The Myth of Sisyphus

Stu’s comment on one of my earlier entries posed a question "what is comfort?" which in the context of the blog I chose to reinterpreted into What is happiness? My quick answer was “you get to choose” eg whatever you want it to be, which on the face of it looks either flippant or designed to be clever (in the negative use of the word) It was neither and so I thought I would expand on that thought.


Albert Camus (pronounced Kamay) 1913-1960 was a French Philosopher who among his credits was a Noble Laureate in Literature. So he is contemporary (as these things go most famous philosophers are long since dead) and clearly no dummy. He is mostly associated with a theory in Philosophy known as Absurd. As I understand it (I have no formal philosophical training) in a search for the meaning of life there are various ways you can go, one is to look for an external meaning most commonly god. Alternatively you can look for an internal meaning a Platonic view of living a good life as dictated by universal laws (not from god but more from nature) Or you could decide that life has no meaning and is an “Absurd” enterprise.

Faced with the dilemma of a meaningless life most philosophers end up abandoning the idea and arrive back at God or Reason. Camus did not but embraced the idea of a meaningless life and focused on what the logical conclusion would be. Is it suicide for example in the face of futility? Camus uses The Myth of Sisyphus to explore this idea.

Sisyphus was a Greek King who managed to capture and imprison death so that humans would no longer die. The gods freed death and to punish Sisyphus they granted him immortality but he was condemned to roll a rock to the top of a hill only to see it roll down to the bottom again over and over again. Among other ideas explored by Camus he posed the question “what does Sisyphus think on his walk down the hill?” You see in his “free” time of walking down to resume his labours he has two (significant) possible thoughts. The negative option of reflecting on the futility of the task and the doomed existence that is now his lot. Or he can choose to think about a job well done on reaching the top and look forward to the challenge of achieving the outcome again.

The fact that the task is immediately undone as soon as it is completed does not make the task any less worthy. As soon as we are born our life starts to run out with each passing day getting shorter and shorter but this does not negate the value of life.

A lot of life can seem like rock rolling and our attitude to that will be an important part of our happiness with our lot. Even if you do not subscribe to an “absurd” view of life the active choosing to see your rock rolling as a job well done and not a hopeless exercise in never ending futility can’t really hurt now can it. So you choose, choose happiness.

Murder is Wrong?

It is unlikely that many people would disagree with the title phrased as a statement but the idea of it as a question will vex some.

Most of us (including me) would hardly stop to consider the question "is murder wrong" as it seems such an obvious statement. But why?

Why is it obvious is the question.

Clearly society doesn’t have a problem with killing per se as we routinely involve ourselves in wars with NZ troops currently involved in at least a couple of armed conflicts at this time. We sometimes make heroes out of those who involve themselves in active service such as Willie Apiata (who has succeeded Sir Edmund Hillary as “most trusted New Zealander” according to his Wiki entry and he certainly looks like a great successor) however we need to recognise the Willie was not “playing tiddlywinks” and received his VC because people were shooting at him and more than likely he shot back.

Some societies also sanction the death penalty for certain crimes (including NZ who still retains the death penalty for treason for some odd reason) most notably of course for murder which seems a touch ironic.

So in the right circumstances killing people is ok but not murdering them. So is the difference knowing the possible outcome, i.e. you go to war you know you might get killed, you do the crime you know the potential punishment so therefore these things are ok.

What about civilians that get killed in wars, presumably then that is not ok. Clearly the world was very concerned with Hitler’s attempts to wipe out Jews, presumably because they were innocent civilians who did not volunteer to be part of his war. On the other hand many innocent lives were presumably lost by the bombing of Hamburg and Dresden during WWII. This campaign was carried out with the explicit objective or weakening the populations resolve to keep fighting. i.e. civilians were the targets. Of course we all know about the atomic bombing of Japan. These examples seem to be covered by the greater good theory, i.e. some civilians killed today will save the lives of many others tomorrow. So killings ok as long as you have a good reason.

Which extends to self defence, it’s ok to kill people if they intend to kill you a variation on the “good reason” school of killing. Or assassinations where you are a political power and your world view clashes with another political power.

So to sum up killing is ok, if you are politically powerful or if you participate in an activity where you know you can get killed and or the person killing you has a good reason. (glad we cleared that up)

But what about gangs? We are against them killing each other even though they presumably know the rules, after all dealing in drugs and other illegal activities has always carried a high risk factor.

Yet even the murder of a gang member by another gang member strikes us as wrong (and to be fair war etc strike a lot of people as wrong too) but there doesn’t seem to be any reason for this other than perhaps vested self interest. We don’t want to get murdered so we see it as wrong as we might be next if it was tolerated. That seems a little simplistic but I can’t identify a reason other than that.

Lucky for me many other wise minds over the centuries have pondered the same or similar questions when trying to establish the basis for our ethics or distinguishing right from wrong so not having an answer puts me in good company at least.