One cannot escape guilt; one can only dilute one's own guilt by judging the whole world guilty. Whether this program as a practical matter will produce serenity or insanity isn't clear. (The narrator's scale tilts toward the latter.) But if serenity is just another word for obliviousness, and insanity is another word for for intensity, which is preferable?
Camus lays out a catalog of modern ills as backdrop to his tale, including this that resonates today: "We no longer say as in simple times: 'This is the way I think. What are your objections?' We have become lucid. For the dialogue we have substituted the communique: 'This is the truth,' we say. 'You can discuss it as much as you want; we aren't interested. But in a few years there'll be the police who will show you we are right.' "
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