The Plague, Swine Flu and the destruction of nihilism
'All this fuss about Swine Flu - it's absurd!'
For some there can be no argument with this view. In the last few months Swine Flu has taken over the news broadcasts, NHS phone lines and virtually the entire Daily Mail output, and all for what? A relatively low risk condition, that can be cured with one simple dose of medication, and that most of us have a minimal chance of contracting in the first place.
Now in this blog I am not going to consider whether this reaction is merited or not, but why it has come about in the first place. Why is there this sensationalism? Why do so may panic at the onsite of every new virus, as if it might one step from Armageddon. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? How would we cope with a plague today?
The first point I would like to make, is that the above statement is absolutely right. The reaction to Swine Flu is absurd, but purely in a philosophical way. The absurd I refer to is that of Kierkegaard and Camus, of our search for self importance in a world where we all end up dead anyway, forgotten in an eroded grave.
'We value our lives and existence so greatly, but at the same time we know we will eventually die, and ultimately our endeavors are meaningless.'
'Our life must have meaning for us to value it. If we accept that life has no meaning and therefore no value, should we kill ourselves?'
The sense of the absurd arrives here and this is what Swine Flu represents for us. We react as we do, in this sensational manner because of the disease's absurd nature. It is not selective, it doesn't pick by rich or poor, ugly or beautiful, good or bad - it just does. And in this world, that is not something we can we accept - it does not compute with how we live our lives. As an evolutionary species, we exist for goals, for success, for achievement, and we are rewarded as such. The successful flourish, the weak suffer. Those are the rules. That is what Darwin said and Darwin is right. The market is right. It has to be right. That is who we are. That is who I am.
In his novel The Plague, Camus describes the reactions of a community when a plague spreads throughout the town. It is a town with an obsession for commercial pursuits where they have no time for anything else, not even love. Initially there are news stories, and salacious interest, but this then quickly dissipates into feelings of isolation, fear and hopelessness. The town is put into quarantine, and while no-one can leave, there is a general sense of just waiting to die. The only consumption is basic food, and alcohol, but nothing else. Luxuries, riches have no meaning in a world where hope is absent.
However, it does not start this way. The reaction is initially one of denial, where doctors - the harbingers of doom - are driven from houses by blockades and rifles. And this is the reaction of our world, the Daily Mail et al, to the 'pandemic' of Swine Flu. We live with an incredible defensiveness - we have to define ourselves somehow, and thus define also what is not of ourselves, what does not affect us. This how we are who we want to be and do what we want to do - as adults we have made choices to live in certain ways, and not be affected by other things that we have not decided to do. This is how we get up in the morning, by living how we want to live - because it is who we want to be. In this respect we can look down on others who have not made the choices we have and cast them over the side of our world. But occasionally there is something we cannot control, something immune from these great powers of choice that we possess in the free world. A plague. Flu. Something that does not bend to our rules, something which doesn't play the evolutionary game - where the fittest do not necessarily survive. That is when our world can open up in front of us and an awful sense of dread comes in. And this is why react in the sensational way we do.
The commercial world requires a very narrow definition of self. We are the conversation we have at parties - who are you - what do you do? We are defined by what we do, what we achieve, in a commercial sense, whether we like or not. Even an artist or a poet, will be asked what he has displayed, which publications he is in. After all otherwise what is the point?
But what if there is no point? What if everything you have strived through in your whole life came to nothing? What if someone at the dinner party replied to your description of your fantastic career with the question: "what is the point of that?" What if they could take it all away from you with one exhale of their breath?
You'd fight.
You'd defend.
You'd lock the doors.
You cast them aside.
How dare they? How dare they question who you are?
And yet this is what The Plague does, what Swine Flu represents - a reminder of our own mortality, of the incredible futility of our actions. It breeds the fear in us, that nothing is permanent, that nothing is absolute, that in one moment there is a strong risk that it all could be taken away, that there's no point. That's why we defend. That's why we laugh, we mock, we sensationalize. We are now so wrapped in ourselves, in our ego-Gods, that our reactions to our own fallibility must be all the greater. We must be this, not that - to the extent that the 'that' which we are 'not' become something unacceptable to ourselves. Yet we can never be certain. Life is always subject to change. No matter what we do, we are not the Gods we think we are and the greater the heights we aspire to, the more fragile our egos become. This why we react as we do, like defensive teenagers.
