, interacting in any way with a universe
that I can’t be completely sure exists.
All things save the aforementioned present experience are dubitable (and,
thus, not inherent), and among “all things” are all meanings. This may seem dire; yet for all this
skepticism, I am not a nihilist.
Because
honestly, what does inherence itself matter?
It’s entirely possible that the entirety of my experience is a
dream. My norms and ideals are
arbitrary. So what? I can justify living my life, eating,
sleeping, breathing, pursuing ideals, believing in my morality, on sentiment
and affect alone. I care about my life,
and friends, and family, and, in some abstract way, about humanity writ large;
I don’t need to be inherently right in doing so. Yet, because of this, I cannot condemn anyone
as inherently wrong. Mersault does not,
inherently, deserve death, because no one inherently deserves anything. His existence, however, does conflict with
that of those around him—most notably, with the Arab, who he kills for no
particular reason at all—and so, after a manner, they are incompatible. I would prefer that he not die, because I
like him, and sympathize with him; and yet, I don’t find his death wrong within
my own arbitrary moral framework.
Mersault’s
fate is tragic, and regrettable, an emergent effect of a world wherein
everything is scarce and peoples’ desires, interests, and freedoms mutually
interfere. It is wrong, according to
some moral framings, right, according to others, tragic, according to mine; but
independent of all these projections, it simply is. Whether reading a novel or reading the world,
meaning is projected by the observer; like a shadow, assigned meaning throws one’s
own characteristics into relief, the familiar seen anew and strange. To perceive, to read, to name and make and
comprehend stories, is to make something of the nothing which is everything. It is the fundamental act of being; and to me,
at least, it’s beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment