Sartre and Camus in New York

mayacosby:

Camus, on the other hand, begins to sound more like Samuel Beckett. While Sartre after the war was more than ever a self-professed “writing machine,” Camus was increasingly graphophobic, haunted by a “disgust for all forms of public expression.” Sartre’s philosophy becomes sociological and structuralist in its binary emphasis. Camus, all alone, in the night, between continents, far away from everything, is already less the solemn “moralist” of legend (“the Saint,” Sartre called him), more a (pre-)post-structuralist in his greater concern and anxiety about language, his emphasis on difference and refusal to articulate a clear-cut theory: “I am too young to have a system,” he told one audience. And it is this anti-systematic aspect of America that he retains and refuses to clarify: “After so many months I know nothing about New York.”

I dunno if I buy this wholesale but I liked reading this thing and you should at least check it out. Also maybe this is the reason I can’t get down with existentialism??? because growing up I had such a thing for Camus? is Camus really becoming like Beckett?? who knows but this is really interesting.

Relevant to my interests.

(via deactiavtedhookedonsemiotics)

#philosophy #jean-paul sartre #albert camus #existentialism #absurdism