Hope & Love

Thought for the day. 

Love and Hope

I saw someone I admire, musing on social media a little while ago. He was reflecting on the beautiful flowers in bloom, part of the current northern hemisphere spring. The idea which captured my attention was from the poets he quoted. In the comments he remarked that he had been struck by the changing of his perspective this particular spring, seeing the transient beauty of the flowers. The existential wait of death seemed to press the moment's intensity on his mind. So death and love, as a theme filled my mind again as I flipped through the pages of Love: Toward a New Understanding by Simon May,

“...the eventuality of our own death is that horizon of certain finality that turns us back decisively toward life; because to look unflinchingly at death’s certainty is to open up paths to our own most grounded and genuine relation to life... the degree to which we achieve such anticipation we are strengthened in our capacity to love; and, to the degree to which love, in turn, compels such anticipation, love will enable us to live authentically.”

This connection between love and death rattled around in my head and landed on the work of Albert Camus somewhat surprisingly. His questions are something akin to questioning existence itself. Why not just kill ourselves, asked Camus? Why not kill others? This in the face of what he called the absurdity of existence. Empty religious orthodoxy, it seemed to Camus, gave false hope. Indeed, utopian hope of any sort was to Camus a mistaken project. Aronson, Ronald, in his "Albert Camus", entry on The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/camus/>. Points out,

“Camus relies for this line of thought on Nietzsche’s discussion of Pandora’s Box in Human, All Too Human: all the evils of humankind, including plagues and disease, have been let loose on the world by Zeus, but the remaining evil, hope, is kept hidden away in the box and treasured. 

Zeus, knowing better, has meant it as the greatest source of trouble. It is, after all, the reason why humans let themselves be tormented—because they anticipate an ultimate reward (Nietzsche 1878/1996, 58). For Camus, following this reading of Nietzsche closely, the conventional solution is in fact the problem: hope is disastrous for humans inasmuch as it leads them to minimize the value of this life except as preparation for a life beyond.”

I believe, Albert Camus, saw in the here and now, warrant to dismiss the complicated sophistry of the existential philosophers (and Pharisees) of his day. Camus insisted that ‘we can fully experience and appreciate life only on the condition that we no longer try to avoid our ultimate and absolute death.’— Aronson

Camus then in prose takes on the pretentiousness of the academic elite, who move away from technical competence in pride only then to appeal to popularity (peer-review, on matters of metaphysics). 

‘Here Camus pits himself against science and philosophy, dismissing the claims of all forms of rational analysis: “That universal reason, practical or ethical, that determinism, those categories that explain everything are enough to make a decent man laugh” (MS, 21).’ — Aronson

I’m painfully aware, of late, that the hallways of clear thought to even the everyday person are being undermined by the drift toward methodical doubt in the public domain. It could be this doubt, that is sailing us into the wind and waves of hedonism and despair. Yet, I’m interested in this observation by Camus,

“We are unable to free ourselves from “this desire for unity, this longing to solve, this need for clarity and cohesion” (MS, 51). But it is urgent to not succumb to these impulses and to instead accept absurdity. In contrast with existentialism, “The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits” (MS, 49).” — Aronson

Indeed, humility is needed in this context, that is if we are ever to balance obtaining true or justified beliefs and avoiding unjustified beliefs.

“the absurd is an experience that must be lived through, a point of departure, the equivalent, in existence, of Descartes’s methodical doubt” (R, 4). The Myth of Sisyphus seeks to describe “the elusive feeling of absurdity” in our lives, rapidly pointing out themes that “run through all literatures and all philosophies” (MS, 12).’ — Aronson

To my mind this brings together our embodied desires and beliefs. The feeling of absurdity or insignificance is something most everyone can relate to. The daily grind of work and the seemingly endless suffering in the world. The complicated explanations about evil bring little if any comfort in moments of doubt. At this point you may ask, so what has this to do with flowers… and love? Simon May rejects the Godless departure point of Camus and Nietzsche, yet keeps the insight on the embodied life. Indeed, it is Descart and methodical doubt which disconnects our convictions. I see in many conversations of late a rejection of knowledge claims in things as simple as the color of a dress.

‘Of the two main tasks of epistemology (obtaining true or justified beliefs and avoiding false or unjustified beliefs), the skeptic elevates the latter and requires that his position be refuted before knowledge can be justified.’ From Philosophical foundations for a Christian worldview / J.P. Moreland and William Lane Craig.

This as I have written about elsewhere, gives rise, I believe, to merely privileging doubt. Why, as Camus suggests, should we doubt or desire for unity, longing to solve, the need for clarity and cohesion? From the abuse of reason and religion we need not abandon hope.