What Must Be Defended
“It is fear and silence and the spiritual isolation they cause that must be fought today. And it is sociability and the universal intercommunication of men that must be defended.” ALBERT CAMUS · NEITHER VICTIMS NOR EXECUTIONERS
Writing just after the war, in a series of essays called Neither Victims nor Executioners, Camus sets the whole task in a single pair of sentences.
Notice how he divides the world. On one side, the things that cut people off from each other. Fear, which makes us suspicious. Silence, which lets lies stand unchallenged. And the spiritual isolation these breed, each person sealed in a private cell, trusting no one. On the other side, the things that join us. Sociability, the plain human habit of turning toward one another, and what he beautifully calls the universal intercommunication of men, the sense that every person is reachable, that no one is finally a stranger.
Solidarity, for Camus, is not a warm mood. It is a fight, with a clear enemy and a clear thing to protect. The enemy is everything that isolates us. The thing to protect is the bond between human beings, our power to reach one another across every distance.
We spent June learning to stand on our own ground. We end today knowing that ground was never meant to isolate us. It was meant to be the place from which we reach out.
Strike one blow in that fight this week. Break a silence that has gone on too long, or refuse a fear that is keeping you apart from someone. Defend, in one small act, the intercommunication of men.
