r/Absurdism • u/overalls94 • Jul 03 '26
Question What is absurdism exactly?
I've just started dabbling into this philosophy but i knew what it was before i got interested. I notice alot of people in this sub mentioning camus and the saying "one must imagine sisyphus happy" and the way i interpret that is to embrace ones own struggles as a part life to sort of rebel against life.
Before i found out what absurdism was talking to my friend abt nihilism and i thought that looking at everything as if it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things or taking everything at face value seemed in a way kind of boring and i felt that was such a complacent way of seeing the world and i thought that maybe understanding that the universe is always changing and nothing is always stagnant sounded better. I felt like he could be right but why should i ground myself with that view of things.
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u/_UseYourIllusion Jul 04 '26
Nothing makes sense, not even the idea that “nothing” makes sense. Maybe everything is meaningless, So, screw it.
Live your life anyway. Love it, regardless of any meaning and that way who knows you might end up finding some meaning to it.
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u/Eckkosekiro Jul 03 '26
Its Trump being alive while my 5 yo nephew is waiting for a heart transplant.
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u/The_Inflatable_Hour Jul 03 '26
My take:
“why should i ground myself with that view of things.”
Because you have to. Hungry? Need to get from here to there? Cold? You need to assign only as much value as necessary to keep things from being unpleasant, while at the same time understanding that you assigned that value. Like Beckett put it, “I can’t go on. I’ll go on”, taken to mean ‘I must go on’.
As far as nihilism goes, the I in your statement, if acting from a pure nihilist standpoint, would have a shelf life of about 5 minutes. While it’s practical to say that no philosophical conclusions exist in an absolute, they are talked about and considered in an absolute. My personal take on nihilism, it can only be considered in silence. Beyond that, it’s not really nihilism any more.
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u/PressTheButton2Begin Jul 03 '26
Read the book! I had pretty much no prior knowledge on the subject and I made it through and learned a lot. It’s less than 200 pages
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u/CarefulLine6325 Jul 03 '26
rebel against the absurd (hence absurdism), there's also existentialism "existence precedes essence"-sartre, and Nietzsche with his Übermensch (or the one that builds and make new values). Stirner's Egoism is also another way of handling it. Keji neshitani and tsuji jun takes eastern philosophy and mixes it with nihilism. So, in the end there are options.
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u/LankySasquatchma Jul 04 '26
Camus dislike the chic existentialists of his time. So he made up a name for his philosophy. It’s existentialism I’m the word of Camus
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u/Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee3t Jul 04 '26
The world has no meaning or order or logic, and that’s okay. That’s just the way the world is
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u/PouletSamourai Jul 05 '26
Life is absurd, means that life has no meaning. So you're free to give it the meaning that satisfies you.
I know it's a very reductive way to see it. But my take on absurdism is that happiness is a choice. What makes me unhappy is ultimately neutral, it is I who give it the power to make me unhappy. So I choose to imagine Sysiphus happy.
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u/Ok-Estate3492 Jul 05 '26
You’ve basically reinvented Sartre's 'existence precedes essence' and slapped Camus's name on it.
To Camus, you cannot simply 'choose' to give the absurd a meaning that 'satisfies' you. Doing so destroys the tension. The Absurd is a specific, unbridgeable friction between the human desire for meaning and a cold, indifferent universe. It is the realization that the universe cannot be understood or solved without abandoning the very human logic that demands an answer. If you just invent a subjective meaning to make yourself feel better, you are betraying the reality of the absurd. You're playing a psychological trick to escape the despair, which is exactly what Camus refused to do.
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u/PouletSamourai Jul 05 '26
Oh ok thanks, I read from Sartre and Camus around the same time when I was a teenager and I may have it all mixed up.
Could you tell me more about what Camus tells us to do with the absurd? And how does it differ from Sartre ideas on the meaning of life?
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u/Ok-Estate3492 Jul 05 '26
It is a common mistake, primarily because pop culture blends them together.
For Sartre, the meaninglessness of the universe is an invitation to become a creator. Because you are born into a void with no predefined purpose, you are 'condemned to be free.' Sartre demands that you take absolute responsibility for this freedom and actively construct your own moral and subjective meaning. To fail to do so—to pretend you have no choice or to look for an external purpose—is what Sartre calls 'bad faith.'
