My struggle with Qs 15-38 (pp. 297-306)

How does Camus feel about history? He says it can then "no longer be presented as an object of worship"(302). Instead, history is an opportunity to be rendered fruitful by vigilant rebellion. Thus, we cannot simply sit back and conclude from history that the struggle is over. Tension continues. History is to be struggled against. "It is those who know how to rebel... against history who really advance its interests"(302).

Camus says that Christianity has replied by the annunciation of the kingom and of eternal life, which demands faith. Camus explains that this waiting has worn us down, postponing for too long. Materialism tries to answer the problem (the injustice and the suffering of the world)by saying that all things are determined by physical laws and that there is no sense in complaining. We should all just wait until (as Marx and Hegel argued) it sorts itself out. Once again, this requires faith in the future. This is why Camus sees Marxism and Christianity as being so similar.

So to whom shall we turn? Sisyphyus was Camus' hero in the 1930s, but now it is Prometheus. Camus says that "an injustice remains inextricably bound to all suffering" and that Prometheus' silence cries out in protest. His power is the power to rebel. This idea of Prometheus bound is probably asking us to look at Aeschylus' play... see Wikapedia- "Prometheus Bound". He is punished for thwarting Zeus' plan to obliterate the human race. Thus Prometheus is the rebel against god, but he does so for the sake of mankind. After irritating Zeus even more (he refuses to tell him that one of his own descendents (Hercules) will try to overthrow him), Zeus casts our hero into the Abyss with a thunderbolt. And what has man done with this gift? He "has seen men rail and turn agianst him... until all that remains ... is his power to rebel in order to save from murder him who can still be saved (you and me?) without surrendering tot he arrogance of blasphemy"(304).

This story might seem similar to another one you've heard before. The heroism of Prometheus is that he has a "strange form of love" (304) which rebellion cannot exist without. Abandoning God, these types are condemned to live for those who, like themselves, cannot live... for the humiliated. Those who like Karamazov cry, "If all are not saved, what good is the salvation of one only"? Another example of this kind of strange love is that of the Catholic prisoners who refuse communion because the Church made communion obligatory. Thus, they risk their own damnation to allow man the free will to be damned. "This insange generosity is the generosity of rebellion"(304). Thus, rebellion (in its purest outburst) gives birth to existence. It is love and fecundity or it is nothing at all. This rebellion, Camus recounts, is contaminated, forgets its origins, and becomes a murderous machine (see Hitler?). But at the end of this tunnel, there is a light. One we already can sense or feel, but for which we must fight (struggle). Beyond the limits of nihilism, we are preparing a renaissance (new birth).. but few of us know it, says Camus. Now go read "The Second Coming" by Yeats and read about Kalyayev.