Remember when George W. Bush read The Stranger

Odradek · 2016-09-25 01:15:26

That was weird

Odradek · 2016-09-25 01:17:10

The president has apparently just finished Albert Camus' famous tale of alienation, L'Etranger. (In translation, c'est vrai.) Not quite what we might have expected. One hungers to know what he made of the story of Meursault, a Frenchman living in Algeria, who shoots an Arab on the beach one day. The Arab has been in a fight with Meursault's friend Raymond, a local pimp, but our emotionless narrator tells us he pulled the trigger because of the irritating heat of the day, rather than for vengeance. He then fires four more times into his victim's body.

There seems a high voltage in the president's choice of a novel whose white protagonist murders an Arab. But Bush's reading of The Outsider was apparently notable for the intellectual debate it sparked with his aides. "He found it an interesting book and a quick read," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "I don't want to go too deep into it, but we discussed the origins of existentialism.

Imipolex G · 2016-09-25 02:38:50

tbh I didn't believe he actually read it

Odradek · 2016-09-25 02:40:08

I think Bush would find much to sympathize with in the tale of a white dude who kills an arab and dies feeling no remorse

Salix Babylonika · 2016-09-25 02:55:06

[ ] not told

[ ] told

[x] toldal drama island

Sredni Vashtar · 2016-09-25 16:19:09

Honestly, I feel like the idea that Bush was too stupid to appreciate L'Étranger sells him a little short. Incompetence and dreadful policies do not equate to idiocy per se.

Tre · 2016-09-25 16:33:24

I hate this book. Had to read it for an English class my senior year of high school and I just found Meursault completely insufferable

it should come as no surprise that I also by extension dislike absurdism as a philosophy but w/e

Sredni Vashtar · 2016-09-25 16:37:51

He's kind of supposed to be a miserable scumbag, though. He's hollow and has no real agency and he knows it.

But then, I also find absurdism and the whole void of meaning concept incredibly freeing, so maybe I'm not the guy to ask about Camus? Because I'm probably going to be defending Camus.

Crystal · 2016-09-25 16:42:09

@ Tre: I really liked it, between the way it just ran on, the tone and texture, and what it was about... But it was easy to see as an entry point. Plus I was one of the few that found it enjoyable in class so I get where you're coming from. A few more or less said that, I think.

^ Hah, same, to a degree.

Odradek · 2016-09-25 18:37:22

Heidegger used to host the show, but he was fired after some...off color remarks.

Imipolex G · 2016-09-25 18:55:21

"Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is" is a quote I like

Tre · 2016-09-25 19:48:43

i'm probably going to sound like an idiot here because this is in no way my area of expertise (for good reason) but, like

To say that we can never find meaning in life, at least to me, invalidates (or ignores) everything. Religion, love, friendships, the feelings you get from media you enjoy, isn't there any value to any of that?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think that we all have to kind of give life meaning on our own terms, and whatever we choose that meaning to be, we can then sort of just stick with.

If the table on the Wikipedia page (which is pretty similar to the one I remember from my Lit class that we read the Stranger in) is to be believed I probably fit somewhere between the atheistic and monotheistic existentialism sides.

speaking of said Wikipedia page

One can still live fully while rejecting hope, and, in fact, can only do so without hope.

this is bullshit

Salix Babylonika · 2016-09-25 19:51:09

I think philosophy in general has a very narrow definition of "meaning" in that context.

Which is not useful for ever talking about it of course but the field has always been jargon-heavy.

Tre · 2016-09-25 19:55:21

true

like I said, not an expert in any way, and in fact it's one of those few Intellectual Fields™ I find exasperating simply because there's so many different schools of thought and layers to said schools of thought that it ends up hurting my head more than anything else

Obā-san · 2016-09-25 20:49:12

Existential Comics Sartre using radical freedom as a guise for being lolrandom is still really great

Sredni Vashtar · 2016-09-25 23:43:29

Tre said:
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think that we all have to kind of give life meaning on our own terms, and whatever we choose that meaning to be, we can then sort of just stick with.

If the table on the Wikipedia page (which is pretty similar to the one I remember from my Lit class that we read the Stranger in) is to be believed I probably fit somewhere between the atheistic and monotheistic existentialism sides.

But see, Camus has no problem with finding personal meaning in life and being happy with that. It's just that to his mind, it's best to get any presumptuous illusions about greater meaning out of the way beforehand, which precludes the part about religion—projecting grand notions of structure upon the cosmos sort of chafes against the idea of accepting that things just don't make sense—but anything and everything else is fair game, I think.

For the record, I'm personally closest to absurdism on that chart, although I have more respect for a search for personal meaning than I think Camus did, and am conversely far more willing to entertain pure nihilism in my more cynical moments.

Tre · 2016-09-25 23:53:20

Everyone knows I'm in
Over my head
Over my head

Quip · 2016-09-25 23:58:15

the truth is..........

you got owned, nerd

Sredni Vashtar · 2016-09-26 04:37:34

Naw, I just happen to have a very good grasp on what I believe and it's somewhat different from what you believe.

Crystal · 2016-09-26 04:49:18

No actually he got owned. Not-Tre even says so. Keep up with the times home slice.

Remember when George W. Bush read The Stranger

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