When every day many of us wake up to read about fresh horrors on our fresh horrors device, we might find ourselves contemplating the question as to whether, as Albert Camus supposedly put it, one should kill oneself or have a cup of coffee. If there is any philosopher who is famous for contemplating suicide, it’s Camus who, in a more serious tone, proposed in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus that, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.''
The existentialists and Stoics are notorious for being at loggerheads on many issues. Yet Simone de Beauvoir, who was much less famous for her views on suicide than Camus, gives an example that shows the existential answer isn’t so far removed from the Stoic one – a fascinating case of philosophical convergence, two millennia apart.
In 1954, Beauvoir was awarded France’s most prestigious literary prize for her book The Mandarins, in which the main character Anne contemplates suicide. When once she saw the world as vast and inexhaustible, she now looks at it with indifference: “The earth is frozen over; nothingness has reclaimed it.” Her great love affair has collapsed, her daughter has grown up and no longer needs her, and she finds her profession unfulfilling. It’s not only that she feels her life no longer counts, but also existing is torturous and her memories are agony. Suicide seems like an escape from the pain. Clutching the brown vial of poison, Anne hears her daughter’s voice outside and it jars her into considering the effect of her death on other people. “My death does not belong to me,” she concludes, because “it’s the others who would live my death.”
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"If having a cup of coffee is a blasé return to the quotidian, then that’s just not good enough. However, if one embraces the coffee as an affirmation that life is worth living, then choose your espresso and leap into the day."
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In her later autobiography, Beauvoir said that she wanted Anne’s survival in her mundane existence to seem like a defeat. This outcome implies not only that suicide is difficult, but that its difficulty lies in the fact that apathy is not a viable option – which one of the characters suggests earlier in the book. Living isn’t just about breathing; living implies that you actively recognize value in life, which Anne found in her relationships. Other people don’t always infuse our life with joy, but they can certainly give it meaning.
Nevertheless, embracing life and living passionately when one is despondent about existence is easier said than done. There is no explicit answer in The Mandarins. In typical existential style, it’s up to us to work it out for ourselves, to figure out what gives our life meaning. However, elsewhere, Beauvoir gives a more active interpretation: “Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay,” implying that we might only get one life, so let’s treat it as a gift and make the most of it. If having a cup of coffee is a blasé return to the quotidian, then that’s just not good enough. However, if one embraces the coffee as a meaningful part of one’s existence, for example, as an affirmation that life is worth living, then choose your espresso and leap into the day.
Massimo Pigliucci
Issue 60, 6th November 2017
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