Rereading the Stranger by Camus, it is obvious that America has hijacked Existentialism and any subsequent narratives. I see the philosophy and the narrative of the Stranger everywhere now. I watched Clerks the other day and saw countless parallels between Mersault and Dante; when describing the book to a friend who has never read it I gave into the temptation of comparing pre-existential crisis Mersault to pre-Brad Pitt Edward Norten in Fight Club; the internet is full of listicles prompting readers to live life to the fullest and not to let traditional, societal expectations prevent us from doing what we want. This all seems really existential, but I think there is something fundamentally wrong, though it is hard to put my finger on exactly what.
It seems that Hollywood and the internet respectively enjoy stoking the idea that we can't live passive lives. But their portrayal of it is missing something fundamental, something the stranger demonstrates in abundance. To Hollywood and career internet motivators, pre-existential crisis characters are boring and monotonous (think Norton's condo in Fight Club), that they are letting some triviality get in their way. They live totally unappealing lives and are usually foiled by existentially and unrealistically laid back, cooler people (Pitt from Fight Club or Randall from Clerks). On the surface, what makes this life so desirable is that it is liberating; you're free of the fetters of societal expectations. As though by removing crushing expectations we are somehow going to live happier. This all jives pretty well with existentialism, but the portrayal of what it means to live a wholesome life is still far too selfish. This idea that American mediums are spouting is still operating under the assumption that all of this is for the individual, a very American concept. Every insistence that you follow your dreams or forget what others are saying are all perpetuating, not the idea that you have to be an active participant in life, but that life is somehow meant for you.
Think about pre-existential crisis Mersualt, what makes his life so undesirable to me is his selfishness. Whether he's at his mother's funeral, hanging out with friends or loved ones, or just existing in the public, he is constantly bitching about people in his way. Not in his way like they're preventing him from following his dreams and ambitions, but in his way like their existence is preventing his existence from dragging him to his inevitable end. Or just preventing him from taking a nap and having a cigarette. In every moment Mersault is aggravatingly thinking only of his needs, of his fatigue, how uncomfortable he is, how disgusting other people are and how they are making him feel unpleasant. He lays out in great detail how pathetic is mother's old (new?) fiance looks trying to keep up with her funeral procession and how much it bothered him. The unnamed Arab man he kills (that the man is unnamed is case in point really) is preventing him from going to a shady place while he is caught in the sun. Mersault's passive life is passive because he is unthinking, because he is operating in a default setting that assumes his life is the most important one. After his existential crisis, he thinks only of others and hopes they come out to cheer his death in ecstasy. It's not like he lives a really sexy and desirable life after his revelation, he doesn't get to relive his life the way he sees fit and follows his dreams, he dies. What makes Mersault existential is not his new life in contrast to his old one, but rather his new thinking.
That's the tragedy to me; I know people who live incredibly vibrant and exciting lives that still fall in the same pitfalls Mersault falls into. That there is a sort of anti-selfishness in Existentialism that maybe entrepreneurial/capitalist America doesn't want to acknowledge. That living life as an active participant, not passive, means actively considering your life is no more important than the lives around you. Living actively, existentially, has nothing to do with people getting in your way and everything to do with your acceptance that they are there and so are you and no one is any more important than anyone. The second you attribute meaning and purpose to your life, the way American pop culture is always portraying as the only way to a fulfilling life, is the exact moment that you are living passively, taking the easy way out. It could be that Existentialism has nothing to do with living and everything to do with how you think, it is after all a philosophy.
**Read the Stranger, if you've already read it, reread it. I picked it up and a week later France gets attacked by terrorists and over a hundred of their citizens are tragically killed. They are attacked by a group of people who believe their life's purpose trumps another's. I picked it up right when protesters in Missouri with legitimate complaints of racism are considered detrimental to an individual's freedom of speech. I read this at a time where it is considered critical and intelligent thinking to assume the worst of people, to accuse those in poverty of gaming the system because of your taxes, when it is in fact the easiest possible way of thinking. Today we are plagued by those who consider their life the most important and meaningful, our country's values and pop culture are encouraging us to believe this. The Stranger is a reminder that this is man's default way of thinking and only by actively rebelling against this notion can we truly transcend.**
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