Existentialism in Crisis
What Camus and Sartre Would Say About the U.S. Today
đ Camus and Sartre Walk Into America, 2025
âThere always comes a time in history when the person who dares to say that two and two make four is punished.â
â Albert Camus
âMan is nothing else but what he makes of himself.â
â Jean-Paul Sartre
If Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre found themselves dropped into the United States of 2025, they would not marvel at our tech or our wealth. They wouldnât care about streaming services or Super Bowl ads. Theyâd be staring, unblinking, at the moral disintegration of a society that praises freedom while profiting from inequality, violence, and distraction.
Theyâd argue about it, too. Just like old times. But both would agree: something is deeply wrong. And the responsibility lies not in fate, not in God, not in "the times"âbut in us.
đď¸ Camus: The Absurdity of the American Empire
Camus never accepted cruelty as inevitable. He saw absurdity in the dissonance between the worldâs chaos and our yearning for meaning. In America, he would recognize a powerful, self-proclaimed democracy whose institutions perpetuate mass incarceration, militarism, and ecological destructionâall while proclaiming itself a beacon of liberty.
He would see absurdity in:
A political system where billionaires have more power than voters.
A healthcare system where people go bankrupt to survive.
A climate policy that promises action while subsidizing oil giants.
A media landscape that delivers distraction while real lives are crushed.
But Camus wouldn't simply throw up his hands in resignation. His philosophy of the absurd was never a call to nihilismâit was a call to revolt. Not violent revolution, but a rebellion rooted in compassion, in clarity, and in the refusal to accept what is unjust as natural.
âI rebelâtherefore we exist.â
He would admire organizers who build mutual aid networks in food deserts. He would stand with those who protest without dehumanizing. He would reject totalitarianism in all forms, including the tyranny of algorithmic capitalism and corporate rule.
Heâd remind us that in a world lacking clear moral order, our actions matter more, not less. That to live with integrity is itself a form of resistance.
đĽ Sartre: The Machinery of Bad Faith
Sartre, sharper-edged and more overtly political than Camus, would zero in on America's capacity for self-deception. In his view, the United States is a masterclass in bad faith: the deliberate self-lie we tell to avoid the burden of freedom.
âWe do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we areâthat is the fact.â
Heâd argue that Americans are taught from birth to outsource their agencyâto the market, to politicians, to brands. That we are conditioned to perform freedom while remaining captive to debt, wage labor, identity politics divorced from material liberation, and the myth of meritocracy.
In the gig worker juggling three jobs, in the student drowning in debt for a degree that won't pay, in the voter choosing between corporate candidatesâSartre would see a culture trained to normalize powerlessness.
But Sartre wouldnât give us the comfort of excuses. Heâd say: you know. You know the system is unjust. You know your complicity. You know what youâre avoiding.
And that knowledge comes with responsibility.
âEvery word has consequences. Every silence, too.â
He would reject the idea that weâre stuck. Heâd insist that every person has the freedom to act, even under constraintâand that the refusal to act is a choice with moral weight.
Like Camus, Sartre would not advocate apathy or retreat. He would align himself with revolutionary movements grounded in solidarity. He would see hope not in institutions, but in collective action. In organizers, in artists, in rebels with a vision.
âď¸ Where Theyâd Convergeâand Where They Would Clash
Camus and Sartre, once close allies in the French Resistance, famously split over politics. Sartre moved leftward, embracing Marxist and anti-colonial causes; Camus held tighter to a moral universalism, resisting the idea that liberation justified violence.
If they met in America today, their disagreement would still simmer.
Sartre might praise abolitionist movements calling for the end of police and prisons.
Camus might ask how we build justice without becoming what we oppose.
Sartre would rage against U.S. imperialism and climate capitalism.
Camus would mourn, with clarity, the lives crushed by that same empireâand urge us not to become cruel in our pursuit of justice.
But they would agree on this: the greatest threat is not despair, but comfort. The quiet retreat into routine. The myth that you are too small to matter.
đ§ So What Do We Do With Their Words?
You donât need a philosophy degree to engage with existentialism. You donât need to quote Being and Nothingness to revolt against a system that denies dignity. You just need to see clearlyâand refuse to look away.
Camus would say: live as if your choices matter, even in a world that pretends they donât.
Sartre would say: stop lying to yourself. You are free. You are responsible. Choose.
And both would agree: if freedom means anything, it must be livedâeven when itâs hard. Especially when itâs hard.
Because how you live is not just about youâit shapes the world we all share.