Knowing Conquerors

“Conquerors know that action is in itself useless. There is but one useful action, that of remaking man and the earth. I shall never remake men. But one must do ‘as if.’” ― Albert Camus, “The Absurd Man” in The Myth of Sisyphus, Justin O’Brien Translation, Knopf 1955

Remaking man and earth. I thought a lot about this particular passage the past couple weeks. Not least of which was because my work’s Slack theme of the month was conquerors (don’t ask). It’s a little out of context without the rest of the essay, but I think that’s how it goes with quotes anyway, so I’ve extracted it. My first thoughts went to Goethe’s Faust and Mephistopheles. How Faust finally conquers his damnation and the conniving of Mephistopheles through his pursuit of remaking man and earth. At least that’s how I see it. Maybe there’s more to this, when one thinks of the campaigns of Alexander, Genghis Khan, Caesar or even Hannibal, or perhaps even other great losers who have managed to stick in our consciousness, that there’s something in how they truly impacted the world and men around them, in spite of their flaws or in some cases ultimate failure, that they remade the world and people around them. But where does that leave the Absurdist?

I think Camus recognizes that he might not be the great conqueror of thought, even though through his writings he’s already began to make an impact in his own way. But as one must live the contradictions of Absurdism, one can live as though one is conquering man and earth. The defiance in the face of meaningless to still carry on ‘as-if.’