When I was about 20, I fell in love with the writings of Albert Camus. He’s still my hands-down favorite of any author who ever pecked at a typewriter. I think the guy is brilliant and universal in what he discusses and how he looks at the world and its issues.
When I started to blaze through his history of work, there was a huge chunk I purposefully dodged: His political writing. At the time, I was young. I wanted insight. I wanted philosophy. I wanted to feel like I could relate to someone who spoke to me. Camus was that person.
But for a portion of his career, he worked for a newspaper. A resistance newspaper, to be exact. He embraced politics and rants about government and their role in existence. I couldn’t stomach the stuff to be honest. I tried reading his essays about freedom, resistance and rebellion. About the Germany occupancy of France he was living through. And as I would read this stuff, I would be thinking, ‘Fuck, man. Why waste time on this stuff? Why veer off into this boring direction of political diatribes and shit like that?’

Wow. I was an idiot. And I’m not afraid to admit it looking back.

In the past 5 years, I’ve gone back and read every word that he wrote during that time…the essays, the journal entries, the editorials, the rants and everything in between. And it’s some of the most impressive, honest and powerful pieces ever penned in my opinion. And I’ve grown up a lot since the early years where I thought ‘The Fall’ was the best book ever written.

What’s the change, you ask? It’s maturity. It’s an awakening of sorts. The idea that man has a responsibility to himself and those around him. And that responsibility is part of the human existence…an all important one.

It’s not enough to be an artist. Or a thinker. Or a writer or philosopher. One has a responsibility to be universal in his actions, his thoughts and what he produces.

And I don’t expect everyone to agree. It’s taken me a long time to sit up and take notice of what’s going on around me, outside of my immediate life and things that don’t directly involve me.
But it eats at me these days. It has for a while. This idea that I’m not responsible for things that have no effect on my life. Or things I feel like I’m powerless to change. Things that are wrong on all levels yet still exist for some reason or other. And I’m not talking about being an activist, necessarily. I’m talking about acknowledgement and addressing things that take place in this world that conflict with my ideas of right vs. wrong.

And there are endless arguments as to what might be more powerful or provocative: visual art or the written word. Both have potential…both have a particular audience.

I suppose I just think it’s nice to be reminded of the power that both mediums have when used within the context of the world and life and outside of the microcosm of art for art’s sake.

Personally, I’ve never been moved by art the way that I’ve been moved by proper words. Undoubtedly, it’s a very personal reaction people have to both and the difference is probably what makes writing and visual art so important.

But back to Albert Camus. He was a natural writer, some might argue. He wrote stories about man’s struggle with existence (existentialism, some classify it). And maybe that could have been enough to get him published and establish a stable career.

But on a personal level, it wasn’t enough for him. He was acutely aware of what was happening around him, to the people he knew, the country he loved. And invariably that became his art: a mixture of imagery, stories, scenarios and messages. With the messages likely being what set him apart. It could be argued that he was a philosopher more than a writer. I think the two are invariably linked. ‘The Plague’ was nothing more than an allegory for the German occupancy of France, where he was living at the time. He likened it to a sickness that was spreading, killing and changing the landscape of the whole country. I didn’t realize that until a few years after I’d read it and went back to read it again to put it into perspective. Brilliant.

Here’s a quick crash course in some of his ideas and thoughts about government and war:

“By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.”

“The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.”

“It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”

“The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.”

“We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives…inside ourselves.”

“The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.”

“When a war breaks out, people say: “It’s too stupid, it can’t last long.” But though a war may be “too stupid,” that doesn’t prevent its lasting.”

And finally,

“The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily. No great work has ever been based on hatred and contempt. On the contrary, there is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it.”

So in a very round about way, this is my way of addressing the weekly question, “What job would you really like to do, irrespective of any financial concerns?”

Without doubt, I’d be a writer. Not for any other reason than to try to shed light on certain subjects try to interest people in matters that affect them whether they know it or not and to give even just a small sliver of a different point of view. I’ve no aspirations of writing a novel or any such thing like that…just the chance to address current ideas and try to put them into some kind of perspective for myself. Because I think the ultimate idea as a writer is that if you can see things from a different angle and wake up a certain part of your mind, chances are you might be able to get others to see that same perspective. They may not agree with it, but if you can put it out there, it might eventually spark some change and some improvement.

Of course, I’d never give up art. I don’t see that as a job, money be damned. It’s a part of me the same way that my arm or my leg is a part of me. I’m stuck with it whether I want it or not. As it happens, I still have a passion for it and it still means the world to me. So art aside, I think writing would be the best way to make money and make some kind of change at the same time.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 23:32 and is filed under HISTORY 101, philosophy, weekly question, politics, Books, art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.