
What we can learn from Camus’s “The Plague” - lermontov
https://lithub.com/what-we-can-learn-and-should-unlearn-from-albert-camuss-the-plague/
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Tade0
"The Plauge" was one of the few books I've read during high school for a book
report because I... fried my CPU and couldn't use my PC during spring break
so, having nothing better to do, I sat down and read the whole thing.

I could very much feel the loss of agency the characters had to endure,
because computers were my whole world back then.

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jonstewart
I read this in college 20 years ago, and understood it as an allegory of
existentialism (which it is). I’ve been thinking A LOT about it the last few
weeks. Worth a read, but not for the faint of heart.

~~~
finaliteration
Camus actively rejected labeling his work as “existentialism”. It only
frequently gets lumped into that category because of his
relationship/friendship with Sartre and de Beauvoir and because some of his
work contains existentialist-like themes. He was more accepting of the term
“absurdism” for his work. But his work never fully aligned with existentialist
thought.

“The Plague” is typically read as an allegory of the French resistance to the
Nazi invasion and occupation of France, and an analysis of the relationship
that humans have with authoritarianism, fascism, and how we can either help or
hurt each other in times of crisis. Camus was also a humanist and believed
that people were more good than evil (which he comments on in “The Plague”).

Source: I got my university degree in Philosophy and Camus was my main subject
of interest/study for a number of years (and continues to be even now).

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DyslexicAtheist
this is just fascinating for me since I picked up _The Stranger_ last week and
am mesmerized by his writing style. The Plague is now next on my list. I don't
want to compare him with others since he very much has a distinct & brilliant
style (short crisp and far from pretentious - sentences are clear and appeal
to uneducated riffraff like myself - think I have seen this also in Orwell and
Hemingway). The feelings and emotions he raises in me are nevertheless similar
to those I get when reading Kafka and Dostoevsky. Truly amazing being in this
man's head. I only regret not having picked up his work sooner.

~~~
antognini
It's worth noting that Camus consciously adopted an "American" literary style
in _The Stranger_ which was modeled off of authors like Hemingway.

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carapace
"It may seem a ridiculous idea, but the only way to fight the plague is with
decency." ~Camus

~~~
sleazy_b
This was the great lesson of this book for me, and it is a constant
inspiration to me.

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arcticbull
Fair, although I think we need to remember in difficult times like this that:

\- The plague killed 50-100% of people who got it depending on which kind of
plague you got (bubonic, pneumonic or septicemic) whereas while nCoV rates are
still TBD we're probably looking at an upper bound closer to half a percent,
or 3-4 order of magnitude lower.

\- The average age of folks who've died of nCoV so far in Italy is _80_ and in
China the mid-high 70s.

\- The plague took _everyone_ whereas the young and healthy are effectively
going to get a (sometimes very, very) bad cold out of nCoV. The younger they
are, the less affected. I think out of the hundreds of thousands of cases we
know about so far only a single child has died -- and they had serious medical
conditions going in. Currently the CFR in Korea and in the USA for people
under 30 is less than 0.1%.

Perspective matters. It's easy to get swept up in the panic going on right
now. Don't panic. Do listen to authorities and generally keep away from other
folks. This will all be over in a few months. We'll mostly all get it, we'll
overwhelmingly recover, and become immune. Chances are this is going to become
one of the endemic viruses that shows up every year from now on.

As panic sets in, if you've got some cash to invest in the markets and a long
time horizon to draw on it, this may be the money making opportunity of a
generation.

~~~
vasco
I'm 28, fit, physically active (bouldering / running / gym), no pre-conditions
whatsoever, take vitamin D supplementation, I don't take any medication.

I'm going through a nasty pneumonia that hurts my lungs just breathing and
I've never had something like this before. I get tired just walking around,
whereas 2 weeks ago I did a 40 minute 10k. Take that anecdata as you will, but
if you can protect yourself, do.

So when you say it's just a "bad cold", I chuckle a bit. What's going to
happen to the millions of overweight, high blood pressure / diabetic
Americans? Sure don't panic, but be safe.

~~~
MikeAmelung
This is interesting... I wonder if we're eventually going to see that this
virus is worse for Italian/Spanish/Portuguese genetics. Italy has been hit
super hard, New York (the most Italian ancestry in the US) is being hit hard.
Just a hypothesis, don't everyone try to kill me at once, please.

~~~
arcticbull
Interesting hypothesis of course, I suspect it's because the outbreak was in
Lombardy which is much older on average and has 3X the average number of
comorbid conditions.

~~~
blaser-waffle
Italy as a whole has a higher proportion of elderly folks.

Also a lot of Italy and Spain have adults who tend to live at home or with
(older) family, which also makes it far easier to expose them on an individual
basis.

