Sunday, October 14, 2018

Is Meursault's Atheism Existentialist?

In Albert Camus' The Stranger, in the fifth and final chapter, Meursault encounters a chaplain before he lives out his death sentence. The chaplain expresses confusion at Meursault's seeming lack of care for his own situation, but Meursault is steadfast in his beliefs. He does not attempt to explain his position to the chaplain to the fullest extent possible, merely answering the questions that are asked of him, and later getting annoyed at the amount of questions being asked. He believes that there is no life after death, and the fact that there is no life after death does not concern him.

For its time, Meursault's atheism was likely perceived as existentialist. as his lack of belief in God indicates a belief in himself as a free agent (as well does the rest of the book). If there was no God, then what else could determine humanity's actions but individual humans?

When looked at through a modern lens, atheism is not necessarily indicative of an existentialist viewpoint. Atheism is defined as the lack of belief in a religion. That does not imply the existence of believe in oneself. Due to the increasing cultural prevalence of atheism in society, we are not necessarily inclined to believe that if one does not believe in God, one must believe in individuality.

On the contrary, non existentialist atheists might believe that humanity as a whole (large scale peer pressures) or the as-yet-to-be-defined set of laws that govern the universe as a whole yet don't subscribe to a deity. Or perhaps they believe that humans had free will at one point, but the advent of societal constructs such as justice, love, and friendship became so ingrained in the human psyche that we no longer have the freedom to think outside of them.

Regardless, when analyzing from a modern perspective, the fact of Meursault's atheism cannot be used as proof of his existentialism. It's up to the rest of the book to do that.

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