The Dismissal of Absolutes

A detailed Summary of The Dismissal of Absolutes

The dismissal of absolutes by Camus in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus as an escape from the absurd shows that Camus' commitment to life with joy and passion is another form of escape from the absurd. By embracing religion the cold irrationality of our society may be ignored. Science attempts to make sense of the world but the true irrationality of the universe lies within the human mind. A commitment to anything including life provides an escape from the irrationality that exists in our minds. Commitment to life and all other absolutes provides an escape from the absurd as well as irrational thoughts and actions of humans.

Firstly religion offers believers an escape from the ridiculous. Western religion provides believers a set of rules or "goals" that many followers structure their life around. These goals allow structure for the individual and protect them from the reality of the world around them as well as restricting their individual freedom. These sets of rules are clearly comprehendable in print. Camus discusses this in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus. "One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness." Many religions also offer their followers a "scapegoat" to harbor the blame

Another way people shield themselves from the absurd is science. Scientific theories have been proved and disproved throughout time and, although this has added to our understanding of the universe, few scientists have attempted to study the irrationality and free thought of the human mind. Freud was perhaps the first person to make progress in the study of the human psyche. Although in his time Freud was deemed sexually perverse and many of his ideas and work was shunned, his work on studying the unconsciousness and "blocking out" of memories was revolutionary. Without a strong understanding of the moderator of our perceptions (our mind) a person cannot strive to achieve uniform perceptions, nor can our society understand how a person makes choices and why in our mind exists chaos while the world remains rational and quantitative. People continue to find comfort in the rationality that exists in the universe. By protecting themselves with this knowledge they do not need to face the truth that the world can be measured whereas the human perception of the world and why people make choices cannot.

Commitment to life and all other absolutes including religion and science provide an escape from the absurd world. By

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Approximate Word count = 826
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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The Dismissal of Absolutes

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