Camus: In the face of the absurd world, man must have the ability to think independently, free will, and the right to choose

"I have the right to choose not to cry at my mother's funeral, I have the right to watch humorous movies after the funeral, to have sex with my girlfriend, but this cannot be a reason to be sentenced and beheaded by a judge with just words." 」

Today, at the invitation of the Cowhide Ming Reading Club, let's talk about the book in my hand, one of the youngest literary Nobel Prize winners, the famous existential psychologist Camus's masterpiece "Plague" and "The Outsider" to share the comparison.

First of all, talk about the psychological process of reading "Plague", before reading, in fact, my expectations are still quite high, because, after all, I have just finished reading Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude", and the starting point is too high. But it was unexpected, some disappointment.

"Plague" has no special plot that can't be stopped, no bizarre magic, and no character with different temperaments so different that everyone can become a legend.

The aura of the only prophetic novel, this advantage has also lost its mysterious sense in my eyes after experiencing the ravages of new crown pneumonia.

Even in a group of people represented by Dr. Rieux, I seem to be able to smell the heroism of traditional Chinese literature that we are most familiar with. Even if they never wanted to be heroes.

Such a group is lovely and respected by us, who have withstood the test of disaster, whose eyes have broken away from their self-attention, who have surrendered to the suffering world around them, and who have chosen the path of peace of mind.

Knowing that you can't do it, even if you know that misfortune will eventually come, the choice is to continue to resist, rather than lie flat, this is heroism.

Among these people is the soul of the book, Dr. Rieux, who is full of charisma and dedication to his vocation. There was the self-exiled social activist Tarou, the Parisian journalist Lambernin, who wanted to get out of the city, the unscrupulous government clerk Gran, the judge Odon, who had been robbed of his beloved son by the plague, and Father Panalu, a faithful disciple of God.

Under the influence of doctors, after experiencing their own struggles, they successively participated in the epidemic prevention work of the whole city in different ways, and finally some of them died of plague, some of them were separated from their lovers forever, they survived alone, and some of them were reunited with their relatives.

The plague is over, people will soon forget everything they have experienced, naturally no one remembers this group of people, and disasters will always change different identities in our lives, it may be earthquakes, it may be floods, it may be SARS, it may be new crown pneumonia.

Every time you face a desperate situation, it is a cruel harvest of human beings by the god of death, and everyone is either active or forced to make their own choices in the face of disaster.

But that's not the point I'm sharing today.

What I have been thinking about is what is the spiritual core that the author Camus gave to these characters in his work? At the fork in the road of life, for ordinary people, what are the factors that affect every choice?

When it comes to choice, we have to mention camus, the author of this book, as an existentialist philosopher, that life is nothing, absurd, and meaningless.

How to choose after realizing the truth of this world? Is it to treat the world with indifference and isolation, as in The Outsider, or to fight this absurd world like Dr. Rieux in The Plague?

Is this the author injecting his own philosophical thinking into his own works in different periods, and at the same time, it is also the thinking that each of us often faces in our secular life? The meaning of life, the value of existence, such a problem will always emerge in our hearts at a certain moment and become our troubles.

Through the very different character settings of the two novels, Camus finally unified his own contradictions and entanglements. He believes that being born as a human being wants to have a clear understanding of the world in which he lives, to be aware of the absurdity of the world, and to have the ability to think independently.

This ability is available in Meursault in The Outsider, as well as in Tarou in Plague. But why are the characters of the two novels so different? This has to do with the author's second thought.

Camus believed that man should also have the power of free will and free choice, which is even more important.

I have the right to choose not to cry at my mother's funeral, I have the right to watch humorous movies after the funeral, and have sex with my girlfriend, but this cannot be a reason to be sentenced and beheaded by a judge with just words.

Even in death, the author Camus is reaffirming the right to happiness with the hands and mouth of Meursault by rejecting God and abandoning the appeal, and such a description proves the value of the right to free choice.

In the face of this absurd world, in the face of the starlight before the execution, Meursault said: "For the first time, I opened my heart to the moving indifference of this world, and I felt that I was happy in the past, and I am still happy." In order to make me feel less lonely, I also hope that on the day of my execution many people will come to watch, hoping that they will cry out in hatred for me."

This is not Camus's cry for the right to freedom and the consciousness of freedom.

In the later Plague, Camus's ideas matured, and he began to shape another group of people in his ideal, another choice, with the blessing of independent thinking and free will, the group of strivers led by Dr. Rieux chose a different path from Meursault.

If placed in our current society, such a character image is more positive, more sought after, and more likely to be officially stamped and sealed. But if you only read this level, then Camus's Nobel Prize in Literature in this world is too watery.

As I read these two novels, I often deliberately and unconsciously cross-scene, especially in the 260-odd pages, when Tarou tells Dr. Rieux about his father's past, mentioning that his father, as a judge, told a prisoner in court to remove his head and announce his death sentence.

The prisoner who came to my mind turned out to be the meurso among outsiders! Maybe it's not my brain circuit string.

Throughout, Camus was simply constantly reaffirming the core of his existentialist ideas. That is, in the face of a meaningless and absurd world, people must have the ability to think independently, and more importantly, they must have free will and the right to choose freely.

Whether it is Meursault to the east, but sin does not lead to death. Rieux was to the west and was not a saint either.

The world should not have only one standard answer, do not create gods, and do not arbitrarily curse. Treat people as human beings, have compassion, and do peace of mind.

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