There’s a Simone de Beauvoir line that I’m not sure is quite right. There are, in fact, a few thousand Simone de Beauvoir lines that I’m absolutely sure are completely wrong. This particular line just happens to leave me suspicious but not resolute. The Ethics of Ambiguity is the short book where you’ll find the words that I am unable to concur or condemn:
In the face of an obstacle which it is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid.
At first glance, this looks logical, even wise. Spending your time beating against brick walls—in the analogy that de Beauvoir uses in the same paragraph—is more than a little foolish. There’s nothing to gain and everything to lose, and you could, of course, decide to find a wall that’s breakable. The straightforward lesson is that you should seek out new opportunities rather than persist against endless defeats, which isn’t a bad principle to keep in mind, especially because, in the spirit of all commonplace principles, it is easy to forget.
As I continue with the passage, de Beauvoir builds on that original line, and I start to discern her design:
If I persist in beating my fist against a stone wall, my freedom exhausts itself in this useless gesture without succeeding in giving itself a content. It debases itself in a vain contingency. Yet, there is hardly a sadder virtue than resignation.
It wouldn’t exactly be a stretch to point out that de Beauvoir’s general philosophy is, well, trying, with existentialism in the wrong hands most frequently the cause of long nights staring at the rotations of a ceiling fan. Existentialism isn’t the place you turn if you’re looking to buttress your sense of wellbeing. Yet de Beauvoir ends this paragraph with a point that’s observant and practical and forever true:
There are people who are filled with such horror at the idea of a defeat that they keep themselves from ever doing anything. But no one would dream of considering this gloomy passivity as the triumph of freedom.
Persistence has not been, however, my challenge. Whether that’s a learned trait or a genetic predisposition, I don’t know, although I can certainly conjure a pleasing story that credits my past with a cultivation of this behavior, however dubious that narrative. I’m reasonably good, I believe, at staying bullheaded, especially when it comes to projects that demand a consistent and longterm focus. Unfortunately, uncompromising behaviors are only deemed worthwhile after they are successful. The connotation—for behaviors called intransigent, obstinate, and stubborn—comes retroactively. There’s not exactly a chasm between a dogged success story and the person who doesn’t know when to quit; just as there isn’t always a chasm between the persistent admirer who eventually finds romance and the pigheadedness of harassment.
If you have an inclination for persistence, then you must be careful in selecting your targets. You can abruptly find yourself bitter about wasted time and wasted effort with days, weeks, and years of your life spent in a battle against walls that no longer seem worth confronting. Knowing what walls to topple and what walls to walk around appears to be an underrated skill. Yet there’s no surefire method of knowing in advance what’s a worthwhile amount of stubbornness and what’s a foolish amount of stubbornness. This creates a bit of a paradox: you need to decide what life targets are worthwhile beforehand, but you can only really investigate through experience, which just might kindle a sense of determination toward the wrong trajectory.
Worrying about wasted time, endless confrontations with immovable walls, and existentialism brings thoughts of Sisyphus. Perhaps, for de Beauvoir’s existentialism, there’s no greater archetype of fate than Sisyphus, that ancient myth that evokes so many modern lives. Fittingly, this story is best described by Albert Camus:
You may have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing.
Camus concentrated on just one part of Sisyphus’ story in his brief essay. Not the laborious push of the rock. Not the endless repetitions. And not the injustice of the punishment. It was, for Camus, the walk back down the hill, in full knowledge that the struggle would continue, endlessly, which appeared most revealing.
All Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols…The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing.
Now Camus’ endpoint is to declare Sisyphus joyful in his labor. He becomes ‘the master of his days’—which might be a tad too far for me. Although I can get halfway and agree that Sisyphus recognizes the absurdity of his punishment, and also agree that this recognition is the first step toward dealing with any daily toil, he is still, day after day, pushing a rock up a hill and then watching it roll back down. My impression is that Sisyphus has, however, a better fate with this insight, but this is a consolation rather than a celebration. It comes from a change in perspective rather than a change in circumstances. Which is akin to how de Beauvoir, too, chastised the feeling of resignation, regardless of how much folly is responsible for fate.
The unanswered question—which was my hesitation at the beginning—still pertains to how you confront obstacles that don’t have alternatives. The unbreakable walls that you can’t ignore. The confrontations that you’re destined to lose, again and again. Perhaps the endpoint that both de Beauvoir and Camus reach, by very different paths, isn’t an indifference to those circumstances–it is an awareness that bitterness, anger, and regret are always the wrong sensibility. Of course in times of anguish and turmoil and confusion, of impossible obstacles, this sensibility might feel insufficient, but we can still admire the persistence of anybody who makes the attempt.
Camus's essay is about the absurdity of life and the question of suicide. Sysiphus is about the futility of his daily task, but having chosen life, we can indeed imagine him happy, as Camus states, despite that rock. (Camus does talk about physical exertion and repetition.)
These aren't the themes or philosophy being addressed by Sontag.
Thoughtful piece.
Perhaps it comes down to the muscle we are building while pushing against the immovable obstacle rather than focusing on the end goal that sits behind it. Sometimes it's in the striving that we find meaning and satisfaction. The time to quit may be when we are neither being fed by the struggle nor likely to move the obstacle.
But rarely can we view our plight with such acute objectivity.