The Name of Man
“And, despite yourselves, I shall still apply to you the name of man. In order to keep faith with ourselves, we are obliged to respect in you what you do not respect in others.” ALBERT CAMUS · LETTERS TO A GERMAN FRIEND
In July 1944, with the liberation of Paris weeks away, Camus wrote the last of his letters to that imagined German friend. He tells the man plainly that he is about to be destroyed, that his cause is finished and his side is losing. And in the same breath he refuses to take from him anything a person is owed.
Read the reason he gives, because it is not the one we expect. He does not claim the enemy has earned respect. He says the opposite, that the enemy has forfeited every claim he might have made. The reason sits in the phrase to keep faith with ourselves. The limit is not a gift to the other side. It is the only way to remain the thing you are fighting for. Drop it and you may win the war while losing the reason you fought it.
Camus admitted what this cost. It made his side slower and, for a while, weaker. The enemy killed more easily. He thought the handicap was precisely the point, because a victory bought by becoming them would not be a victory at all.
Think of someone you have quietly stopped counting as fully human, whose behavior you feel excuses your own. Give back the name. Not for their sake. For yours.
