Help, please, froggies!

[vinteuil]

I don't think Camus could have meant 'an intellectual' in the simple dictionary definition "(a) a highly intelligent person who pursues academic interests; (b) a person who cultivates the mind or mental powers and pursues learning and cultural interests". Isn't he trying to describe a distinctive way in which a person's mind works?

... isn't part of the problem here that Camus is not describing 'an intellectual' but 'un intellectuel'.

What the French understand by the term 'intellectuel' is different from what English speakers understand by 'intellectual'. Notoriously it can be used as an insult in English ; British society doesn't provide the same kind of respect or space for a 'public intellectual' which is regularly afforded by the French. I think Fr: Fr:'s question is doomed to be unanswerable unless the different connotations in French and English are teazed out.

http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2006/05/24/la-pensee-une-manie-francaise

[french frank]

I think Fr: Fr:'s question is doomed to be unanswerable unless the different connotations in French and English are teazed out.

http://www.courrierinternational.com...anie-francaise

You may have put your finger on the problem, M. Vinteuil. I should have realised that when someone appears to take a different view, you should take the precaution of checking that you're talking about the identical concept.

I remember listening to a discussion about 'shame' on Radio 3 with increasing irritation when no one had realised they were not discussing the same concept

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, I was originally angling for a debate about what Camus meant by the phrase: "quelqu'un dont le cerveau s'absente lui-même" vis-à-vis the common translation "someone whose mind watches itself".

I don't know what you would mean by 'feelings' about, for instance, the expression of an opinion or a statement. Feelings of liking? disliking? agreeing? disgreeing? judgemental feelings? hostile/friendly feelings towards the person who made the statement? Is any response to a stimulus a 'feeling'? I don't find a definition which isn't connected with the physical or emotional.

I too would find such a definition impossible to find. Any kind of response in the organism would by definition have to be physical, surely? Whether or not one is aware of it at the time is moot, I would think, because when does the response feel like a feeling? is it only in the hand that has touched the hot oven top, or the stomach that has reacted to an insult or verbal threat with pain or fear? These things have corresponding reactions in the brain, which is not compartmentalised so that the intellectualising aspect of its processes has evolved separate from language development, on the one hand, and gut reaction on the other. While it may take a strong feeling to consciously register, this is not to deny the presence of feelings general in responding, I wouldn't have thought. When one asks a person "How are you feeling", you are enquiring into their emotional state, no? This in my estimation would make an intellectual, of any nationality, able to detach from any response in feelings, whether to external or for that matter internal stimuli, a very unusual, and, to me, suspect being.

I don't think Camus could have meant 'an intellectual' in the simple dictionary definition "(a) a highly intelligent person who pursues academic interests; (b) a person who cultivates the mind or mental powers and pursues learning and cultural interests". Isn't he trying to describe a distinctive way in which a person's mind works?

If the latter, I would be intrigued to meet such a person, should they exist.

[jayne lee wilson]

I do think "someone whose mind watches itself" is a poor translation, too evocative of a static vigilance.

S'absenter has a strong sense of: leaving, going away, going somewhere else; the ability to see another view, like travelling through a different landscape; a sense of movement, fluidity of thought. So "one whose mind can go beyond itself".... rendered as above "someone who can think beyond the purely subjective". (Which translation has at least the merit (I hope ) of being idiomatic and readily understood.).

So - Someone who isn't always beholden to their own preconceptions and prejudices, however emotional. I put the "can" in there because it feels true to the spirit of Camus' line, that the intellectual at least tries to think outside their own box..

[Beverlyc]

"An intellectual is someone whose mind cuts itself free." I suppose free from the norm and is therefore able to expand the mind through intellectual study or pursuits? Or do we think this is too simplistic?

[french frank]

I do think "someone whose mind watches itself" is a poor translation, too evocative of a static vigilance.

I think the translator tried to work out what Camus meant and then rephrased the reinterpretation. Possibly from Ryan Bloom's standard translation of the Carnets - which would explain why it's always quoted in the same way in English: they've all read the same book.

So - Someone who isn't always beholden to their own preconceptions and prejudices, however emotional. I put the "can" in there because it feels true to the spirit of Camus' line, that the intellectual at least tries to think outside their own box..

That was certainly what I felt Camus was getting at - freeing the mind to see all possibilities, rather than being programmed ('imprisoned') by individual prejudice, temperament &c.

[french frank]

"An intellectual is someone whose mind cuts itself free." I suppose free from the norm and is therefore able to expand the mind through intellectual study or pursuits? Or do we think this is too simplistic?

I confess that I was surprised to find that definitions of the adjective 'intellectual' do frequently associate it with study, academic pursuits, and so on. I thought of it more in terms of a natural tendency to scrutinise, to question, seeking answers, perfectly possible on a relatively mundane level.

[Dermot]

... isn't part of the problem here that Camus is not describing 'an intellectual' but 'un intellectuel'.

What the French understand by the term 'intellectuel' is different from what English speakers understand by 'intellectual'. Notoriously it can be used as an insult in English ; British society doesn't provide the same kind of respect or space for a 'public intellectual' which is regularly afforded by the French. I think Fr: Fr:'s question is doomed to be unanswerable unless the different connotations in French and English are teazed out.

