I revisited 'The Outsider' by Camus a couple of weeks ago. One should do that every once in a while. Strange thoughts have sprung up in my mind since—they are different from the last time I read it.
For instance: Let’s consider the morality/immorality of taking one's life or altering the existing order. Is there a difference between taking someone else’s life and taking one’s own? Growing up in a Hindu family, for me, it comes down to the Hindu scriptures—you aren’t allowed to take something which you can’t create. It is like stealing—stealing from people. One should not. And if you kill yourself, it is like stealing from your family or the people who love you.
Also let’s consider the below - we will come back to this:
Why is bringing someone in the world(progeny) is not broken down in a decision matrix? Or why is every living being - bestowed the ability to bring beings like themselves to life?
A pair of humans didn’t take permission of the ‘child’ being born. Can this be looked via the lenses of right or wrong? Progeny is a default condition endowed to all the living organisms by mother nature, and one can’t stop that from happening.
Yet the question remains, why?
Transgressing again, what is the most that can/could go wrong? You might be in debt, in angst, in a bad place, in utter rut - that doesn’t mean that you have the permission to end it all.
Okay, then there are people who say that it is all meaningless. Isn’t it? And well if it is so - what the purpose of writing books, creating things and making movies - holding lit festivals and film screenings. Are not all - a step towards a sedentary lifestyle/meaninglessness? You will ask me to define a sedentary lifestyle - well if I had to answer then I would say about a kind of life where you start adding ease and security to your life at the price of your privacy and freedom.
Isn’t that what Capitalism does? It makes things easy and gives an opportunity to defy odds and make it big. Weren’t Monarchic systems Capitalistic - I think it was, what was the point of Jagat Seth to fund the East India Company (EIC)against the ruling Bengal Royalty - was it not simply money? Did the biggest bankers in the whole world in the time(bigger than Rothschilds and the royals who funded the voyages of Columbus/Vasco/Magellan) - not have the might or wherewithal to put food on the plates of the citizens of Bengal during the Great Famine of Bengal(1770-1780) - and not to forget that GDP/Capita of the Province of Bengal was the highest in the whole world at that point in time.
Capital always wants more capital - to the point where it all needs to make no sense, and the thin line between wants and needs get blurred - emotions/sentiments aren’t talked about in sush voices. Capital makes some people rich and very many people poor. That is the biggest formulae. You lose your say in everything for the cost of ease which comes unannounced at your doorstep.
China has a Communist System so to say - does it? It applies the communism of the book in the civil society but when it has to deal with other economies of the world or compete with them - it employs a form of communism which is so capital hungry that Aliababa is not much different from Facebook Inc.
When I wonder as to what is happening in the world - it is the fight between the left and the right - and the East and the West. It is a big big fight for hegemony and we are simply small cogs in the holes which don’t count - a big fat middle class consumers - who pay taxes and consume stuff.
Humans at a very deep level are energetic beings who are competitive from the time the spermatozoa reaches the vaginal canal. And they simply don’t like the concept of equality or equity of all. We are by design jealous.
Take for example: In a love triangle there is the most possibility that the guy/girl who loses ends up a fucked up person/bitter person in life. Why is that so? We have been bestowed the notion to forget and that is one the noblest gift given by the creation to us - but at the same time we have been taught to learn from our running experiences.
Back in the Roman times - we came across the stories of Gladiators - men against men, men against fierce animals - and people cheered every time someone fell. Even today - in some Muslim/Shariat civil societies when an adulterer is stoned to death - people cheer. As mentioned in the French Account of the last public Guillotine - people still came in big numbers to see the spectacle. In the recent public hangings in Iran - people came in large numbers to see what had happened as if it was a fete - a merry go round - explaining to us that life has always been like that. What do we say about the popular videos of the American GIs killing people/(so called bad people) in Afg or Iraq? It gives humans a pleasure to watch all of that stuff. Humans by design are not very kind people. What we see of humanity today is not the doing of a noble peaceful king - it is because of that asshole leader(Timur, Genghis, Hitler, Stalin) who wanted blood and wanted to plunder cities.
If we tread to the Medieval Times and think about the lives of Humans in general, we come to realise that for most of humanity - humans simply wanted to survive to see the next day. What about the Crusaders who took arduous journeys from the villages of France to the promised Holy Land. What Holy land? A place fabled for ten centuries - as to where Christ was born and crucified. What the Templars must have felt when they had to steal herds for lunch from similar Christian populations(Anatolian) or to pillage the dwellers of the small cities and towns to satiate their carnal desires. The rusty knives and swords, and the horse saddles they had to tend to every day or the Turks would kill them in the middle of the night in the Mediterranean Hills. I wonder if they were right in their decision to undertake this journey and put on line their lives for a faith which came to them not by the virtue of their blood but by the virtue of the principality they lived in.
Isn’t it very very tough to figure that out for a simple human being or to think of that? It seems they were looking for glory which was promised to them by the local Bishops and the Pope. It seems they were trying to get close to God. It seems they wanted to be forgiven for all the little kids they murdered, the thievery they committed in the neighbours’ farms etc.
Why is it always that a Mirage always works out for Humans? An optimism of kind, like saying that the creator is in the sky, he resides above the clouds. It simply works, doesn’t it?
I wonder if Issac Newton can see what is happening to the Humanity from up above! The architect of modern science - who was also a devout believer and believed in a lot of things which are so not-scientific today.
When Galileo was charged for hearsay by the Catholic Church for propounding the Heliocentric model of the Solar System - he pleaded sorry - and walked away from the noose. Is it always right to die for right? Is it right to stay by the ideals? Is it moral to do things which are immoral? Aren’t they all a function of time or the principality we are living in? During the same time - a couple of states away in Constantinople - a 21 years old toppled the remnants of the Roman Empire(1453) and pillaged the so called seat of Eastern Orthodoxy - converted all the Churches into Mosques - removed everything Byzantine about the city and added a new flavor to it as we know Turkey today. What was going through his head when he did what he did? Did he not want to write his name in the annals of history - after all Ottomans had failed to take the Roman city in the last 20 attempts - it is very odd as to why humans want to do things? Or make incremental progress in life or personal endeavour in general.
In modern times when it is not very difficult to live on the bare minimum for someone who is a tad bit above the threshold - people still pine for better things. A better mobile phone, a better product feature, a better payroll, a better SaaS product, a better resolution of the screen, a better LLM, a better internet connection, a better army, a better son, a better fighter jet, a better Aircraft carrier - the whole idea that we need or want things which are better is because of the fact that even if you choose to sit quietly and go around your life sitting in a jungle in the bookish sedentary lifestyle - the world will go forth.
So coming back to Camus, what is morality?
Is it some definition in a book? Is it something learnt? Do you need to get a certificate from the society/societal values on morality - or is some human/social construct?
I don’t know. How would I know - I am just rambling!
Read Camus. He won’t give you the answers - but fuck you up pretty good.