'No.'
'No it isn't.'
'What a load of rubbish.'
'Pandemic?'
And then.
'Pandemic!'
'Close the borders!'
'Don't leave the house.'
'Keep it away.'
The price has become so great. We cannot accept the absurdity of it, that our oh-so-important lives could be rendered completely meaningless by something that can be transferred by sneezing in a lift. That is why 'it will never happen to me.'
So this is this bad? Is this an indictment of our selfish, egotistical society that we react in such a way? Are we all deluded? Can't we just accept life as it is, an arbitrary sequence of events ending in our entirely arbitrary death, none of which we can really do anything about?
Camus would suggest the complete opposite. Swine Flu should be sowing the seeds of doubt in us, as to whether there is any point in anything - in trying to be good, in trying to live a decent life. However, it doesn't. We react. We believe. We will survive. We will not be defeated. Nihilism will not win.
Life may not be definite but we will always try, even if it is against all rational evidence. In The Plague any effort to alleviate and prevent human suffering makes little or no difference, but yet this does not stop the doctor and his helpers. We are stubborn, we are selfish and an even an epidemic will not change this. But it makes us collective in our nature; it joins us together as one great, giant selfish entity. We are humans. We will continue. And in this sense our reaction is good, and absurd. A pandemic should remind us to how pointless life is, but that has not been the reaction at all. We have rebelled against the absurd, in denial, and have proceeded in a belief that we will continue, that our decent lives will not be corrupted by such an outbreak. It is incredibly arrogant of course, but fundamentally it is an ethic to be good (relatively) and remain good and that should not be frowned upon.
Of course this is not a real plague, and it is difficult to compare it to the nobility of Camus's characters, whose situation was far more grave and hopeless, but the same seeds are still there. Humans create meaning out of nothing, and that is what makes us noble beings, the ability to abstract suffering, to never admit to the trap of nihilism. Even if we are doomed to die we will react against it, try and find something else. Hope only disappears completely when our eyes rise up into their sockets and we can no longer perceive the world - when we are no longer human beings. Thankfully Camus can remind us of this, and another plague never will. I hope.
For some there can be no argument with this view. In the last few months Swine Flu has taken over the news broadcasts, NHS phone lines and virtually the entire Daily Mail output, and all for what? A relatively low risk condition, that can be cured with one simple dose of medication, and that most of us have a minimal chance of contracting in the first place.
Now in this blog I am not going to consider whether this reaction is merited or not, but why it has come about in the first place. Why is there this sensationalism? Why do so may panic at the onsite of every new virus, as if it might one step from Armageddon. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? How would we cope with a plague today?
The first point I would like to make, is that the above statement is absolutely right. The reaction to Swine Flu is absurd, but purely in a philosophical way. The absurd I refer to is that of Kierkegaard and Camus, of our search for self importance in a world where we all end up dead anyway, forgotten in an eroded grave.
'We value our lives and existence so greatly, but at the same time we know we will eventually die, and ultimately our endeavors are meaningless.'
'Our life must have meaning for us to value it. If we accept that life has no meaning and therefore no value, should we kill ourselves?'
The sense of the absurd arrives here and this is what Swine Flu represents for us. We react as we do, in this sensational manner because of the disease's absurd nature. It is not selective, it doesn't pick by rich or poor, ugly or beautiful, good or bad - it just does. And in this world, that is not something we can we accept - it does not compute with how we live our lives. As an evolutionary species, we exist for goals, for success, for achievement, and we are rewarded as such. The successful flourish, the weak suffer. Those are the rules. That is what Darwin said and Darwin is right. The market is right. It has to be right. That is who we are. That is who I am.
In his novel The Plague, Camus describes the reactions of a community when a plague spreads throughout the town. It is a town with an obsession for commercial pursuits where they have no time for anything else, not even love. Initially there are news stories, and salacious interest, but this then quickly dissipates into feelings of isolation, fear and hopelessness. The town is put into quarantine, and while no-one can leave, there is a general sense of just waiting to die. The only consumption is basic food, and alcohol, but nothing else. Luxuries, riches have no meaning in a world where hope is absent.
