Albert Camus Raising the Name

Albert Camus

Raising the name of a man known for his work as a novelist and playwright within the confines of political philosophy frequently incurs charges of application and reasonable reliability. But in Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, the French Nobel Laureate Alburt Camus explores not only the rights of man, but also their application in the quotidian realities of the modern world. Coming of age in the World Wars-era Europe, Camus was a fierce independent and leading voice for social change. He considered the value of life worth defense, and sought to bring an ethical system to the philosophical realm of existentialism. Nevermore was this more relevant than his discussion of "The Unbeliever and the Christians" and the affect it had on his view of the death penalty.

Despite his proclivity for philosophy and science over organized religion, Camus was deeply fascinated by Christianity and the "Christian" approach to life. The Unbeliever and the Christians magnified Camus' seeming disappointment in Christianity, particularly as it appeared to have failed in its original, world-wide, action-based revolution. In his address to the monks of Latour-Maubourg, he stated his dynamic relation with the Christian religion and its relation to the actions of man most clearly.

"If Christianity is pessimistic as to man, it is optimistic as to human destiny. Well, I can say that, pessimistic as to human destiny, I am optimistic to man." (70)

This ultimate belief in the success of man coincides with his perceived failure of the Christian church.

Camus viewed Jesus with approval as an the archetypal social rebel, and himself fascinated by political rebels, found solidarity with crucial Christian leader. As Jesus led both silent and active revolts against the controlling powers of the ancient world, he spread his cause for change from the holy lands of Israel throughout the nearby seas. He stood up against the actions of his religious leaders he deemed amoral and demanded change; this action paralleled the personal approach to Europe ingrained in Camus' own political skin and important to that of his followers and peers, from Sartre to the other members of UNESCO, of which Camus was once a member before moral resignation. Yet, despite his affection and respect for Christ, Camus argued that his motivations were not carried throughout the greater Christian movement. He perceived this was particularly true with the Church since the era of Constantine, when the Church became embroiled in the secular pleasures of gilded wealth and the political powers that be. When the Church caved to political pressures, it began serving the political will of the secular will and ignoring the beloved community of Christians it was supposed to nourish. Camus clearly stated his belief that what Christianity simply demanded of Christians was that they actually be Christians; in their movement towards political activism, they ultimately sacrificed their Christianity.

"When a Spanish bishop blesses political executions," he writes, "he ceases to be a bishop or a Christian or even a man; he is a dog, just like the one who, backed by ideology, orders that execution without doing the dirty work himself." (71) In Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, Camus makes clear that man wants to live; in supporting death, not only do Christians run against their core Christianity, they also undermine the power of Christian life. Camus beleves that there will be no lasting piece in either the heart of man nor their greater society until death is formally outlawed; because the survival of life and the dearth of death are at the heart of Christianity, he finds that Christians are most demanded to support the life of those in the world. By supporting the death penalty at all, history provides ample evidence for Christian leaders who refused their Christianity by refusing life to other men. Nevertheless; he had one parallel in common with the Christian church: an understanding of temptation. During the Vichy Purge, Camus wondered for the first time if the death penalty were, perhaps, a viable punishment for particular atrocities. When he attended the trial of one most violent man, Camus reaffirmed his hatred for the death penalty, thinking it perhaps almost too good a punishment for someone so inherently evil. Within every guilty man, he posed, there is enough innocence to make his condemnation to death simply revolting. Living in the already fallen earth, he knew it was the responsibility of the individual man to not fall victim to the same sins that befall the world at large.

"But it is true that I, and a few others, know what must be done, if not to reduce evil, at least not to add to it. Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children." (73)