Elizabeth Taylor tells of the occasion she went to the theatre with Ivy Compton-Burnett and Herman Schrijver to see a performance of Beckett's Happy Days:

It was a sparse audience and Ivy took a great interest in it.
'Would you call it an intellectual audience, Herman?' (Too distinct voice in too empty auditorium).
'One or two look that way inclined,' he whispered. 'Do you think they are staring at us, because they think we are intellectuals?'
'Of course they don't think that,' she said scornfully, 'We are far too well dressed.'

[french frank]

Elizabeth Taylor tells of the occasion she went to the theatre with Ivy Compton-Burnett and Herman Schrijver to see a performance of Beckett's Happy Days:

It was a sparse audience and Ivy took a great interest in it.
'Would you call it an intellectual audience, Herman?' (Too distinct voice in too empty auditorium).
'One or two look that way inclined,' he whispered. 'Do you think they are staring at us, because they think we are intellectuals?'
'Of course they don't think that,' she said scornfully, 'We are far too well dressed.'

Many a true word … The story does suggest a connection with a 'social elite', though I'm not sure whether Dame Ivy was betraying her own view or second guessing what the audience members might think.

It seems that, regardless of what Camus himself said or thought, the word 'intellectual' is susceptible of many interpretations - favourable and unfavourable (mainly the latter in this country). Perhaps that goes back to the time when most people had no chance to go to university, and half of those who did go weren't interested in studying (were too well dressed, in fact!).

[Dave2002]

My first reaction, and not being particularly intellectual, probably my last: I think Camus is trying to say that an intellectual's mind makes (or should make) decisions or analyses whilst avoiding the experiences of the brain that holds it, in a vacuum. How about "An intellectual is one whose mind frees itself from the individual"?

Camus has some of the same properties as Mr W.S. - any quote can mean the opposite of itself, and any quote can be used to reinforce two differing points of view (one can say it is the character's view, not the author's).

ps NOT a froggie, as Hercule Poirot constantly points out.
pps. when at school, loved Camus but hated the works, hated Celine but loved the works.

I knew next to nothing about Céline, so looked him up - https://www.theguardian.com/books/bo...e-great-author Indeed I thought with a name like that he'd have been a woman - so that shows how ignorant I was.

More about him - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-...nd_C%C3%A9line

I thought I'd better check on Camus too, for completeness - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus
Could he have been considered French at that time, having been born in Algeria? Would he have automatically had French citizenship?

Isn't the thread title just a tad "non PC"?

I write as one of the "roast beefs".

[Alain Maréchal]

Could he have been considered French at that time, having been born in Algeria? Would he have automatically had French citizenship?

Algeria was not merely a colony. From the mid-nineteenth century until independence it was a fully integrated part of France, a département (91) which elected deputies and senators to Paris. So yes, he would have.

[Serial_Apologist]

Algeria was not merely a colony. From the mid-nineteenth century until independence it was a fully integrated part of France, a département (91) which elected deputies and senators to Paris. So yes, he would have.

You've just reminded me of the "difference" we were taught at school between "direct rule", as exercised by the French over their dominions, and the "indirect rule" favoured by the British. The latter was always "explained" as accounting for the "superiority" of British colonial rule resulting in few - if any (!) - rebellions by restive natives. This was back in the 1950s, as we stared in awe at the map of the globe, with its huge land masses coloured in pink, and it wouldn't surprise me if such pro-imperialist propaganda had been inculcated into several generations of white, English school children.

[vinteuil]

Algeria was not merely a colony. From the mid-nineteenth century until independence it was a fully integrated part of France, a département (91) which elected deputies and senators to Paris. So yes, he would have.

... I taught in Algeria for a year after university. My landlady, a pied noir who had stayed on, had been répétiteur at the Constantine opera house, and she was full of stories of the various Parisian companies that had visited Constantine as part of their French tournées ...

[french frank]

You've just reminded me of the "difference" we were taught at school between "direct rule", as exercised by the French over their dominions, and the "indirect rule" favoured by the British. The latter was always "explained" as accounting for the "superiority" of British colonial rule resulting in few - if any (!) - rebellions by restive natives. This was back in the 1950s, as we stared in awe at the map of the globe, with its huge land masses coloured in pink, and it wouldn't surprise me if such pro-imperialist propaganda had been inculcated into several generations of white, English school children.

Camus was also of a long-established pied noir family, but unlike M. Vinteuil's landlady, I think he 'returned' to France.

He opposed the Algerian war of independence, favouring some system whereby Algeria was both 'independent and French'. But his opposition to the war and its aim of separation from France put him at odds with the French anti-colonial left when he was living in Paris.

[P. G. Tipps]

You've just reminded me of the "difference" we were taught at school between "direct rule", as exercised by the French over their dominions, and the "indirect rule" favoured by the British. The latter was always "explained" as accounting for the "superiority" of British colonial rule resulting in few - if any (!) - rebellions by restive natives. This was back in the 1950s, as we stared in awe at the map of the globe, with its huge land masses coloured in pink, and it wouldn't surprise me if such pro-imperialist propaganda had been inculcated into several generations of white, English school children.

Maybe I'm missing something here from your anti-imperialist line of thought, S_A, but isn't indirect rule of somebody else's land slightly less imperialist than direct rule?

Maybe a bit like the anti-imperialist Soviet imperialism in Eastern Europe in even more recent times, perhaps ... ?