The myth of Hector and the reality of the dog

Reading | Existentialism

Prof. dr. Orlando Moreira | 2025-08-29

Sisyphus was a king condemned by the gods of Olympus to the most useless labor imaginable in Hades, for all eternity: pushing a heavy boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, over and over again, without end. He had tricked Death, defied the gods, and lived with too much cleverness and pride. For this audacity, they chose a punishment that mocked all human striving: no victory, no release, no end to repetition. Just the rock, the slope, the arduous ascension, and the boulder rolling back down.

For Camus, this image was the essence of human life. We too labor without meaning, pushing against a world that gives no answer. The universe does not care and there is no hope of salvation. But Camus insists we must imagine Sisyphus happy. Dignity lies in the refusal to bow. In pushing the rock with open eyes. In revolt , standing upright, lucid, even when all sense has collapsed.

There is no philosopher I admire more than Camus. No one wrote with greater clarity and honesty.  No one faced the void with more courage. And yet I believe he got something essential wrong.

He believes that standing upright in revolt in the face of absurdity will concede dignity to man. But dignity is not a raw emotion. It is not something that surges from the gut. 

Dignity is something you see in yourself from the outside. It is a posture. A frame. A narrative. You don’t feel dignity, you construct it. Even when you claim to feel it toward yourself, it is narrative, a second-order emotion, a sublimation. It has already passed through judgment. It already imagines the perspective of somebody looking from the outside. Somebody who observes and judges. 

But I do not want to live for societal judgment. Not even my own. I do not want to survive in the name of some secondhand narrative coherence. When I was at my worst, I did not ask whether I was being dignified. I did not care. I only asked whether I was still needed. Whether my children might still need my assistance and presence. Whether the people I loved might still reach for me, even if I could no longer give anything in return.

This is not dignity. It is not rebellion. It is not a stance one takes in front of the world.

It is something closer to a dog whimpering at the door.

A dog does not have dignity. And that is why it can still love you after you’ve hurt it. That is why it lies at your feet when you are sick. That is why it scratches and whines when it hears your voice. Not because it is noble, but because it is bound to you, emotionally, physically, and without explanation.

Camus admired the rebel who scorns gods and accepts death. I feel a strong attraction towards that narrative.

But ultimately, I admire the dog who scratches at the wall for someone it cannot see.

The dog does not sublimate. It doesn’t convert need into a story. It doesn’t mask loneliness as strength. It scratches at the door because it wants. That is its honesty.

This is not meant to romanticize dependence. It is meant to say: emotion comes before structure. Before reason. Before resistance. Before all the stoic and existential strategies that make the absurd palatable.

And I don’t want to minimize Camus’ narrative of revolt. Turning despair into resistance is sometimes essential to survival, and inspires beyond instinct. But these narratives are built on reason, logic, not on instinctive need. They are sublimation, not raw urge. They can be beautiful and high-minded, but always somewhat performative.

Emotion is not performative. It is not philosophy. It is not proud.

To say, “I still want someone to answer” is not noble. It is not rebellious. It is deeper, more urgent, more primal. 

It is more honest than dignity. At least in the emotional sense. Camus revolt is honest to reason,  but is not honest to need. It doesn’t let itself be fooled, but it doesn’t allow itself to dream. 

You can accept absurdity with eyes wide open, and still allow for hope, against all odds. 

You can accept the truth of logic and still find place for what you need within what is possible. This is not a lie, not dishonest; it is a lifeline. 

When Camus rejects God, he does so from a place of clarity, defiance, pride. And that can be necessary. Even beautiful. But it sets a precedent: that what cannot be justified by reason must be rejected.

It begins by rejecting God, to which I have no objection, but it does not end there. It extends, quietly but inexorably, to all hopes.To other people. To the weak. To the compromised. To the incoherent. To the cowardly. To those who break beneath the weight of absurdity rather than standing tall before it.

For how can you judge yourself harshly and not judge the Other? How can you demand coherence, rebellion, and lucidity from yourself, and not begin to expect the same from those around you?

And if you don’t, if you tolerate others not having your courage, honesty, and dignity, aren’t you condescending, treating them as inferior, not worthy to be judged by the same standards as you?

In Camus, there is always the risk of a dignified solitude that secretly prefers to be alone, because only in solitude can the self remain untarnished.

But love does not begin with scorn or even condescension. It begins with allowing the Other to be insufficient as I am myself insufficient. It begins with the softness of letting someone else collapse and not measure them by a standard of endurance you demand of yourself.

This is what the dog does. It does not ask whether you deserve it. It waits. It follows. It stays.

Camus gave me courage, helped me turn despair into defiance and pride, but made it difficult to forgive. He made it hard to stay with the broken, because his rebel was too clean.

I don’t want to be clean. I want to be reachable.

There is a form of defiance I do honor. Not the rebel who seeks pride or purity, but the one who stands because others need shelter.

In the Iliad, Hector and Achilles face each other across the walls of Troy. Achilles, the greatest warrior of the Greeks, fights for his own glory. When Agamemnon insults him, he withdraws from battle, sulking in his tent while his comrades die. When Patroclus, his closest companion, is slain, Achilles does not grieve as one who failed to protect, he burns with rage that his pride has been wounded. His vengeance is not for Patroclus, but for himself.

Hector is different. He knows Troy is doomed. The gods themselves have decreed it. And yet he fights on. Not for glory, not for vengeance, but for his wife, his infant son, his city. He defies not only death but inevitability, because his love binds him more than fate can break him.

It is Hector, not Achilles, who is my hero. Hector, who defies not only death but the will of the gods. Who knows Troy will fall, yet fights anyway. Not for glory. Not for vengeance. But for the Other.

Achilles fights for his dignity, his pride, even when Patroclus dies. Hector fights from the beginning for what he loves. He resists because he cares. He defies not for pride, but for responsibility.

Revolt matters, if it is love in armor. If it is care with a weapon in its hand. Not to preserve dignity, but to defend who you love.

Let me be clear. I do not sanctify emotion. Emotion can mislead. It can bind you to the wrong things. It can beg for answers from what cannot answer. Left alone, emotion would be little more than a series of urges demanding immediate satisfaction. It is only under the light of reason that emotion becomes life. But I do not begin from reason. I begin from what shakes me. From the place where pain is felt before it is explained. From the moment when care is not yet a duty but a pull, a tremor, a sign that I am not sealed.

I believe emotion is the only thing that can tell me what I want. But only reason can tell me what is possible. Only reason can triage and rank needs and urges and shape them into a coherent whole. And I will not pretend that what I want must exist or be attainable. 

This is what anchors me: not belief, but doubt. Doubt is not paralysis. It is not weakness. It is humility. And humility is what makes respect for the Other possible.

If I do not know they exist, I cannot speak for them. I can only reach toward them. And reaching, in doubt, is more honest than belief in certainty.

That is why I do not have faith in the Other. I do not believe they will respond. I do not know if they are real. Faith says: It is certain. You may doubt, but you must overcome doubt. But I do not overcome doubt. I live inside it. And that is where hope begins.

Hope is not the opposite of despair. It is the opposite of faith. Faith denies uncertainty. Hope carries it, accepts its logic, but is not crushed by it. 

I do not reach because I believe. I reach because I cannot bear to stay within myself.

Camus stood tall in front of a silent world. But the longer I stood there, the more I realized: silence does not deserve my attention. It does not wound me because it is absurd. It wounds me because I still want something that might answer.

Revolt against absurdity is wasting your emotions on a rock.

One must depict the dog happy.