However, it does not start this way. The reaction is initially one of denial, where doctors - the harbingers of doom - are driven from houses by blockades and rifles. And this is the reaction of our world, the Daily Mail et al, to the 'pandemic' of Swine Flu. We live with an incredible defensiveness - we have to define ourselves somehow, and thus define also what is not of ourselves, what does not affect us. This how we are who we want to be and do what we want to do - as adults we have made choices to live in certain ways, and not be affected by other things that we have not decided to do. This is how we get up in the morning, by living how we want to live - because it is who we want to be. In this respect we can look down on others who have not made the choices we have and cast them over the side of our world. But occasionally there is something we cannot control, something immune from these great powers of choice that we possess in the free world. A plague. Flu. Something that does not bend to our rules, something which doesn't play the evolutionary game - where the fittest do not necessarily survive. That is when our world can open up in front of us and an awful sense of dread comes in. And this is why react in the sensational way we do.
The commercial world requires a very narrow definition of self. We are the conversation we have at parties - who are you - what do you do? We are defined by what we do, what we achieve, in a commercial sense, whether we like or not. Even an artist or a poet, will be asked what he has displayed, which publications he is in. After all otherwise what is the point?
But what if there is no point? What if everything you have strived through in your whole life came to nothing? What if someone at the dinner party replied to your description of your fantastic career with the question: "what is the point of that?" What if they could take it all away from you with one exhale of their breath?
You'd fight.
You'd defend.
You'd lock the doors.
You cast them aside.
How dare they? How dare they question who you are?
And yet this is what The Plague does, what Swine Flu represents - a reminder of our own mortality, of the incredible futility of our actions. It breeds the fear in us, that nothing is permanent, that nothing is absolute, that in one moment there is a strong risk that it all could be taken away, that there's no point. That's why we defend. That's why we laugh, we mock, we sensationalize. We are now so wrapped in ourselves, in our ego-Gods, that our reactions to our own fallibility must be all the greater. We must be this, not that - to the extent that the 'that' which we are 'not' become something unacceptable to ourselves. Yet we can never be certain. Life is always subject to change. No matter what we do, we are not the Gods we think we are and the greater the heights we aspire to, the more fragile our egos become. This why we react as we do, like defensive teenagers.
'No.'
'No it isn't.'
'What a load of rubbish.'
'Pandemic?'
And then.
'Pandemic!'
'Close the borders!'
'Don't leave the house.'
'Keep it away.'
The price has become so great. We cannot accept the absurdity of it, that our oh-so-important lives could be rendered completely meaningless by something that can be transferred by sneezing in a lift. That is why 'it will never happen to me.'
So this is this bad? Is this an indictment of our selfish, egotistical society that we react in such a way? Are we all deluded? Can't we just accept life as it is, an arbitrary sequence of events ending in our entirely arbitrary death, none of which we can really do anything about?
Camus would suggest the complete opposite. Swine Flu should be sowing the seeds of doubt in us, as to whether there is any point in anything - in trying to be good, in trying to live a decent life. However, it doesn't. We react. We believe. We will survive. We will not be defeated. Nihilism will not win.
Life may not be definite but we will always try, even if it is against all rational evidence. In The Plague any effort to alleviate and prevent human suffering makes little or no difference, but yet this does not stop the doctor and his helpers. We are stubborn, we are selfish and an even an epidemic will not change this. But it makes us collective in our nature; it joins us together as one great, giant selfish entity. We are humans. We will continue. And in this sense our reaction is good, and absurd. A pandemic should remind us to how pointless life is, but that has not been the reaction at all. We have rebelled against the absurd, in denial, and have proceeded in a belief that we will continue, that our decent lives will not be corrupted by such an outbreak. It is incredibly arrogant of course, but fundamentally it is an ethic to be good (relatively) and remain good and that should not be frowned upon.
Of course this is not a real plague, and it is difficult to compare it to the nobility of Camus's characters, whose situation was far more grave and hopeless, but the same seeds are still there. Humans create meaning out of nothing, and that is what makes us noble beings, the ability to abstract suffering, to never admit to the trap of nihilism. Even if we are doomed to die we will react against it, try and find something else. Hope only disappears completely when our eyes rise up into their sockets and we can no longer perceive the world - when we are no longer human beings. Thankfully Camus can remind us of this, and another plague never will. I hope.
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