To Save the Bodies
In his “Appeal” some months later Camus returns to this problem and develops the projected steps. Briefly, they are: 1. The definition of a common ground of meaning.
2. The willingness of each to reflect upon the views of the other, thus the implicit recognition that their own positions are not necessarily final and that the other’s views might make a constructive contribution—or, at any rate, deserve to be heard.
3. The willingness to turn toward a primary consideration of future possibilities and the consequences of action rather than dwelling upon past responsibilities, guilts and punishments, and the causes of problems.
4. The explicit recognition of the possibility and importance of difference.
Granted the situation in which ideological warfare is total and dialogue nil (as in Algeria in 1956), Camus suggested these four steps. The assumptions are human freedom, however circumscribed by events, and the factual commonness of a joint situation, however limited by contrary objectives. Let us follow the development of these points in detail.
1. Ideologies are positions closed to external criticism. Camus proposes to go beyond the destructive combat of such closed positions by appeal to concrete instances in which the competing parties might realize common objectives: “a purely humanitarian appeal that might, at least on one point, silence the fury and unite most Algerians, both French and Arab, without their having to give up any of their convictions” (RRD, 98). Founded upon the belief that “no cause justifies the death of the innocent” (RRD, 100), the call is for a truce with regard to the civilian population.
The attempt, if successful, would slightly open these positions to one another in order that some contact could be made, so that a certain intercourse, however limited, might begin. From the point of view of content, on the other hand, the procedure that Camus adopts is revealing of his orientation from Two Sides of the Coin onward: He turns toward the implicit communality of human beings with respect to death. In this connection one story from Exile is especially revealing. In “The Silent Ones,” the relation between employer and employees had been reduced to that of power implicit in the employer’s take-it-or-leave-it. After that, no dialogue was possible. The revolt crushed, the workers were reduced to the sullen silence of the humiliated. In their relation to their employer, the sense of common dignity —which alone could support a revolt, a strike—was suppressed, and they were reduced to the relation of master and servant. Yet in the face of death, which the illness of the boss’s child brought to the fore, resentment gave way to an almost embarassed sympathy—and to the experience of the complicity of humans in the face of a condition common to them all. Here the take-it-or-leave-it was implicitly overcome; the encounter with death called forth the conjoint human response somewhat similar to the response of the Oranais in the face of the plague.
In “To Save the Bodies,” in the series of essays entitled “Neither Victims Nor Executioners,” Camus suggests the point in question in a more general way as a first article of political faith. In opposition to ideologies of total salvation, he writes, “My conviction is that we can no longer reasonably entertain the hope of saving everything, but that we can at least propose to ourselves to save the bodies in order that the future may remain possible” (A/I,
149, my italics).
Noteworthy here is his attitude toward the limits of commitment as well as the suggestion, in the italicized phrase, of the basic direction of his political thought. By grounding the possibility of human community in the natural conditions of existence, he seeks to build a community into and through these conditions. Since certain conditions are in fact common to humans, recognition of them can yield the ground of essential common interests upon which the community of dialogue may be constructed.
We can now better understand the significance of Camus’s evaluation of anarcho-syndicalism as expressing the need to construct community upon natural relations.6 It is quite wrong to view these remarks in The Rebel as added on simply in order to give a positive dimension to his position. To say that is to miss both the fundamental nature of his argument in the book, and to fail to see the metaphysical position and program that he offers.
In his “Appeal” Camus takes exactly this point in a slightly more urgent context: “Without recalling again the mistakes of the past, anxious solely for the future, it is possible … to agree first and then to save human lives. In this way we may prepare a climate more favorable to a discussion that will at last be reasonable” (RRD, 100).
2. What would be required to create a “climate more favorable to a discussion that will at last be reasonable”? “If each individual, Arab or French, made an effort to think over his adversary’s motives, at least the basis of a fruitful discussion would be clear” (RRD, 100).
Dialogue is not possible, sharing of experience and a felt unity are clearly unattainable, so long as at least one side of the combat believes it is in possession of a Truth that leaves nothing more to be said. If one side holds to its Truth absolutely, the other side will be forced into an equivalent stance. As soon as the opposition is discounted as a possible source of insight, there is clearly no need to waste time in listening to it. Thus the attempt to break open an encrusted orientation, to reveal the possibilities of novelty inherent in the encounter, is a prerequisite of the movement toward dialogue. ” ‘No further discussion is possible’—that is the slogan that sterilizes any future and any possibility of life” (RRD, 101-2).
3. With common interests recognized and the parties opening up to the possibilities inherent in an encounter with others, the concern must shift, if the experience is to prove fruitful, toward joint policy and control of consequences, rather than remaining fixated upon past guilt and the legalistic attitude that leads only to recrimination. “I believe in a policy of reparation in
Algeria rather than in a policy of expiation. Problems must be seen in relation to the future [C’est en fonction de l’avenir qu’il faut poser les problemes], without endlessly going back over the errors of the past” (RRD, 89, my italics).
While the actual situation in Algeria gives poignant meaning to the view that we must learn to live together or we will die together, these words clearly have a deeper metaphysical significance. The destructive dialectic of closed positions reveals more clearly than anything else the need to pose the problem in the relative and with respect to the future.7 Nothing was more repugnant to Camus and more destructive of dialogue than the dialectic of recrimination and expiation. “The frightful aspect of that solidarity is apparent in the infernal dialectic that whatever kills one side kills the other too, each blaming the other and justifying his violences by the opponent’s violence. The eternal question as to who was first responsible then loses all meaning” (RRD, 101).
4. Finally, with respect to the construction of community, Camus approaches the issue of difference. Any attitude that insists upon uniformity of views and actions cannot, of course, expect to achieve this through dialogue. Any bearer of Truth will find it unreasonable to permit expression of contrary positions, which are a fortiori false—unless, that is, the attitude toward Truth is not final or not ultimate, or unless the person is willing to grant to the opposition regardless of the content of their opinion, value in their own right.
This point bears repeating. Insistence upon uniformity is bound to sterilize human encounters. If the constructions are taking precedence over the people by or for whom the theories or values are developed, then dialogue has preconditions that render the encounter impossible as a free exchange on the questions at hand. If, however, one points away from a fixation upon a specific theoretical product, and moves toward the view that theory is an aid to the expansion and fulfillment of experience rather than its end and justification, then the encounter with difference takes on a new dimension. No longer need it be viewed as a threat; instead, it is the very key to liberation and development. Perhaps only at this point is creation possible. “Our differences ought to help us instead of dividing us. As for me, here as in every domain, I believe only in differences and not in uniformity. . . . Differences are the roots without which the tree of liberty, the sap of creation and of civilization, dries up” (RRD, 101).
HISTORICAL TASKS
The power of Camus’s political ethics is rooted in recognition of the value and right of difference. The right to differ is a formulation of the commitment to the unique individual person as the source of values, prior to consideration of the person’s opinion. The one limit is that this right not involve an exclusion, thus leading to the denial of The Other’s freedom of speech.