Die Lebensanschauungen der großen Denker (1890) (The Problem of Human Life as Viewed by the Great Thinkers)
Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion (1901) (The Truth of Religion)
Der Sinn und Wert des Lebens (1908) (The Meaning and Value of Life)
Können wir noch Christen sein? (1911) (Can We Still Be Christians?)
Der Sozialismus und seine Lebensgestaltung (1920) (Socialism: an Analysis)

After receiving the Nobel prize Eucken enjoyed much international popularity, and received invitations to lecture at several universities, including England and the USA. His fame was short-lived, however, and today his writings are more or less forgotten.
At the prize giving he said, during his lecture:

“Naturalism cannot give to literature an inner independence or allow it an initiative of its own; for if literature is only a hand of life on the dial of time, it can only imitate and register events as they happen. By means of impressive descriptions it may help the time to understand its own desires better; but since creative power is denied to it, it cannot contribute to the inner liberation and elevation of man.”

Against these so called, rational, western leaders, there are the Islamist fundamentalists condemning the Great Satan, again, playing to people’s fears and feelings and, like their western counterparts, refusing to acknowledge their own responsibility in what is happening in the world.

For the time being the politicians seem to be getting away with this nonsense, simply because the people who vote for them are also not demanding rational argument.

My job brings me into contact, mainly, with writers and readers, and it is unusual in those circles to come across many who subscribe to the fancy of evil or the will to evil.

Small children sometimes believe that they do bad things but more mature people act against society or other individuals because they are psychopathic, or greedy or frightened or poor. They may commit crimes from some ideological or chauvinistic conviction, perhaps convincing themselves that the ends justify the means. Vandalism is not brought about by evil, but by envy or boredom.

It is sometimes necessary to point out to beginning writers that discerning readers do not want to see a crowd of hooligans destroying property for the sake of it, because they are evil; but in place of that vision perceptive writers will construct a number of individuals, each with his or her own motivation.

It used to be all right to show the crowd of hooligans, but we have moved on. It used to be all right to particularize the villain of the piece by a physical disability or by the colour of his skin or his ethnic background, but we have moved on.

Apparently it isn’t the case with politicians, they haven’t moved on; but as a writer, if you don’t move on and present a rational argument for your villain’s motivation, you will remain unpublished.

Certainly nothing is commoner nowadays than to see people working from morn till night and then proceeding to fritter away at card tables, in cafes, and in small talk what time is left for living. Nevertheless, there still exist towns and countries where people have now and again an inkling of something different. In general it doesn’t change their lives. Still, they have had an intimation, and that’s so much to the good. Oran, however, seems to be a town without intimations; in other words, completely modern. Hence I see no need to dwell on the manner of loving in our town. The men and women consume each other rapidly in what is called ‘the act of love’, or else settle down to a mild habit of conjugality. We seldom find a mean between these extremes. That, too, is not exceptional. At Oran, as elsewhere, for lack of time and thinking, people have to love each other without knowing much about it.

Camus describes a collective affliction. The plague occupies the town as surely and rigidly and impersonally as a Panzer Division.

And the description is about what happens to the town, the community, as well as the single individuals. The narrator is an individual, and we meet some others, Rieux the doctor, Tarrou and their friends and colleagues, although none of these seem to be fully explored or realised. Camus’ theme is society, it’s illusions and attempts at identity. We read about the indifference of the many; the general consensus that the responsibility for the plague lies elsewhere.

We read about the events of the plague. What happens is reported. There is nothing more than that. Although the progress of the spread and decline of the plague are natural we are always conscious that the plague is a metaphor or an allegory, perhaps a series of metaphors for the Nazi invasion and occupation, or for any thing or concept that imprisons us and takes away our freedom or our expectations.

Camus has a story to tell but he also has a message. Now that God is no longer part of our equation we have to take our destiny into our own hands. Prayer will not defend our freedom. And involvement in the death of others, directly or indirectly, will only add to our problems and not even begin to penetrate the absurdity of our situation.

This post also concerns the writer, Albert Camus

I write novels and publish, most of the time, in mainstream publishing, so I’m involved, from time to time in promoting and helping to sell new books. My own. I arrive for personal appearances in bookshops and libraries, talk about my work, peddle my books.

As a writer, I find myself in the strange position of forever trying to introduce people to new books. Strange for me, because I don’t particularly like new books, or read them very often. I much prefer the old ones, some of which I’ve read before and others which, until now, have managed to give me the slip.

But on my blog I very rarely review new books. In the last year, I’ve reviewed perhaps two or three of them, and for each of those I could quote you extenuating circumstances. Because I don’t normally read new novels, let alone review them. There are far to many old ones that I haven’t got around to yet.

Generally, new commodities are preferable to old ones. New socks for old, that would make perfect sense to me, and, were someone to offer it, I’d be somewhere near the front of the queue. A new car for my old one, or a new computer for my old one, yes, without a lot of hesitation, I would probably take you up on both offers.

