“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.”
Several collections of quotations on the web attribute the words cited above to the French writer and existentialist, Albert Camus. It’s a powerful quote that arrests the imagination of the perceptive reader; a reader who has followed with shock and revulsion the chronicles of mindless assassins who have roamed the earth these past forty years to harvest the fruit of massacre. Though the quote is striking, Camus did not write it. It comes from A People’s History of the United States, written by the historian and playwright, Howard Zinn.
Doubtless, this was Zinn’s summary of Camus’ concluding words from an article entitled, “Toward Dialogue: Neither Victims nor Executioners.” It appeared as the last of eight chapters in a collection of his essays, published as Camus at Combat: Articles and Editorials (1944-1947). These essays conveyed his experiences and reflections as a partisan in the French Underground resisting Nazi occupation.
Though Zinn’s summary is eloquently concise, the words Camus actually wrote also make the point powerfully, but they are far more uncomfortable, as we will see a little later. Camus had seen the carnage of combat, political betrayal, the murder of innocents, and the near triumph of a brutal and irrational ideology. He had seen France trampled by German jackboots, the French army nearly destroyed, and the nation’s legitimate government replaced by the Nazi Vichy regime. With tears, he had witnessed the resultant brutality and injustice inflicted upon the people of France by collaborating countrymen, who offered themselves as tightly fitting gloves to embrace Hitler’s iron fist. Before Camus’ eyes, centuries of civilization had easily crumbled before an irrational barbarism, giving the young writer a brutal intellectual shock—one that forged his notion of existential absurdity.
I do not hold to Camus’ existentialist philosophy, though I respect the man and appreciate the experiences that forged his thinking. Some of his moral views, I believe, made even Camus uncomfortable. In 1942, he wrote The Stranger, a story of death, revenge, and murder, told blandly by one who awaited a prison execution. Critics note the moral and emotional indifference in that story, a coldness that seems to conflict with Camus’ 1947 novel, The Plague. That tale depicts how different inhabitants of a city manage the realities of a deadly pestilence, as each personally experiences the very real threat of death. Are the two stories in conflict? Camus would reject the claim, saying that both novels are simply case studies in the absurd. Moreover, if the critic found this answer unacceptable, he might then add that the absurdity of life makes even that OK.
Of the two, The Plague is a much more satisfying story to me, because it is more human, more real, and more poignant. The account of a city’s battle with plague captures that sense of helplessness to which catastrophic events often reduce our minds and emotions. Camus brutally describes how such events force us to choose and to act even when we are powerless. The possibility of such overpowering events ever lurks just below our consciousness, but society and technology successfully conspire to conceal the possibility from our awareness, and so it is repressed. But such events do occur, and the survivor of a crushing, overpowering catastrophe will remain forever changed, never again feeling perfectly secure or in control.
Therefore, though pushed socially from our awareness, we still know how weakly we grasp onto what is dearest to us and how easily some force might forever rip from our presence the ones we love, valued possessions, and even our dreams. We don’t like to think about this, but we still know it. Consequently, a reader will quickly identify with the vulnerabilities of Camus’ characters, as well as their losses as the The Plague’s story unfolds. The very act of living–no matter the station in life, abilities, or weaknesses–necessarily implies both loss and its threat. We mourn when the former occurs, but some may live in constant fear of the latter. So what we love is always at risk, and there is no escape.
With a remorseless hand, Camus shows us in The Plague the human condition that we each share. With a gentler stroke, however, he delivers this human message for those who will understand. Let me do my best to summarize it. Life is uncertain and overwhelming, and there are no “happy endings.” But the choices we make, even when we feel helpless, are the very things that make us what we are, that define us as human beings. So events are not so important; neither are outcomes of ultimate consequence. Our power to choose makes us intrinsically valuable, not the events or outcomes of our lives. Of such intrinsic value, the things we measure by the ticks of a clock can know nothing. Our choices, consequently, are far too valuable to sacrifice upon the altar of what happens to us. That would be like sacrificing ourselves to rough-hewn idols of stone. For our choices transform us in the face of life’s events and outcomes. That transformation makes us human, and that is our ultimate value.
I do not share Camus’ philosophy. I am a Christian, and Camus considered religious faith intellectual suicide. Nonetheless, I feel a sense of kinship with the author of The Plague, and I resonate to its message. But unlike Camus, I believe that God has made each of us the bearer of his image and invites us by his grace to touch the lives of others with justice, love, and truth. That we do in this world through our choices, following Christ’s example. That is what gives meaning and purpose to our lives. It is our ultimate source of value, not the events and outcomes of life itself.
