W. reads Camus

W. reads Camus

Maureen Dowd in her usually biting and vicious way has fun with George W. Bush reading Camus' The Stranger (L'Etranger) in today's New York Times.

It turns out the Yale and Harvard educated George W. Bush finally read Camus’ “L’Etranger” or giving him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he has re-read the work with a sense of irony and maybe even some urgency.

So is our born again Christian moving to the view that absurdity is the state of the universe? How very primitive and unhealthy, but maybe it is a step in the right direction.

As a rule in the future, we should have a Presidential Candidate Test. I have to take a driver’s test to drive a car. A medical doctor has to sit before a medical board and become licensed before taking responsibility for human life. Anybody with a rich daddy or wife can become president – not necessarily a good thing. Considering the toll in human life that a President ultimately controls and influences - seems like at least we the electorate ought takes things a bit more seriously when we select a President if nothing else.

I recently transcended my Camus view of the universe and found some peace of mind as a result. About seven years ago my friend e-Kvetcher (you know who you are) said that Existentialism was a crude, simple philosophy that is outmoded. At the time I had no clue as to what he was talking about - I enjoyed wollering in the despair of an alien, absurd, and indifferent universe. Now seven years later - I get what he meant and agree fully. I hope George W. Bush will do so as well.

As a follow up to this story - I was relating this story to Leslie Sutphen and she quickly said, he should be reading The Plague instead of The Stranger which is much more intellectually humorous to me than Maureen Dowd's recommendation that Bush should be reading The Myth of Sysiphus.