Robert E. Meagher - Albert Camus and the Human Crisis

Catherine Camus and her father in Sorel-Moussel, 1957

T his is not a preface. It is simply a hand extended, across the oceans, to Monsieur Meagher, to his students, and to all those in the world who love my father.

I say love because in the forty years that I have been managing his writings, my greatest challenge has been to try not to disappoint the spontaneous impulse of fraternity, friendship, and warmth that has emanated from his readers. It is true that my father touches not only the mind but the soul and the heart of those who read him. This, I believe, is because he speaks to our humanity, clearly and with empathy.

So, when I read Monsieur Meaghers prologue, I was especially happy to find that his words were so like the very words that would come to me to write about my father. In saying this, I reach out my hand to him and to you for help.

I believe with my father that:

Each generation doubtless feels called upon to remake the world. Mine knows, though, that it will not remake it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself. (Stockholm Nobel Speech, December 10, 1957).

For my part, every day I feel that I am watching the fall of the Roman Empire. By this I mean the West, where money and power have become the ultimate goals in life. Everything moves faster and faster, as billionaires prefer to launch themselves into space rather than help those who are only an arms reach away. It seems that we humans today have become the spontaneous generation with no history and no past. The walls go up, and everyone sees noon at their own door, as the saying goes. But alone we are nothing.

When Monsieur Meagher writes Far from affirming our common humanity, we dehumanize, demonize, dismiss, cancel, and degrade each other as a prelude to conflict, prejudice, and predation, I thank him. Optimistically perhaps, I am sure that there are many of us who think like him, but that does not interest the media. It is indeed true that slogans replace dialogue.

I have met women and men from all over the world, from Chile to Malaysia, from Africa to Sweden. I have received hundreds of letters from Greece, Italy, the Americas, Australia. Believe me, we are not alone.

My father is not a haughty, self-righteous Nobel Prize winner. He is human like the rest of us, searching, reaching out his hand and trying to find his way. He really listened to us and wanted us to live our lives. He still does. He is still doing good in the world today.

Thank you, Monsieur Meagher.

Catherine Camus

C eci nest pas une prface. Cest juste une main tendue, par-del les ocans, Monsieur Meagher, ses tudiants, et tous ceux qui, dans le monde, aiment mon pre.

Je dis aiment parce que depuis 40 ans que je gre son uvre, la plus grosse difficult a t de tenter de ne pas dcevoir llan de fraternit, damiti, de chaleur qui manait de ses lecteurs. Cest vrai que mon pre touche non seulement lesprit mais lme et le coeur de ceux qui le lisent. Je crois parce quil parle hauteur dhomme, empathique et cohrent.

Alors, en lisant le prologue de Monsieur Meagher, jai t tellement heureuse de trouver si exactement les mots qui me viendraient pour parler de mon pre, que me voil en train de lui et de vous tendre la main! Help!

Je crois en effet que chaque gnration, sans doute, se croit voue refaire le monde. La mienne sait pourtant quelle ne le refera pas. Mais sa tche est peut-tre plus grande. Elle consiste empcher que le monde ne se dfasse. (Discours de Stockholm, 10 dcembre 1957). Et jai limpression, tous les jours, de voir la chute de lEmpire romain. Je parle de lOccident o largent et le pouvoir sont devenus des buts ultimes. Tout va de plus en plus vite, les milliardaires prfrent se lancer dans lespace plutt que daider celles et ceux qui sont leur porte . Il semble que les humains soient devenus une gnration spontane sans histoire et sans pass. Les murs montent, chacun voit midi sa porte. Mais seuls nous ne sommes rien. Lorsque Monsieur Meagher crit Far from affirming our common humanity, we deshumanize, demonize, dismiss, cancel, and degrade each other as a prelude to conflict, prejudice, and predation, je lui dis merci. Et, optimiste peut-tre, je suis sre que nous sommes trs nombreux penser comme lui mais cela nintresse pas les mdias. Cest vrai que le slogan plac le dialogue .

Jai rencontr des femmes et des hommes du monde entier, du Chili la Malaisie, de lAfrique la Sude, jai reu des centaines de lettres de Grce, dItalie, des Amriques, dAustralie. Croyez-moi, nous ne sommes pas seuls.

Mon pre nest pas un Prix Nobel hautain et moralisateur . Cest un homme parmi les hommes, qui cherche et qui ttonne, comme nous. Il coutait vraiment et il nous laissait vivre. Aujourdhui encore il fait du bien.

Merci, Monsieur Meagher

Catherine Camus

L ike countless others in my generation, I first read Camus in the early 1960s, beginning with The Stranger and moving on to The Myth of Sisyphus. I stopped there, and for the next six years carried the existentialist Camus with me during my own political awakening and early engagement in the peace movement. For me, who until then had studied mostly ancient literature and philosophy, as well as early Christian theology, reading Camus was a rite of passage into the unknown. It was both threatening and exciting. The truth, however, was that I had barely discovered Camus, much less understood him. The Camus section on my library shelf and in my mind was a mere inch wide, comprising two very early and very thin volumes. That suddenly changed in the winter of 1970, when, as a rookie recruit in the Notre Dame faculty of Theology, I was summarily assigned to present a paper at an upcoming Memorial Conference sponsored by the university to mark the tenth anniversary of Camuss death. A handful of towering figures had been invited to speak, and then far below, at pavement level, there was I, who for the next month read my way through Camuss major works, well beyond The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus, in the hope of being able to make a contribution that would neither humiliate me nor do an injustice to the man I already revered, but about whom I still knew precious little.