| Chapter 1: | The Fall |
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“[i]n essence, a therapeutic model of communication misapplies a ‘social good’ of counseling and inadvertently moves us back to a communicative dark age” (“Therapeutic” 151). Unfortunately, Clamence does not heed Arnett’s warning that “[c]ommunication, like the rest of life, requires work” (“Therapeutic” 158); he simply seeks to invite his conversation partner into his private sphere, which is governed by his own emotions and feelings. Arnett’s response to such a practice serves as a fitting rejoinder to Clamence himself: “In secular language, show me the evidence, not your intensity of feeling” (“Therapeutic” 157). The confusion of the private and public spheres invites a therapeutic form of communication that adds to the confusion one experiences in the midst of absurdity. Therefore this factor also contributes to the experience of existential homelessness through the added difficulty of finding a home in either the public or private spheres.
Responsibility
As one becomes aware of the absence of common centers for conversation and as, subsequently, the framework for dialogue disappears, possessing genuine concern for another human being becomes a much greater challenge. Clamence, within The Fall, is deeply concerned about his conversation partner as far as that person allows him to share his own side of the story. A certain inevitability arises when one ceases to engage others in dialogue around a common center for conversation and discussion about ideas. The metaphor of absurdity allowed Camus to wrestle with the implications of living in a moment filled with uncertainty and contradiction. “In such a situation, one begins to rely increasingly on ‘the self,’ no longer supported by either a geographic or philosophical sense of home that offers meaning for existence” (Arnett, “Existential” 239). Clamence’s move from Paris to Amsterdam not only is a physical relocation but also coincides with his change in personal philosophy and the emergence of his role as a judge-penitent. This new activity leads Clamence to a series of public confessions that invoke personal feelings and emotions, components of a therapeutic turn within contemporary culture. “The individual self prospers in a therapeutic culture, but institutions