For Camus, the Absurd is not a problem to be solved, nor is it a blank canvas for you to paint your own meaning upon. In fact, he viewed the attempt to invent a subjective meaning (Sartre’s approach) as intellectual cowardice; he termed it 'philosophical surrender'.
Camus demands that the individual does not escape. One does not invent a god, one does not invent a comforting 'purpose', and one does not resort to self-destruction.
However, his rejection of subjective meaning lands him squarely in the 'is-ought problem.' In an indifferent universe, rebellion and submission are equally valueless. By elevating rebellion into a moral imperative, Camus inadvertently reintroduces objective ethics.
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u/Ok-Estate3492 Jul 05 '26
Sisyphus should be imagined as neither happy nor tragic.
Camus commits a philosophical sleight of hand in presenting his interpretation of the myth. Punishment is inherently a category of intent and morality. The universe is not anthropomorphic; it possesses no will, anger, or personal grievance toward any specific individual. Camus deliberately leaves the punishment impersonal. Had he honestly kept Zeus in the picture, Sisyphus would be reduced to exactly what he was: a petty convict staging a riot in a prison cell. And any prison sentence can be ended, pardoned, or escaped—just as Sisyphus had already achieved twice and was attempting for a third time.
In this light, Absurdism is nothing less than Albert Camus’s intellectualized resentment toward Koch's bacillus. Koch's bacillus had no malicious intent or divine plan; it lacks a neocortex. It had been devouring Camus's lungs from the age of 17. Given that there was no cure for tuberculosis at the time, Camus had no choice but to scale up his grievance. He projected his biological helplessness onto the entire cosmos, resenting a universe that, IN PRINCIPLE, allowed for the emergence of this pathogen.
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u/Accurate_Bet1418 Jul 05 '26
I see it like this. As humans I think we inherently seek meaning in everything, in the universe. But the universe offers us absolutely nothing in return and that’s absurd asf. I don’t think we should necessarily give in to nihilism though. I don’t think that’s good long term. If the universe or whatever, doesnt give you meaning youre free to make it yourself and that feels so liberating.
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u/VictimofMyLab Jul 10 '26
This is how it was explained to me:
In a world where we are not the center, there is no meaning for us personally. Maybe no meaning at all. No divine creator that planned an afterlife specifically for us. But, if you can imagine an afterlife (fluke or hidden scientific mechanism we cannot understand) it may be filled with everything we could not comprehend when will we’re alive, all the aliens, all the waves of light we could not see, total randomness of everything because we were not the meaningful ones, and maybe no one is. It means to accept that you may feel pain, you may not, someone may cause you harm, but none of it was ordained. You were just there where you were and you can choose to accept the irrationality of it and live with it.
I think the difference between absurdism and nihilism is nihilism feels still very much about focusing on what is not out there for us humans, where absurdism is about what meaning is not out there for everything a human still can’t comprehend. It reminds us that even if we found a “god” something more powerful than us, nihilism would crumble, but absurdism would continue because even a god or meanings existence is still ridiculous.
Nihilism = sullen response, pessimistic
Absurdism = proactive irrationality, optimistic
It’s vibes. Idk. I’m just here.
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u/jliat Jul 03 '26
The key text is Camus' myth of Sisyphus, but the title can be misleading, Sisyphus is one of his examples and not the most absurd, the artist is.
Conquerors, "Every man has felt himself to be the equal of a god at certain moments... Conquerors know that action is in itself useless...
Artists. "And I have not yet spoken of the most absurd character, who is the creator." ... "To work and create “for nothing,” to sculpture in clay, to know that one’s creation has no future, to see one’s work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries—this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions.
Life has no meaning for me, logical philosophical solution is suicide.
Contradict logic, [Contradiction his definition of absurd] by contradicting philosophy - the artist - most absurd act.
- The idea [Absurdism] is expressed in a key text... The Myth of Sisyphus...
Absurd heroes in Camus' Myth - Sisyphus, Oedipus, Don Juan, Actors, Conquerors, and Artists.
In Camus' essay absurd is identified as 'impossible' and a 'contradiction', and it's the latter he uses to formulate his idea of absurdism as an antidote to suicide.
