In the end, salvation lies in maintaining our humanity
Albert Camus, sketched by Petr Vorel
Albert Camus said: “We know that we live in contradiction, but we also know that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it.” I believe that it is the creative tension between how we execute the dance between the needs and happiness of the many and the universality of our individual humanity that defines us as leaders.
Certainly, we hope that our world leaders today are equipped to handle the contradictions of the present crisis in order to restore our confidence in the future. It is comforting to know that we have found our way out of chaos and fear before. Camus has written eloquently of Europe’s experience of surviving Nazism and a breakdown of civil order during WWII. Today’s falling stock market, wars, terrorism and global climate changes called to mind Camus’ book, ‘The Plague
The Hero, The Priest, The Suicide and The Doctor
In the book, the protagonists are faced with an appalling outbreak of an ancient evil, the bubonic plague. As the city is quarantined, the economy crumbles and the dead accumulate, while the four main characters grapple with the situation according to their personal values.
The writer is a Utopian. He believes leaders must be heroes, who will set things right in the world through their demigod powers. The priest believes in a just universe and a just God. Then there is man who tried to kill himself just before the plague hit. He actually flourishes in a world where everyone is suffering, because he finally has company in his misery. And lastly there is the doctor who gets up everyday to lose another battle with the plague.
As time goes on, and the plague strips the city of all reason, the writer tries to be heroic, the priest loses faith as innocent children die horrible deaths and the failed suicide provides comfort to the dying. In one scene, when death is master of the city of Oran, the writer and the doctor go swimming at an empty beach in the dark of early morning. The writer speaks eloquently of his ambition to be a hero and saint. The doctor, who has spent the past days losing to death again and again, answers that he has spent his life trying to be a human being.
Camus declares unequivocally that being a human being is the more ambitious goal: To retain one’s humanity and compassion for the human condition when faced with no hope of saving oneself or anyone else is a greater challenge than a brave act of heroism.
Staying human
If we are to be effective, ethical, and enduring leaders we are compelled, like Camus’ doctor, to keep doing what is human—what is right according to our universal humanity—even in the face of defeat.
The doctor, who would not abandon his patients or his city even though he was unable to beat the enemy, worked to enforce the quarantine of the sick by draconian methods in order to protect the future of the survivors. While the plague exacted its toll in the deaths of over one third of the population, the struggles of the doctor to balance the contradictions inherent in keeping order protected life until the plague lost its virulence. Because of the humanity of leaders like the doctor, the city and civilization survived.
Our current world is a frightening place as the failure of economic and political institutions threaten our future. Will our leaders, will we be able to live in this world and still say this with Camus?
“I love this life with abandon and wish to speak of it boldly: it makes me proud of my human condition. Yet people have often told me there is nothing to be proud of. Yes there is: this sun, this sea, my heart leaping . . . and this vast landscape in which tenderness and glory merge into blue and yellow. It is to conquer this that I need all my strength and my resources . . . learning patiently and arduously how to live is enough for me, well worth all the arts of living.” (Nuptials at Tipasa)
Technorati Tags: coping with chaos, facing the future, preserving humanity, self-preservation
October 21st, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Hi, Helen,
a wonderful, inspirational piece. You write, “Certainly, we hope that our world leaders today are equipped to handle the contradictions of the present crisis in order to restore our confidence in the future.”
I offer some thoughts of Einstein:
“Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love and devotion towards men and towards objective things.”
“Don’t try to become a person of importance. Try to become a person of value.”
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
My point being my lack of optimism when I think of today’s “leaders” being the ones who will move us forward to a “new” future, given their current mis-placed and mis-guided values, their egos and narcissism, and their current levels of “thinking”.
October 21st, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Peter,
What touches me about Camus’ story is that none of the protagonists are formal leaders–they are just people like us. Maybe I am exposing a naive belief that true leaders are rarely recognized by the people they lead. To paraphrase Hillel: “…in a place where there are no leaders, strive to be a leader.”
What drew me to the Slow Leadership site was its emphasis on the human scale of leadership. Maybe while our putative leaders put on a show of ego and narcissism, we can quietly strive to model the human quality of leadership.
