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7 November 1913—4 January 1960

Resisting Murder

Philosopher, novelist, and activist Albert Camus was no stranger to violence. During the Nazi occupation of France, he was a member of the French Resistance and edited the illegal newspaper Combat under the nom de guerre “Beauchard.” But by war’s end, he was sick of the killing and destruction he’d witnessed. He knew there had to be a better way to resolve differences. He voiced his conviction in 1946 in a remarkable series of essays titled Neither Victims nor Executioners.

Camus argued that people today live in a constant state of fear and that this fear “implies and rejects the same fact: a world where murder is legitimate and where human life is considered trifling.” The fear is often translated into patriotic zeal that encourages killing for one’s country. But for his part, declared Camus, he can no longer “hold to any truth which might oblige me, directly or indirectly, to demand a man’s life.” He will not be a murderer, and will resist those who advocate murder. Camus admitted that he wasn’t naïve enough to wish for a world in which violence is eliminated, “but rather one in which murder is not legitimated” by the state.

A first step toward resisting murder is defending the right of “universal intercommunication,” or “le dialogue,” between humans. At the very least, this means refusing to see natives of other countries, cultures, beliefs, and tongues as strangers to be feared and resisted. It’s difficult to wage war when the “enemy” wears a human face.

Camus lived by these principles for the rest of his life. He was an outspoken champion of pacifism and opponent of capital punishment. He became an advocate for human rights, working with UNESCO until resigning to protest the United Nations’ recognition of Generalissimo Franco as Spain’s ruler. He tried to arbitrate a peaceful settlement in the Algerian War, a conflict that especially disturbed him since he was born in Algeria to a pied-noir or French settler family. He spoke out against Soviet aggression at a time when it was unfashionable for intellectuals to do so. And in his writings—novels, plays, political essays, and philosophical monographs—he tirelessly urged his readers to join him in resisting murder. “All I ask,” he wrote, “is that in the midst of a murderous world, we agree to reflect on murder and to make a choice. After that, we can distinguish those who accept the consequences of being murderers themselves or the accomplices of murderers, and those who refuse to do so with all their force and being.”

Albert Camus died in a car accident three years after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.