Absurd • (əb-sərd) • adj.
Definition: finding meaning from a meaningless world
Origin: French
We all know the word absurd, but French philosopher Albert Camus has a philosophical interpretation of it that deserves a deeper look. In his published “Cycle of the Absurd” consisting of the play Caligula, the novel The Stranger, and the essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus articulates his concept of the Absurd. Of the three, The Myth of Sisyphus and the image of Sisyphus being condemned for eternity to roll a boulder up a hill only to watch it fall back down again may most succinctly articulate Camus’ philosophy.
Camus explores a handful of ways that one can confront a meaningless world in The Myth of Sisyphus. He examines if suicide is a proper response to confronting meaninglessness, and he concludes that it is not. Suicide would equate to succumbing to the meaningless of life and not defiantly rebelling against the meaningless and daring to find meaning. Life is about daring to live and suicide undermines this belief. He explores if distraction or denial are the proper ways to confront existence, but one cannot distract or deny oneself in perpetuity. After entertaining various approaches, he concludes that none of them are adequate and that the best thing we must do is confront the meaninglessness and rebel against it by daring to lead meaningful lives.
At the end of his essay, he writes "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." It is important to imagine Sisyphus happy because we need to believe that he derived some meaning from his meaningless pursuit. To Camus, we are all condemned to be Sisyphus, and the nobility of Sisyphus’ happiness derives from the fact that he already knows the end result of his actions. He knows that the boulder will fall back down, yet he still attempts to roll it back up the hill. He knows the meaninglessness of his actions, yet he still strives to find meaning through consciousness and seeing the truth behind his absurd condition. This quest for meaning is an act of rebellion against meaninglessness itself.
Sisyphus’ dilemma could be considered absurd (conventional definition), but according to Camus, we all are Sisyphus. We know that we will eventually face death no matter what we do and that there is no clear consensus as to why any of us are alive. Despite there being no obvious meaning for our existence, we still try to create meaning in this world whilst knowing that the end result will be succumbing to our mortality. We all share an Absurd Sisyphean struggle. (Note: Camus’ Absurd will be capitalized for clarity)
The Meaningless Absurdity of Trump
Recently, I have been thinking about the Absurd and the absurdity of American life as the Trump administration still refuses to admit that Donald Trump has lost the election. The accusations of voter fraud are completely absurd, and Biden’s margin of victory far exceeds the margin that Trump won by in 2016. Despite having no legs to stand on, Trump and his supporters are still preparing legal challenges and planning for his second term.
This week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “There will be a smooth transition to a Second Trump Administration.” White House advisor Peter Navarro said on Friday that the White House is working “under the assumption that there will be a second Trump term.” Also on Friday, when asked if Trump plans to attend the inauguration, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that Trump will “attend his own inauguration.”
Their language is absurd and it also undermines our institutions. Hypothetically, if Trump succeeded in remaining president, he would have reduced our democracy to being meaningless. One could lose the popular vote and Electoral College and remain president merely by ignoring the results and daring people to make you leave. America’s democracy has been horribly flawed since the beginning, but a second Trump term would remove any vestige of democracy.
As Trump and the Republican Party perpetuate this dangerous charade, I wondered if they believed that their actions were meaningful. As I thought about this sousreal reality, I concluded that there may be a dystopian rebellion against a meaningless world that Camus ignored. Do some people attempt to find meaning within a meaningless world by turning the meaningful into the meaningless? Does Trump derive meaning from turning our meaningful institutions into a meaningless farce?
The millions of votes that Americans cast all have meaning, but Trump exists to make those votes meaningless because they did not result in his desired outcome. This destructive norm has been the status quo of his entire administration, and there are people still willing to support him in his destructive endeavors.
Ethnocide vs. Meaning
America’s ethnocidal culture encourages people to turn the meaningful into the meaningless because it is easier to commodify and have power over the meaningless. For example, it is impossible to assign a monetary value to our life or the life of another, but it is much easier to commodify an action we may do and assign it a monetary value. The transatlantic slave trade commodified Black existence, aspired to prevent Black people from having meaningful lives, and ethnocidal people could now put a price on Black existence. It is easier to have power over someone or something when freedom and meaning have been destroyed. The destruction of meaning is the foundational core of ethnocide.
Under ethnocide, the meaningless has value and society encourages us to traffic in and consume a meaninglessness that is presented as desirable. The desire to make something into nothing so that you can own and profit off of the nothingness has been at the bedrock of American ethnocidal culture. Our society has grown accustomed to the façade of meaning for the sake of capitalism, and you can not find a greater bad faith façade than Donald Trump.
As we confront ethnocide and the normalized destruction of meaning, we must first gain awareness of our condition and then decide to create meaning by living an Absurd existence. We can rebel against a meaningless world and those who impair our ability to create a meaningful existence by advocating for meaning, cultivating meaning, and utilizing our suffering as a channel for change.