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[Music]
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that camu was an extremely handsome mid
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20th century French Algerian philosopher
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and writer whose claim to our attention
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is based on three novels the outsider
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the played for fall and two
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philosophical essays the myth of
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sisyphus and the rebel can we won the
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Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 and
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died at the age of 46 inadvertently
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killed by his publisher Michel Galya Mao
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when his Facel Vega sports car they were
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in crashed into a tree in his pocket was
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a train ticket he decided not to use at
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the last minute Camus fame began with
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and still largely rests upon his novel
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of 1942 the outsider set in CHEM use
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native Algiers it follows the story of a
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laconic detached ironic hero called meso
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a man who can't see the point of LA for
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work or friendship and who one day
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somewhat by mistake shoots dead an Arab
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man without knowing his own motivations
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and ends up being put to death partly
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because he doesn't show any remorse but
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not really caring for his fate one way
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or the other the novel captures the
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State of Mind defined by the sociologist
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Emile Durkheim as enemy a listless
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affectless alienated condition where one
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feels entirely cut off from others and
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can't find a way to share their
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sympathies or values reading the
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outsider has long been a well-known
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adolescent rite of passage among French
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and many other teenagers which isn't a
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way of doing it down for a lot of the
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greatest themes are first tackled at 17
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or so the hero of the outsider Nassau
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cannot accept any of the standard
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answers for why things are the way they
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are he sees hypocrisy and sentimentality
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everywhere and can't overlook it he's a
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man who can't accept the normal
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explanations given to explain things
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like the education system the workplace
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relationships or the mechanisms of
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government he stands outside normal
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bourgeois life highly critical of its
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pinch'd morality and narrow concerns for
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money and family as can we put it in an
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afterword he wrote for the American
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edition of the book Nassau doesn't play
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the game he refuses to lie he says what
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he is he refuses to hide his feelings
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and so society immediately
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feels threatened much of the unusual
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mesmerizing quality of the book comes
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from the cruelly distant voice in which
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muscle speaks to us his readers the
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opening is one of the most legendary in
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20th century literature and sets the
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tone or Audrey Momoa must protect the
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air bruno CIPA the endings a star gun as
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defiant Nassau condemned to death for a
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murder committed almost off hand because
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it could be interesting to know what
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it's like to press the trigger rejects
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all consolations and heroically accepts
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the universe is total indifference to
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humankind
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my last wish was that there should be a
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crowd of spectators at my execution and
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they should greet me with cries of
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hatred even if we're not killers and
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will ourselves be really quite sad when
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our mother dies the mood of the outsider
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is one we're all liable to have some
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experience of when we have enough
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freedom to realize we're in a cage but
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not quite enough freedom to escape it
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when no one seems to understand and
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everything appears a little hopeless
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perhaps in the summer before we go to
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college aside from the outsider come
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whose Fame rests on an essay published
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the same year as the novel called the
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myth of Sisyphus this book too has a
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bold beginning there is but one truly
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serious philosophical problem and that
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is suicide
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judging whether life is or is not worth
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living that is the fundamental question
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of philosophy the reason for this stark
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choice is in cameos eyes because as soon
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as we start to think seriously as
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philosophers do we will see that life
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has no meaning and therefore we will be
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compelled to wonder whether or not we
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should just be done with it all to make
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sense of this rather extreme claim in
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thesis we have to situate kami in the
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history of thought his dramatic
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announcement that we have to consider
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killing ourselves because life might be
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meaningless is premise on a previous
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notion that life could actually be rich
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in God given meaning the concept which
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will sound remote to many of us today
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and yet we have to bear in mind that for
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the last two thousand years in the West
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a sense that life was meaningful was a
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given accorded by one institution above
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any other Christian Church come you
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stands in a long line of thinkers from
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Kierkegaard to Nietzsche to Heidegger
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and sap who wrestle with a chilling
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realization that there is in fact no
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preordained meaning in life
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we're just biological matters
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winning senselessly on a tiny rock in a
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corner of an indifferent universe we
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would not put here by a benevolent deity
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and asked to work towards salvation in
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the shape of the Ten Commandments
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there's no roadmap and no bigger point
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and it's this realization that lies at
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the heart of so many of the crises
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reported by the thinkers we now know as
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the existentialists a child of
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despairing modernity Albert Camus
