The Slaves of History
“History is a sterile earth where heather does not grow. Yet men today have chosen history, and they neither could nor should turn away from it. But instead of mastering it, they agree a little more each day to be its slave.” ALBERT CAMUS · PROMETHEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD
In 1946 Camus wrote a short essay mourning a god. Prometheus stole fire for human beings and was punished for loving them, and Camus thought his own century had quietly abandoned him. The line that stings comes midway through.
Look at the careful middle he keeps. He does not tell us to withdraw, to stop reading the news, to cultivate a private garden and let the world burn.
We neither could nor should turn away. The problem is not engagement. The problem is the surrender hidden inside the engagement, and he names its rhythm exactly. A little more each day. Nobody wakes up a slave to events. You consent by degrees.
The degrees are recognizable once you look. Letting the argument of the week decide what you think about. Postponing the actual life, the friendships and the work and the ordinary beauty, until the situation improves. Camus wanted us to hold the world without letting it hold us, and warned that only one of those two happens by default.
Some hours of your attention have quietly become the property of the news. An hour, a conversation, an entire evening. Take one of them back and master a little of it yourself.
