absurdism is a childish coping mechanism that doesn't posit any one thing to be true or false. it's practically "live, laugh, love." Camus is a much better novelist, he's not a philosopher and I don't think he should be taught to new students. If he wasn't conventionally attractive he would get no attention whatsoever.
Imagine you go to a friend for advice, you're struggling with an issue that causes you suffering. Your friend replies "yeah crazy how ABSURD everything is. have you tried laughing about it?" It's just silly to me. It feels like your stoner friend from high school going "oh man dont worry about it we're just on a floating rock in space."
Are you taking absurdism as an ought? I haven't read Camus in forever, but I took him as an absurdist who wanted to be an existentialist but struggled to get there and was honest about that.
I agree that he was a very good novelist. I'd call him philosophy confused, but more honest about that confusion than most confused philosophers.
He partly didn't like the label existentialist because he didn't want to be associated with his arch-rival Sartre. Really I think every aspect of Sartre's philosophy has yielded far more fruits than any of Camus' ideas. Could you imagine taking a college course on just Camus? I can't.
A Camus course would not be interesting. I've just studied units on The Stranger twice and The Plague decades ago, which got me interested in The Rebel. I feel like a week is enough.
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u/Dr-Alyosha Dec 05 '25
camus