Even at their closest, they may have been on divergent political paths--Camus easing away from orthodox political radicalism and Sartre moving toward it. Camus preceded Sartre into active politics of the Communist Party and the Resistance. Only several years after they met, however, Camus was challenging conventional leftist assumptions about revolutionary violence--ideas that found expression in his 1951 The Rebel. At the same time, Sartre, moving in the opposite direction, was embracing the French Communist Party--ideas that found expression in his 1952 The Communists and Peace. Sartre's slashing putdown of Camus's angry response to the unflattering review of The Rebel sealed the break, but hardly initiated it. The elite graduate upbraided the scholarship boy: "I have at least this in common with Hegel: you have not read either of us."
-
Infantile Liberalism
Russell Jacoby: In a new book on consumer culture, Benjamin Barber argues that commercialism encourages adults to behave like children.
-
Letters
-
Brother From Another Planet
Russell Jacoby: Eric Lott blasts "boomer liberals" in The Disappearing Liberal Intellectual, a manifesto that purports to breathe new life into radical politics.
By comparison, Camus was a loner, and more consistent. If not as philosophically accomplished as Sartre, he developed a critique of violence and Marxism that has aged well. Today it is toasted everywhere. Camus represents an independent, sometimes quirky, leftism. It seems fitting that another maverick thinker, the American Dwight Macdonald, translated and published Camus's 1946 articles calling for a new peace movement, Neither Victims nor Executioners.
Yet attractiveness is not a political category. To seriously assess these figures we must resist Camus's considerable charms and look into Sartre's difficult face. On the issue of colonialism Camus's moral philosophy showed signs of fraying. For the French in the 1950s, Algeria was the problem of the day. Unlike Sartre, Camus, of course, knew Algeria well; he grew up there and set his stories there. But though Camus spoke out movingly in favor of reconciliation between French Algerians and Muslims, he proved incapable of grasping the national aspirations of Algeria's Arabs and Berbers. He wanted peace, agreements, freedom and nonviolence. But he refused to accept the end of French rule. As Camus dithered, Sartre denounced the French use of torture in Algeria and came out in favor of independence when the idea was unthinkable to most of his countrymen. Twice the OAS, a terrorist paramilitary group devoted to the cause of Algérie française, bombed Sartre's apartment.
Aronson comes down hard on Camus's ambivalent response to French colonialism. On this issue Sartre shows the greater realism--perhaps the greater toughness of the two. It may have been easier for Sartre, but that is not the question. Sartre understood that sometimes a third option--peaceful accommodation or new accords--does not exist; and that the hour for a French Algeria was past. "A fine sight they are too, the believers in nonviolence, saying that they are neither executioners nor victims," wrote Sartre in his preface to Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, alluding to Camus. "Very well then; if you're not victims when the government which you've voted for, when the army in which your younger brothers are serving without hesitation or remorse have undertaken race murder, you are, without a shadow of doubt, executioners." Touché.
- « Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- Next »
- Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
- If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
- Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.

Buzzflash
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Mixx it!
Reddit

RSS