Those Alive Today
“But those I love are the men who are alive today, and walk this same earth. It's they whom I hail, it is for them I am fighting, for them I am ready to lay down my life.” ALBERT CAMUS · THE JUST ASSASSINS
In Camus’s play The Just Assassins, a group of revolutionaries argue about who their struggle is really for. One of them dreams of humanity in the abstract, of future generations, of a perfect world to come. Kaliayev, the one Camus clearly admires, answers with this. The people he loves are not humanity in general. They are the men who are alive today and walk this same earth. It is for them he fights, for them he is ready to die.
This is one of Camus’s deepest convictions, and it is a warning. It is easy to love humanity in the abstract, the great mass of people we will never meet, the noble idea of Mankind. It is much harder, and much truer, to love the actual people in front of us, with their annoying habits and awkward needs. Those who love only the abstraction often end up trampling real people for its sake. Kaliayev refuses. His loyalty is to the living, the particular, the ones sharing his own ground and moment.
Solidarity is not devotion to an idea. It is care for the specific human beings who happen to be alive at the same time as you.
Today, aim your care at someone concrete, not at humanity in general. The neighbor, the coworker, the person across the table. They are the ones who walk this same earth with you now. They are the ones to hail.
