Albert Camus vs Mahatma Gandhi on Death
Albert Camus and Mahatma Gandhi on death, side by side — 4 passages against 5, and what the disagreement is actually about.
Albert Camus and Mahatma Gandhi both have a great deal to say about death — 4 passages and 5 respectively in thinkr's library — and they do not say the same thing. Setting them side by side is more useful than reading either alone, because the disagreement shows you what each position is actually giving up.
Albert Camus on death
French-Algerian novelist and philosopher of the absurd. The Myth of Sisyphus asks how to live well in a universe without inherent meaning.
“We turn our backs on nature; we are ashamed of beauty. Our wretched tragedies have a smell of the office clinging to them, and the blood that trickles from them is the color of printer's ink.”
“Knowing that certain nights whose sweetness lingers will keep returning to the earth and sea after we are gone, yes, this helps us to die.”
“Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter.”
“To become god is merely to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being.”
Mahatma Gandhi on death
Indian lawyer and ascetic who led the nonviolent independence movement. His satyagraha — truth-force — shaped twentieth-century moral politics.
“Cowardice is impotence worse than violence. The coward desires revenge but being afraid to die, he looks to others… to do the work of defense for him.”
“Complete civil disobedience is a state of peaceful revolution, a refusal to obey every single state-made law.”
“There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for.”
“I hold the opinion firmly that Civil Disobedience is the purest type of constitutional agitation. Of course, it becomes degrading and despicable if its civil, i.e. non-violent character is a mere camouflage.”
“Disobedience is a right that belongs to every human being, and it becomes a sacred duty when it springs from civility.”
Where they part
France/Algeria, 1913–1960 and India, 1869–1948 are not the same world, and the difference is not only historical. Albert Camus treats death as something to be we turn our backs on nature;… — a matter of practice. Mahatma Gandhi approaches it from another side entirely. Neither is refuting the other; they are answering slightly different questions, and noticing which question you are actually asking is most of the work.