This is fine: An existential guide to Australian politics
Albert Camus would have been a lousy goalkeeper. Think about it. The French-Algerian standing between the posts, his head in the clouds. Reports say the writer excelled for Algiers Racing Uni's First XI, but I have my doubts. Imagine relying on Albert as your last line of defence, the bloke spouting stuff like, 'The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone'. Or: 'An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself'.
Wake up, Albie! The ball is coming! Tuberculosis intervened, sadly, the goalie trading gloves for philosophy, plus those olive-green novels – The Stranger, The Fall – that ask the big questions. Each title has been a staple of high school and Existentialism 101.
Not that Camus used the term. Indeed he rejected the e-word, preferring instead to forge fables around the incomprehensibility of existence. As that's the central plank, that irksome query about why we're here, and what we should do about it. 'Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is,' as Camus said. Which makes you wonder what we're meant to be.
Precisely the conundrum heard in Canberra this month. Is it any wonder? How can a power bloc of two parties implode into a rabble, losing seats like musical chairs, going from Coalition to Noalition? Cartoonist Cathy Wilcox depicted a bisected couch, one parent per half, both insisting 'Mummy and Daddy still love you very much'. Question being, are Mama Ley and Papa Littleproud going through a break-up, or merely a break? Either way, whether this new reunion lasts, the existentialism burns deep, fanned by those pesky Camus questions.
'I can't go on, I'll go on,' as Samuel Beckett said, a handy left-hand opener for Trinity College, and another writer besotted by existentialism. Macquarie Dictionary defines the ideology as 'a group of doctrines – some theistic, some atheistic – deriving from Kierkegaard, which stress the importance of existence, and of the freedom and responsibility of the finite mind.'
Existential first emerged about 1693 as an adjective for existence. A century on, Soren Kierkegaard co-opted the ism to refute the divine logic that Georg Hegel fancied, where the rational is actual, and vice versa. Lort, thought Soren: Danish for bullshit. In his milestone work Either/Or, the philosopher writes, 'There are two possible situations – one can either do this or do that. My honest opinion, and my friendly advice is this: do it, or do not do it. You will regret both.'
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Remind you of anyone – federally, I mean? Hence the e-word's rise. Existential now applies to politics, the arts, deconstruction cuisine, eco-anxiety, and anywhere you look. Last year Flinders University revealed how doomscrolling – surfing online between Gaza and La Nina – breeds existentialism. Reza Shebahang, the study's lead, claimed the custom has 'dire consequences on our mental health, leaving us feeling stress, anxiety, despair and questioning the meaning of life'.
Smart machines and AI inroads only deepen the abyss. Pushed to existential extremes, we feel like adjuncts to this thing called life. Avatars. Daydreamers in the goalmouth. Or characters living life forwards so that we might understand what we're doing in hindsight, to paraphrase Kierkegaard. If it's any comfort to party leaders, doomscrollers and general AI alarmists, remember that 'the key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead'. Camus? Beckett? Try Mr Peanutbutter, the easygoing labrador from BoJack Horseman.
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