But new books for old, that is something entirely different. Books are about content, we value them for what they say or what they tell us about our condition. And, in my experience, the old books, the ones that have been around for some time, often perform that function better than the new ones, the ones that are advertised on the television or on the publisher’s hoardings.

I believe – 200,000 new titles published in the UK last year, something approaching the same number in the USA, and that’s before we begin looking at numbers in the rest of Europe, in Asia, Africa and South America – that too many new books are published each year. I would like to see fewer, but better quality titles.

Please feel free to rage about it if you must.

Next World Book Day you will, more likely, find me in the queue that is giving away old books for new. Because in that line I’ll be more likely to find something that I want to read.

(Oh, yes, I almost forgot to mention: I’m not promoting a new novel just now, but you can see some of my old titles here.)

That trend toward enlightenment has indeed continued in Europe and Britain. It just has not continued in the U.S., and not in the Islamic world. We’re seeing a rather unholy alliance between the burgeoning theocracy in the U.S. and its allies, the theocrats in the Islamic world. They are fighting the same battle: Christian on one side, Muslim on the other. The very large numbers of people in the United States and in Europe who don’t subscribe to that worldview are caught in the middle.

Actually, holy alliance would be a better phrase. Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion. Both have implacable faith that they are right and the other is evil. Each believes that when he dies he is going to heaven. Each believes that if he could kill the other, his path to paradise in the next world would be even swifter. The delusional “next world” is welcome to both of them. This world would be a much better place without either of them.

My Lord, I loved strawberry jam
And the dark sweetness of a woman’s body.
Also well-chilled vodka, herring in olive oil,
Scents, of cinnamon, of cloves.
So what kind of prophet am I? Why should the spirit
Have visited such a man? Many others
Were justly called, and trustworthy.
Who would have trusted me? For they saw
How I empty glasses, throw myself on food,
And glance greedily at the waitress’s neck.
Flawed and aware of it. Desiring greatness,
Able to recognise greatness wherever it is,
And yet not quite, only in part, clairvoyant,
I knew what was left for smaller men like me:
A feast of brief hopes, a rally of the proud,
A tournament of hunchbacks, literature.

‘The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.’

Richard Dawkins

The whole story is on Spiegal Online International.

‘I doubt it, Celia. Were there any women architects in your generation?’

‘Yes, there were, Marie. You’d be surprised how many. They designed roof gardens and patios, kindergartens and country cottages.’

‘But not social security buildings.’

‘Not that I know of. But it wasn’t for lack of talent, there was a dearth of opportunity. If we had a level playing field, which is what we should have. If women were given the same opportunities as men and the same wages and if the system was fair right through the education system and beyond, then I believe we’d see women architects making the same kind of mess as the men do today.’

‘OK, there’d be a few. But women would bring something new to architecture. Overall there’d be an improvement.’

‘I’d like to think you were right,’ Celia said. ‘There’d be some progress. But the rewards of progress aren’t always what they seem. The motorways were regarded as progress a few years ago, now we wonder if they’re such a good thing. Technology, the industrial revolution, all of that was progress, but now we’ve got global warming as a result, your house is under water and it looks increasingly as if mine will be within a few days.’

‘You sound rather reactionary, Celia. As if you’d like everything to stand still, maintain the status quo.’

‘Not at all, Marie. You know me by now. I’m not a conventional person. I applaud the women’s movement and every step we take towards equality with men is worth celebrating. But I don’t want us to fool ourselves. We won’t end with a perfect world, all we’ll have gained is equality. There will still be the big questions of freedom to deal with. Gender is only one of the things that divide us. When we’ve sorted that one out we’ll still have the divisions of class and race, of rich and poor. Men and women aren’t perfectible, that’s what makes them so fascinating.’

‘All we’ll have gained is equality? Seems to me like that would be wonderful.’

‘It could be,’ Celia said. ‘But it doesn’t have to be. Equality in itself isn’t wonderful or disappointing, taken out of context it doesn’t have those kinds of values. There are certain realms where equality fits, where equality is essential, and there are other areas of life where equality is inappropriate. We should all have equal rights, access to housing and justice and jobs. It would be wrong if we weren’t all equal in those areas. But in the cultural life we aren’t equal. We can’t all be musicians of the same calibre, or dancers, or poets or teachers. We can’t be equal as potters. In those areas we need to maintain our individualities and our freedom. If we bring equality in there it will choke self-expression and the planet will dry up and die.

‘We’ve got to establish equality and freedom but we have to know where they are appropriate so that they serve our interests. This is something that governments don’t seem to concern themselves with. Their paternalism doesn’t extend itself to social education. They’d rather cut down the pension payments and give us a bag of coal at Christmas so we retain our confusion.’