Sir, – Joe Humphreys’ excellent piece “Four stories that Albert Camus might choose to tell if he were alive today” (Opinion, March 30th) reminds us of the power of philosophy, but also the limits of empathy.
Eighty years after Camus delivered his remarkable lecture, and after many more thousands of similar stories being told in every language about the most abominable atrocities being committed in every corner of the world, we find ourselves yet again on the edge of another global abyss, gazing down at a Hobbesian state of nature.
In another novel, The Fall (1956), Camus explores the inescapable hypocrisy of being: “After prolonged research on myself, I brought out the basic duplicity of the human being ... Then I realised that modesty helped me to shine, humility to conquer and virtue to oppress.”
The anti-hero of the story is the epitome of virtue and insincerity, and Camus reminds us that we, the readers of his novel, are not better than the morally defective central character of his narrative. The same goes for the readers of this letter.
RM Block
Camus goes on to make another devastating claim: “Too many people now climb on to the cross merely to be seen from a greater distance.” How true. It is unmitigated self-centredness, self-pride and self-absorption that seems to be the motivating force behind current war criminals, but also small-time gangsters with political ambitions.
And lest we forget, some of the worst culprits of crimes against humanity were elected by us, “we, the people”. – Yours, etc,
PROF VITTORIO BUFACCHI,
Department of Philosophy,
University College Cork.
