The Human Crisis, Albert Camus
The Crisis of Man, was a lecture delivered by Nobel Prize–winning author Albert Camus at Columbia University on March 28, 1946.
Introduction:
Ladies and Gentlemen: when I was invited to give a series of lectures in the United States of America, I felt some doubt and hesitation. I am really not old enough to give lectures, and I am more at ease with the process of thinking than I am making categorical statements… since I don’t feel I have any claim on what is generally called the truth.
I shared this reservation and was very politely told that my personal opinion didn’t matter. What mattered was that I’d be able to offer some facts about France so that my listeners could form their own opinions. It was then suggested that I might inform my audience as to the current state of the French theater, French literature, and even French philosophy. I replied that it might be more interesting to talk about the extraordinary efforts of French railway workers, or about the kind of work the coal miners in the North are doing.
But then I was told, quite rightly, that once should never force one’s talents, and that these different subjects ought to be discussed by the experts. Since I clearly know nothing about railroad switches, and I had been interested in literary questions for a long time, it was only natural to speak about literature rather than train.
At last, I understood.
What mattered finally was that I talk about what I know and give some sense of what is happening in France. For precisely that reason I have chosen to speak neither about literature nor about theater. Literature, theater, philosophy, research and the efforts of an entire nation are merely reflections of a fundamental question: of a struggle for life and for humanity that preoccupies us in this moment.
The French people sense that mankind is still under threat. And they also sense that to continue living they must rescue a certain idea of mankind from the crisis that grips the whole world. Out of loyalty to my country, I have chosen to speak about this human crisis.
Since I am here to talk about what I know, the best I can do is sketch, as clearly as I can, the moral experience of my generation. Because we have seen the world crisis unfold, and our experience might shed a glimmer of light, both on the fate of mankind and, on some aspects, of the sensibilities of the French people today. First I would like to define this generation for you.
People of my age in France and in Europe were born either before or during the first great war, reached adolescence during the worldwide economic depression, and turned 20 the year of Hitler’s rise to power. To complete their education next came the civil war in Spain, the Munich Agreements, the start of another world war in 1939, the fall of France in 1940, and 4 years of enemy occupation and underground struggle.
I suppose this is what is known as an interesting generation, and that it would be more useful to speak to you not in my own name, but in the name of a certain number of French people who are 30 years old today and whose intelligence and hearts were formed during the terrible years when, like their country, they were nourished on shame and lived by rebellion. Yes this is an interesting generation.
Faced with the absurd world its elders had concocted, it believed in nothing and yearned to rebel. The literature of its time was in revolt against lucidity, against narrative, and against the very idea of a sentence. Painting was abstract, that is to say, it was rebelling against figurativism, realism, and simple harmony. Music was rejecting melody. And as for philosophy, it taught us that there was no truth, only phenomena. That Mr. Smith, Monsieur Duran Herr Vogel, might all exist as phenomena but without these 3 particular phenomena having anything in common.
The moral attitude of our generation was even more categorical. Nationalism seemed an outmoded truth, and religion an escape. 25 years of international politics had taught us to question any notion of purity and to conclude that no one was ever wrong because everyone might be right.
As for our society’s traditional morality, it seemed to us that it hadn’t stopped being what it had always been: a monstrous hypocrisy. Thus we lived in negation. Of course, that was nothing new. Other generations and other countries had experienced this in other periods of history. But what is new here is that these same men, strangers to any traditional values, had been forced to adapt their personal positions to a context of murder and terror. The situation led them to believe there might be a human crisis, as they had to live the most wrenching of contradiction. This was because they entered the war as one enters hell; if it is true that hell is denial.
They loved neither war nor violence, yet they had to accept war and practice violence. They hated nothing except hatred, yet they were forced to learn that difficult science. They had to deal with terror, or rather terror dealt with them. They found themselves confronted with a situation that, rather than try to describe it in general terms, I would like to illustrate through 4 short stories about a time the world is beginning to forget, but which still burns in our hearts.
- In an apartment building occupied by the Gestapo in a European capital, 2 accused men, still bleeding, find themselves tied up after a night of investigation. The concierge of the building begins her careful household chores in good spirit since she probably just finished breakfast. Reproached by one of the tortured men, she replies indignantly, “I never interfere with my tenants business.”
- In Leon, one of my comrades is dragged from his cell for a 3rd round of questioning. Since his ears have been badly torn during a previous session, he is wearing a bandage around his head. The German officer who interrogates him is the same man who conducted the previous sessions. And yet he asks him, with an air of affectionate concern, “How are your ears doing?”
- In Greece, after an underground resistance operation, a German officer prepares the executions of 3 brothers he has taken as hostages. Their old mother throws herself at his feet and he agrees to save one of them. But only at the condition that she designate which one. She chooses the oldest because he has a family, but her choice condemns the 2 others. Just as the German officer intended.
- A group of deported women, including one of our comrades, is repatriated to France by way of Switzerland. As soon as they enter Swiss territory, they notice a funeral taking place. And the mere sight of this spectacle sets of their hysterical laughter. “That’s how the dead are treated here!” they say.
I’ve chosen these stories because they allow me to respond with something other than a conventional yes, to the question is there a human crisis?. They allow me to reply just as the men I was speaking about replied, “Yes. there is a human crisis because in today’s world we can contemplate the death or the torture of a human being with a feeling of indifference, friendly concern, scientific interest, or simple passivity.”
Yes. There is a human crisis. Since putting a person to death can be regarded with something other than the horror and scandal it ought to provoke. Since human suffering is accepted as a somewhat boring obligation, on a par with getting supply or having to stand in line for an ounce of butter.
It is too easy in this matter to simply accuse Hilter and to say, “Since the beast is dead, it’s venom is gone.” We know perfectly well that the venom is not gone, that each of us carries it in our own hearts. And we can sense this by the way that nations, political parties, and individuals continue to regard one another with the vestiges of anger.
I have always believed that a nation is accountable for its traitors as well as for its heroes. But likewise, civilization, the white man civilization, in particular, are as responsible for their perversions as for their successes. In this light, we are all answerable for the legacy of Hitler and must attempt to discover the most general causes of the terrible evil that has eaten away the face of Europe. Let us try them with the help of the 4 stories I have told to innumerate the most obvious symptoms of the crisis.
The first symptom is the rise of terror. A consequence of the perversion of values that human beings and historical forces are judged not in terms of their dignities, but in terms of their success. The modern crisis is inevitable because no one in the West can be sure of their immediate future, and all live with the more-or-less defined fear that they will be crushed to bits, one way or another, by history.
To save this miserable man, this modern day Job, from perishing of his wound and his own dunghill, we must first lift the burden of fear and anxiety so he can rediscover the freedom of thought he will need to resolve any of the problems facing the modern conscience.
This crisis is also based on the impossibility of persuasion. People can only really live if they believe they have something in common, something that brings them together. If they address someone humanely they expect a human response. However,
