And since this is a contrarian site, what's wrong with him? This is the only philosopher I've been able to discuss with even the most dull YA shlock fans in my life. The only counter-arguments I've seen were reductive nonsense
>so le absurd xDDD
Why is this guy and absurdism so popular with normies and women?
When i was reading heat 2, de niros character quotes camus to his girlfriend while their walking along sand dunes, it was genuinely very funny
>heat 2
wait? is that a thing?
>de niro's character
didn't he got arrested at the end of the movie? what?
Yeah it's a thing and it's actually pretty good and no, de niros character gets killed at the end of the film, the book is a prequel
I guess it's easy for beginners to get into the existentialism theme by reading his works. does the trick too, when asking the right questions. His works are pretty smooth too. I guess hard to dislike, but also flat at times.
The cycle I went through is
>dismissal of these works as stupid and pointless
>many years pass
>finnaly reading some of them and realizing there is something here
>dismissing it as atheists cope
>maybe years pass
Rereading some, reading others for the first time and thinking holy shit truly everything is a cope.
>I am an absurdist
>everything is a cope
>life is preferable even on adversary circumstances
>create my own system of value based on life maximization
You don't have prescience. So life maximization isn't a proper system. You'll know what improved your life after, sometimes years after you've done it. Spending your time here isn't life maximization. So you also lack discipline. Your heuristic for what is life maximizing will therefore be corrupt from the start.
I think absurdism is the most unlike religion from most leftist copes though. I don't think it works out in practice except for special individuals with strong instincts, but it's not like Western interpretation of exotic religions. Those tend to cherry pick exoteric traditions like walking barefoot, meditation, certain rites as aesthetics and stick to that. Absurdism is clear that there's no meaning or order to life, but that the mere absurdity of the contradictions should be enough to keep you going. This doesn't stem from some universalist hippy bullshit longing for no rules and an identity.
It has no illusion of meaning. Absurdism is about accepting this coldness, a supposed lack of meaning and tackle it head on instead of wearing the veil. The guy was a Dostoevsky reader, and disagreed with the fact that philosophically atheism reads to a sort of passive, self-destructive atheism.
My gripe with him was his conclusion that this somehow leads to happiness. It's like that meme response
>and that's a good thing!
You do things despite them being meaningless, but you rely on meaning in your life to give you some sort of long-form guiding principle. Otherwise you just flounder about. A hecking meaningless speck in space!
Because his philosophy appeals to the vanity of the self.
What said. I don't hate the guy and he writes decently well but his ideas are like scotch for the self-important average joe.
/thread
i read the stranger the other morning and it was truly painfully cringe at points. something an obnoxious high school age depressed nihilist would think themselves aloof and super cool and smart for saying. i will say the prose (although ig translation would matter a lot for this) was really fantastic for a couple descriptions of moods and environments, and the convo with the priest at the end was good. enjoyable but not enough to read something with such a gay, boring, and wrong message.
*not enough to make me want to read anymore of his work that is
refute it then
The Stranger is not nihilist and if you can't distinguish the sensibility from the common edgelord then I feel like you maybe haven't give it totally a fair shake.
i was actually surprised by how shallow it felt (in terms of absurdism ig), i tried to not go into it expecting to dislike it and to have an open mind, but i really can't see a difference. truly, some passages where meursault goes "but can't he see that nothing matters?" absolutely killed any notion of meaning to these ideas for me.
The Plague does a better job in my opinion. I think it was supposed to be something like Mersault is a man just coming to grips with the absurdity of the universe, while the Dr. and his friend in the Plague are actually absurdist heroes.
I was planning on reading the plague bc one of my friends really loves it, i'll be interested to see how it compares now
because it's a cope, intellectuality for people that resent Christianity
it was then Buddhism and all the other new age eastern bullshit
nowadays it's stoicism or whatever-else
leftists can never get over Religion, the more they run from it, the more showing how perverted they are
>the more showing how perverted they are
t. child touching old man in gay robe
>unfalsifiable "life is absurd therefore i'm happy" schlock to avoid religion (and almost all times while trying to run from Christianity)
it's empty. a facade of meaning to avoid the meaninglessness of the atheistic worldview.
others go to paths like marxism and trying to build a "paradise on earth" kind of society (which is likewise impossible).
