Status Updates From Brave Genius: A Scientist, ...

Christianity “postpones to a point beyond the span of history the cure of evil and murder,” he noted, while Russian Communism justified terror and murder and crushed freedom in the promise of some far-off workers’ utopia. For Camus, “real generosity to the future lies in giving all to the present.”

What Camus could not abide were ideologies that sacrificed life in the present, the one fundamental value above all, for some promise of future justice.

The first philosophical secret of life for Camus was the recognition of the absurd condition. This instinct for positive rebellion—against death, oppression, suffering, or injustice—was the second secret of life, and a path to humanity.

Among the many contributors to the rise of terror, Camus suggested that one overriding factor was the emphasis on doctrine and bureaucracy over human dignity.