As Christians, however, we often focus on what happens to us, rather than on the choices we make in response to life’s challenges and uncertainties. These choices, however, either give our faith its substance or betray it. Nonetheless, we find our focus attracted to events and outcomes, not the authentic choices that build our faith. We want charitable programs to work as planned, church attendance to grow, faith events to run smoothly, illness to end in health, and life crises to resolve in satisfactory ways. We also count ourselves successful when we achieve our educational, career, and personal goals. We measure our lives by the tick-tock of events and outcomes and judge our personal value by how impressively we adorn the face of the clock.
God does not measure in this way; consequently, Camus’ message from The Plague speaks to us with the authority of an apostle’s letter. He admonishes us to examine how our choices define us in the midst of life’s pressures. He also cautions that life’s challenges often defy our ability to overcome them. Even the most fortunate and sheltered among us will face that unpleasant truth at least one time in life. Consequently, when we face the loss of all that seems valuable to us, the choices we then make will disclose who we truly are. Camus ends his sermon with a question, “Will we face that storm as human beings, or will we sacrifice ourselves to pointless idols?”
Though Camus rejected religious faith, this sermon message surpasses most homilies that I have heard from pulpits. The Plague offers Christians of all stripes serious food for moral reflection. Moreover, I would venture that Camus, himself, found the human face he portrays in that novel more encouraging and more consistent with his own character. The Stranger, on the other hand, was more like his nightmare, a fear of what humankind might become should the race sacrifice itself to idols.
How can I be sure? Camus’ last paragraph in “Toward Dialogue: Neither Victims nor Executioners” provides the proof—the words that Howard Zinn summarized. (Remember? I told you we would get to Camus actual quote.) In many ways, Camus’ words are more powerful than Zinn’s clever summary. For he speaks as a prophet who warns of a judgment to come that will require each of us to choose a side.
Camus challenges us in an uncomfortable way to elect a future—a future that will divide the world into two warring groups, each with a different method of warfare. One might be termed a “culture of death,” which revels in the humiliation and blood of the vulnerable and celebrates their death. The other is a “culture of life,” which refuses to stand on the necks of the weak and preaches a message of peace throughout the earth. The former culture arms itself with formidable weapons; the latter, with words. Who will win the struggle? Again, it’s not the outcome that is important. It is the choice. There is only one honorable one, Camus says, and he has no question which one it is.
“Now I can end. What I think needs to be done at the present time is simply this: in the midst of a murderous world, we must decide to reflect on murder and choose. If we can do this, then we will divide ourselves into two groups: those who, if need be, would be willing to commit murder or become accomplices to murder, and those who would refuse to do so with every fiber of their being. Since this awful division exists, we would be making some progress, at least, if we were clear about it. Across five continents, an endless struggle between violence and preaching will rage in the years to come. And it is true that the former is a thousand times more likely to succeed than the latter. But I have always believed that if people who placed their hope in the human condition were mad, those who despaired of events were cowards. Henceforth there will be only one honorable choice: to wager everything on the belief that in the end words will prove stronger than bullets.”
–Albert Camus, “Toward Dialogue: Neither Victims Nor Executioners” (Arthur Goldhammer’s Translation)
That quote, I think, identifies where Camus personally stands between The Stranger and The Plague. He is by no means cold and morally indifferent. He is passionate about redeeming the future. He would fight plagues.
Moreover, the prophecy he fervently offers in these words has proved remarkably accurate. The violence he predicted then today defiles the world, its marching jackboots spilling blood across five continents. Soldiers of clashing armies kill one another with ever more powerful weapons and make victims of mothers and children, of the old and the sick. They poison new generations with a legacy of hatred and hold the future hostage.
As Christians, we can join with Camus to preach a message of peace against the violence, against the guns and bullets. But in Christ, we have a promise, an unfailing hope. Thus we enjoy a confidence that Camus did not possess. For our Lord teaches us that his Word created the heavens and the earth. It is that very Word that he has instructed us to take to the nations, the Gospel of peace. He also has promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against his Church, the bearers of his Word. The violent, therefore, may fill their armories to the brim with bullets. No matter. Even should they take our lives, their weaponry doesn’t stand a chance. Christ’s Word will prevail, and earth will one day be at peace. That is the promise, and all of Christ’s people will share in that victory.
In Christ, therefore, we confidently choose to side with the victims, encouraging them with our faith. Their cause will be heard, and God’s justice will be done. We may then freely turn with hope to face the executioner’s bullets, a hymn of praise and a prayer of forgiveness on our lips. Though the events and outcomes of life may come to an end, we will yet see victory. For our choices have kept the faith. We know who we are and in whom we have believed. We have nothing to fear.
INDY RE-ENTRY FOCUS 