Action Camus
037 Action Camus
“To tell the truth, just from being so fully and simply a man, I looked upon myself as something of a superman.” -Albert Camus The Fall, 1956, Justin O’Brien Translation p. 23
Since today our element falls on Krypton, I thought I might do something Superman related for the quote. This turned out to be a little harder than I first thought. Mostly because of the Nietzschean Superman and its prevalence in all search results related to Camus and philosophy. I’m familiar, but not crazy familiar with the comics and movies, so nothing came to mind at first. I remembered a reference in the Fall, and after no small amount of searching found the quote above. Out of context it’s a bit hard to decipher, but I like that about it. He’s recanting how ordinary he is, and there’s something powerful in that. Sometime there’s this idea going around that we’re all special snowflakes, but we’re simply not. This realization that we’re not, embracing the simplicity of just being and being good enough to be average is quite a feat. He talks about embracing life and its offerings without needing a religion or higher purpose. A fundamental element of Absurdism.
In the process I cam across some pretty fun comics about “Action Camus” where Superman is our Absurd hero. Some digging revealed them to belong to this individual:
http://www.rsikoryak.com/mastcom.html
With some references at the two below.
http://www.tylershores.com/2012/06/27/the-best-literary-parody-in-comic-book-form-ever/
https://www.comics.org/issue/1338977/#1501499
I guess I got what I wanted? Maybe even something a little more.
Every time I do go see a Superman movie I do contemplate how this “living” god must see the world, and what’s his take on the meaning of life. Certainly much is contemplated about his motives and upbringing instilling “values” in him. But let’s face it, he is definitely not living up to his potential by stopping petty theft and saving kittens from trees. “Ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree?” is a great quote I read somewhere about the silliness of rescuing cats from trees. Certainly in the comics Superman has bigger fish to fry at the hands of “super” villains but how would he handle them or anything if he embraced his godhood or took a leap into the Absurd unknown. He feels a purpose to save the world from X (whatever that is) but what if he didn’t? He could kill us all by stopping the rotation of the planet. Or just set himself up as supreme overlord. He could bring peace to the planet if he really wanted to. He might not even have to do it with fear. Had he more closely guarded his origins and weaknesses he might have been able to do it by force. People just going to make bullets out of all the elements and try them out? I doubt it. Final thoughts, I always found it fascinating that Lex Luthor matched him with his intellect instead of some random “power” of his own. Why didn’t Superman absorb all the knowledge of the world (which he could have done, super math skills and the like) and match him more at that level? A truly frightening thing would be Superman with all the knowledge, and all the nihilism. At least in his current form, fighting crime and stopping bad guys, he’ll always have a rock to roll.
-DA
