Lexington Books Albert Camus and the Political Philosophy of the Absurd: Ambivalence, Resistance, and Creativity

This book demonstrates that Albert Camus' concept of absurdity is best understood when decoupled from what might be called its ontological aspirations. Rather than pretend that absurdity usefully describes 'the human condition,' 'the silence of god,' 'the deprivation of transcendence,' or 'metaphysical revolt,' I argue that, for absurdity to be a fruitful idea, it must be approached as a psychological disposition and its basic tenets must be translated into phenomenal and psychological language. The book defines the particular psychological disposition of absurdity by analogizing it with the constructs of ambivalence, integration, conscious resistance, and creativity. Its central contention is that absurdity may be interpreted as a kind of ambivalence and, thus, as an aspect of psychological experience that demands a creative and mature response. Absurdists' cries of spiritual anguish need not persuade us that the conditions of loss, terror, alienation, and deprivation they describe are objectively 'real'. If, instead, descriptions of absurdity may be understood as psychological accounts of the powerfully ambivalent impulses toward merger and toward separateness, toward group-immersion and toward subjectivity, then absurd revolt involves recognizing, resisting, and integrating such impulses in order to facilitate mature ethical action. It may be possible, I argue, by examining the dynamics of absurdity, ambivalence, resistance, and creativity, to develop a new grounding for an absurd political morality. This book asks what unique properties and advantages this renewed political morality offers and applies this grounding to some of the political and moral crises of Camus' time and of our own. Review All things considered, this is a book that will probably be of most interest to those in fields such as philosophy or political science.--French Review Bowker recasts the Camusian theme of absurdity in pursuit of a distinct moral and political philosophy. . . .He disentangles the absurd from Camus's biography and codifies an independent ethic of the absurd. Beginning with a historical overview of the absurd, the author details the doctrine of absurdity directly through close analysis of Camus's works and indirectly through the lens of the concept of ambivalence. Both The Stranger and The Rebel function as loci in Bowker's analysis, and the exegetical chapters examining each book offer subtle reappraisals of traditional scholarship. Bowker wraps up with two chapters arguing for the relevance of absurd morality in the political sphere, and he ends with a turn back to Camus's biography and views on political assassinations and Algerian independence. In the end, Bowker posits that a political morality of the absurd arises through acknowledgment that all political systems and acts are fraught with injustice and that one need not necessarily rebel against them. Only by embracing the absurd can one develop a creative and mature ethical space for political deliberation. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.--CHOICE Bowker's approach . . . opens the way, he suggests, to advances in contemporary psychosocial understandings of moral and creative action and interaction. . . .This book is a cogent and thought-provoking reappraisal of Camus and key aspects of political philosophy.--French Studies Matthew H. Bowker's study, Albert Camus and the Political Philosophy of the Absurd: Ambivalence, Resistance, and Creativity, is arguably the most insightful, thoughtful, and well-researched book on Camus studies to appear in recent years. . . .Every once-in-a-great-while there comes a book that is so engaging, so thorough, and so enjoyable to read and comprehend that it becomes a classic and a necessity for all academics in that particular field to own, study, and know. Bowker's Albert Camus and the Political Philosophy of the Absurd is that book. There is no doubt that it will indelibly shift and