Helen
October 21st, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Hi Helen, I agree with you and my sense of things is that change will come, perhaps not as we have been accustomed to see change, (e.g., elections) but more on a grass roots level and, frankly, it probably won’t always be pretty but leaders will emerge…just not through the processes we are currently accustomed to…the result of which will bring a renewed sense of values and a focus on the unfoldment of humanity…as to the further unfoldment of the status-quo and egos.
New political economies are coming our way, being birthed, that will focus on a culture of peace, not war, on qualitative economic growth, not quantitative economic growth, and a new system of values much different from the current values of selfishness, greed, envy, being a billionaire, etc. The deal, however, will require massive demonstrations not unlike those that accompanied the appearance of Gandhi, the end of the Vietnam War, resistance, non-violent and perhaps violent, i.e, resistance on the grass root level by folks who say, “no more.” The folks who rise to the challenge, will, as you say, not be recoignized by the people they lead. That’s the good news.
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:42 am
I was struck by Helen’s comment that “none of the protagonists are formal leaders – they are just people like us.” I would have thought that was a given as the point of any good story; in order to resonate with the reader/audience it has to be about ordinary people, people like them. That, however, is not to negate Helen’s point; but simply to reinforce the question behind the question, viz: “What do we expect from our ‘formal leaders’?”
At the end of the day they are also “just people like us.” They are in a leadership position because they are masters of the status quo and for one of three reasons:
* They were elected in which case they are preoccupied with maintaining their power base by satisfying the majority and hence afraid of radical change that may be too far ahead of what is acceptable to the majority; or
* They were appointed, in which case their primary focus is on placating those who appointed them and thus they may not have the power to actually institute appropriate change; or
* They usurped power to meet their own ambitions and thus may have no idea about how to develop or implement appropriate solutions, and - in the worst case scenario (Zimbabwe is a glaring example) - may not have any interest in doing so.
In light of this Peter’s first Einstein quote seems relevant, but I am not sure how it actually helps us to move forward, nor I am sure that I have any answers either. It simply seems to me that “formal leaders” are actually little more than managers, and we are simply coming at the “manager vs leader” issue from a different perspective.
The old proverb tells us “Where there is no vision the people perish” and clearly the times call for vision, but part of the solution has to be to identify the vision and break away from the traditional “command and control” thinking that expects solutions from the people with the “leader status” simply because they have that status. Ultimately, there can be no such thing as a “formal leader”; the leader role has to be earned by inspiring the vision, trust and commitment of thinking people to help them figure out the solution amongst themselves.
This applies within commerce itself as well as in the political system. We have to recognise that our business structures are currently also inappropriate and find a new more responsible, responsive system that moves away from the traditional concepts of “free-markets” and “maximising share-holder value” which clearly have not worked.
Bay
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:45 am
Thanks Bay,
Along with your spot on observations on “manager vs leader” I would add that some situations call for a good manager but that in times of crisis good people need to realize their own responsibility to transcend every day good citizenship by accepting the burden of leadership as it falls to them. In Camus’ story Rieux, the doctor, didn’t run for Mayor of Oran, he stayed a doctor and provided leadership as a doctor.
I think elected and appointed officials can and should bring the capacity for leadership to their offices, but even when they do so it doesn’t let the rest of us off the hook. Vision, trust, and commitment need many hands and voices to make them live.
Helen
October 23rd, 2008 at 4:31 am
Yes indeed, Helen
But we can only provide leadership ourselves if there is an environment or structure that enables this. The current disillusionment with politics and political leaders, apart from the fact the fight is invariably for the middle ground which leaves them barely indistinguishable, is partly the result of our inability to make a difference or even make ourselves heard.
And the same is true in commerce where the legacy of “command and control” management, reinforced by the basic needs on Maslow’s hierarchy (to put a roof over our heads and food on the table), leaves us frustrated, unfulfilled and consequently disengaged. The tragedy is that vision, trust and commitment are more easily crushed than created! To address this we have to find new mechanisms that facilitate leadership at all levels and restrict existing managers capability to crush.
Bay