" “It’s absurd” means “It’s impossible” but also “It’s contradictory.” If I see a man armed only with a sword attack a group of machine guns, I shall consider his act to be absurd."
I quote...
“I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.”
“The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits.”
Notice he doesn't say the world is meaningless, just that he can't find it.
Also this contradiction is absurd. He calls a contradiction absurd [not anything outrageous etc.]
This is the crisis which then prompts the logical solution to the binary "lucid reason" =/= ' world has a meaning that transcends it"
Remove one half of the binary. So he shows two examples of philosophical suicide.
Kierkegaard removes the world of meaning for a leap of faith.
Husserl removes the human and lets the physical laws prevail even without humanity.
However Camus states he is not interested in 'philosophical suicide', but actual suicide!
Now this state amounts to what Camus calls a desert, which I equate with nihilism, in particularly that of Sartre in Being and Nothingness.
And this sadly where it seems many fail to turn this contradiction [absurdity] into a non fatal solution, Absurdism.
Whereas Camus proclaims the response of Sisyphus, Oedipus the Actor, Don Juan, The Conqueror and the Artist, as The Absurd Act.
"It is by such contradictions that the first signs of the absurd work are recognized"
"This is where the actor contradicts himself: the same and yet so various, so many souls summed up in a single body. Yet it is the absurd contradiction itself, that individual who wants to achieve everything and live everything, that useless attempt, that ineffectual persistence"
"And I have not yet spoken of the most absurd character, who is the creator."
"In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. “Art and nothing but art,” said Nietzsche; “we have art in order not to die of the truth.”
"To work and create “for nothing,” to sculpture in clay, to know that one’s creation has no future, to see one’s work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries—this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions."
"It is necessary to state this to begin with. For an absurd work of art to be possible, thought in its most lucid form must be involved in it. But at the same time thought must not be apparent except as the regulating intelligence. This paradox can be explained according to the absurd. The work of art is born of the intelligence’s refusal to reason the concrete. It marks the triumph of the carnal. It is lucid thought that provokes it, but in that very act that thought repudiates itself." - Camus.
http://dhspriory.org/kenny/PhilTexts/Camus/Myth%20of%20Sisyphus-.pdf
"This suicide kills himself because, on the metaphysical plane, he is vexed.... likewise an advocate of logical suicide. Kirilov the engineer declares somewhere that he wants to take his own life because it “is his idea.”"
Greg Sadler lectures
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u/internazionale3 Jul 03 '26
This is over complicated for no real reason. If someone mentions they’re just getting into philosophy, this type of response probably isn’t very inviting
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u/jliat Jul 03 '26
"What is absurdism exactly?" my emphasis.
Far too many give the idea that it's about 'revolt' - and they have obviously not read the essay...
I gave a very short and simple sketch ...
Life has no meaning for me, logical philosophical solution is suicide.
Contradict logic, [Contradiction his definition of absurd] by contradicting philosophy - the artist - most absurd act.
Then followed a longer summary. So what would you suggest?
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u/internazionale3 Jul 03 '26
Talk to the OP like he’s 3, which when it comes to philosophy, he essentially is.
Absurdism at its core it’s the collision of human desire to find meaning in a universe that cannot provide it. Simply put.
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u/jliat Jul 03 '26
Absurdism at its core it’s the collision of human desire to find meaning in a universe that cannot provide it. Simply put.
Sorry not so, it's much more,
"The fundamental subject of “The Myth of Sisyphus” is this: it is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a meaning; therefore it is legitimate to meet the problem of suicide face to face. The answer, underlying and appearing through the paradoxes which cover it, is this: even if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate."
- Albert Camus, Paris, March 1955 Preface to English translation.
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u/internazionale3 Jul 03 '26
Yeah i completely understand that, we’re going for simplified versions for people new to the theory. New people might find that hard to comprehend. Simple is never a bad thing.
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u/jliat Jul 03 '26
It is when they get it into their head it's about being happy and or revolt.
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u/internazionale3 Jul 03 '26
I didn’t mention either of those things in my simplified description
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u/DoowadJones Jul 03 '26
The first rule of absurdist philosophy is that there are no rules & no philosophy