Why do Anglos think this irrelevant dude is cool among all the Frogs I don't get
We don’t. You can keep Sartre sauce too
>because it's a cope, intellectuality for people that resent Christianity
"life is absurd therefore i'm happy" schlock to avoid religion (and almost all times while trying to run from Christianity)
because its easy to understand and its another way to avoid taking responsibility for anything ever
How can you use absurdism to avoid taking responsibility? The stereotype of a fatalistic religious type would be to blame the gods for his bad fortune. An absurdist wouldn't really have a deity, or a rule-system to blame. Just material things.
Bruh absurdism puts all responsibility on yourself
It is inherently valueless. It promotes "agency" and "responsibility" in the barest and most empty form only. Essentially: "you make up and decide what you are responsible and construct your own values/code, tee hee" to an obvious and predictable end of coping, hedonism, egoism, and yes, a general shirking off all responsibility
You could, but Camus advocated for acting out of love for your fellow man and was deeply invested in brotherhood, because that’s what he chose to value.
>"you make up and decide what you are responsible and construct your own values/code, tee hee"
That’s how it is anyway.
There are 3 classes of people. The first two are concerned with and among the purely materialist, atheist, and scientism variety.
1: People who cannot come up with consistent order and values to live by AND who cannot therefore follow them (obviously)
Ex: Normies
2. People who can come with consistent order and values to live by AND who cannot follow them
Ex: 20-21st century academics
And finally, the third and most prudent class: the spiritual and the idealists. This happy breed recognizing a higher order and value system akin to a "rule of law" that is indiscriminate. While, they can and will fail to live up the standards of perfection, there is a universiality to it that allows for accountability and redemption.
>indiscriminate
>universiality
I speak only of a soft "universiality" in the sense of a shared code that grounds and founds society. And indiscriminate in the sense "you know the rules, and so do I".
All of these things is against the myopic and facile vision of absurdism. Also, have a nice day b***h
Is your vow unshakeable? You would be one of few. I shall elaborate on my position, as your illumination is paramount: Are you prepared to uphold a bond in perpetuity? The deflation of spirits remains a concern; my eye is ever watchful for a change of heart, betrayal and subsequent absence. An outpouring of negative emotion is not the outcome I seek from my actions; I hope a parting of ways is not in the cards. Alas, truth is a virtue and when it goes unspoken wounds appear in its place.
>Chat GPT
I accept your concession
I can still picture when you had a gap-toothed smile; you put up a convincing stoic facade, but I know your tells. A bond such as ours is telepathic in nature. Mutual understanding has been reached; it is time for action. An inquiry into my state of mind would be evidence of a sensory deficit.
>vague-posting cope
>Essentially: "you make up and decide what you are responsible and construct your own values/code, tee hee" to an obvious and predictable end of coping, hedonism, egoism, and yes, a general shirking off all responsibility
In that, it's quite possibly the most realistic and accurate description of the way the vast majority of people (in fact I would even say "all people") think and act. At the end of the day, everyone picks and chooses what matters to them, including philosophical systems, in order to cope with existence, if only for a little while longer.
It just so happens that hedonism, egoism and shirking of responsibility are all extremely effective copes and pretty much ensure you will enjoy existence.
cause he's hot
midwit filter
because its vague and impressionistic enough for people to read their own histrionic foibles and preconceptions into whatever they read about his ideas, which gives them to opportunity to cite themselves as an authority, just once removed.
its the same reason bad sloppy lazy philosophers/thinkers are in general popular, after all look who's memed on here. no careful systematic thinker of any penetrating depth is appreciated even on this board of contrarians, because people naturally tend to enjoy projecting their own sophmoric preconceptions onto some figure of authority who is himself too inarticulate or thoughtless to preclude such an interpretation.
on the flipside, analytic philosophers are ignored because their precision precludes that kind of self-gratifying reflexive reinterpretation.
>on the flipside, analytic philosophers are ignored because their precision precludes that kind of self-gratifying reflexive reinterpretation.
Wrong. They're ignored because they don't offer anyone anything to do; it's an entirely self-serving project on the part of the philosopher.
The reason cultures are founded on mystifying schizophrenic puzzles with gaps and empty spaces is because it allows others to fill in the gaps. Analytic autists who spend all their time plugging holes in their systems are like guys who gift you a book of sudoku that they've already filled in. What are you meant to do with it? Tell them good job mr. smarty pants? It's the height of arrogance.
Same reason subjectivism was tainted by morons: They think it gives them a license to be moronic.
A philosophy without rigidly defined borders is a necessity for the intelligent and creative mind; but in the hands of the unintelligent, it acts as a corrosive and degenerating force.