Camusian rebellion and political engagement

In Chapter 1 I discussed the absurd as manifest in The Outsider, The Myth of Sisyphus and Caligula, and sought to show that, at least theoretically, the absurd was not in conflict with a certain form of rebellion or revolt. Indeed, it was argued that a certain form of revolt, a revolt premised on “the human condition” (if not, as Camus appears to suggest in The Rebel, a “human nature”) and solidarity, is seen to be at least a plausible consequence of the absurd. In this chapter I examine Camus's political writing from the period between the publication of The Myth of Sisyphus and the publication of The Rebel, and detail the degree to which these works are consistent with the dictates of the absurd as defined in Chapter 1.

Tony Judt has claimed that Camus was “an unpolitical man”, and to a certain extent, and from a certain perspective, this was probably the case. After all, aside from two years in the Communist Party in the mid-1930s, he remained assiduously independent of party affiliation throughout his life.