The Theatre of the Absurd

Abstract

In our time we have seen the demonic emerge in all its starkness, and we have learned why it emerges: The demonic comes into being for man whenever he is manipulated by large impersonal forces beyond his control; forces that he is actively and uncritically contributing to. Thus, when modem man sets in motion vast social institutions but does not take critical control of them, the institutions assume their own momentum; the people who man the institutions become like ants mechanically doing their duty, and no one dares to question the routine to which the institutions conform. The result is that there is no way of breaking through the uncritical fictions that control society and that are embodied in vast and powerful, faceless organizations. Responsibility is nowhere; grinding power everywhere. Where are the "centered" persons-as Tillich called them -who should guide and shape this impersonal machinery, according to an ideal vision of man? Where is the responsible dissent, the continued review of the ends of action? Without these the world of ineluctable movements assumes its own laws, and, like a black widow spider of science-fiction proportions, it turns on and consumes the very people who give it life [Becker, 1968: 141-1421.