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accepts that all our lives are absurd in
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the grander scheme but unlike some
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philosophers he ends up resisting utter
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hopelessness or nihilism you argues that
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we have to live with the knowledge that
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our effort will be largely futile alive
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soon forgotten and our species
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irredeemably corrupt and violent and yet
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we should endure nevertheless we are
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like Sisyphus the Greek figure ordained
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by the gods to roll a boulder up a
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mountain and to watch it fall back down
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again in perpetuity but ultimately can
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we suggest we should cope as well as we
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can at whatever we have to do we have to
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acknowledge the absurd background to
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existence and then triumph over the
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constant possibility of hopelessness in
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his famous formulation one must imagine
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Sisyphus happy this brings us to the
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most charming and seductive side of
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kambou the Kami who wants to remind
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himself and us of the reasons why life
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can be worth enduring and who in the
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process writes with exceptional
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intensity and wisdom about relationships
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nature the summer food and friendship as
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a guide to the reasons to live commute
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is delightful many philosophers have
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been ugly and cut off from their bodies
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think of sickly Pascal crippled leopardi
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sexually unsuccessful Schopenhauer or
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poor peculiar Nietzsche Camus was by
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contrast very good-looking extremely
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successful with women for the last 10
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years of his life he never had fewer
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than three girlfriends on the go and
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wives as well and he had a great dress
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sense
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influenced by James Dean and Humphrey
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Bogart it isn't surprising that he was
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asked to pose by Americans oh these
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weren't all just stylistic works once
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you properly realized that life is
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absurd you're on the verge of despair
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perhaps but also compelled to live life
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more intensely accordingly
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Camus grew committed to and deeply
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serious about the pleasures of ordinary
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life he said he saw his philosophy as
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elusive invitation to live and to create
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in the very midst of the desert he was a
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great champion of the ordinary which
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generally has a hard time finding
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champions in philosophy and after pages
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and pages of
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densa philosophy one turns with relief
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to moments when Camus writes with
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simplicity in praise of sunshine kissing
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or dancing he was an outstanding athlete
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as a young man once asked by his friend
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shall Paul say which he preferred
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football or the theater cam he was said
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to have replied football without
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hesitation can we play this goalkeeper
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for the junior local Algiers team racing
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University tailed algae which won both
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the North African Champions Cup and the
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North African Cup in the 1930s the sense
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of team spirit fraternity and common
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purpose appealed to commute enormous Lee
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when he was asked in the 1950s by a
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sports magazine for a few words
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regarding his time with football he said
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after many years during which I saw many
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things would I know most surely about
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morality and the duty of man I owe to
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sport cami was also a great advocate of
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the Sun his beautiful essay summer in
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Algiers celebrates the warmth of the
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water and the brown bodies of women he
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writes for the first time in two
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thousand years the body has appeared
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naked on beaches for twenty centuries
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men have striven to give decency to
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Greek insolence and naivety to diminish
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the flesh and complicate dress but today
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young men running on Mediterranean
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beaches repeat the gestures of the
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athletes of Delos he spoke up for a new
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paganism based on the immediate
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pleasures of the body this extract from
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summer in Algiers I recall a magnificent
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tall girl who danced all afternoon she
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was wearing a Jasmine garland on her
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tight blue dress wet with perspiration
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from the small of her back to her legs
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she was laughing as she danced and
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throwing back her head as she passed the
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tables she left behind her a mingled
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scent of flowers and flesh
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can we rail against those who would
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dismiss such things as trivial and long
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for something higher better purer if
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there is a sin against this life ye
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wrote it consists perhaps not so much in
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despairing of life as in hoping for
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another life and eluding the quiet
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grandeur of this one in a letter he
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remarked people attract me in so far as
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their impassioned about life and avid
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for happiness there are causes worth
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dying for but none worth killing for
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can we achieve huge acclaim in his
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lifetime but the Parisian intellectual
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community was deeply suspicious of him
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he never was a Parisian sophisticate he
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was a working-class P noir that is
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someone
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in Algeria but of European origin whose
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father had died of war wounds when he
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was an infant and his mother was a
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cleaning lady it isn't a coincidence
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that can be favorite philosopher was
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Milton another very down-to-earth
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Frenchman and someone one can love as
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much for what he wrote as to what he was
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like someone would would have wanted as
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a wise and life-enhancing friend this
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too is what philosophy is about
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you
