Albert Camus' The Plague remains a bestseller during the pandemic in part because Dr. Rieux, the protagonist, provides an object lesson in being cool. I refer to cool in its original meanings as they came out of post-World War II culture: to be stoic, resilient, and uncomplaining; to survive with dignity and style in the face of uncontrollable larger forces. Dr. Rieux serves people for no reward and knows he may catch the disease — and die from it — at any time. This is the situation of our medical workers right now.
Camus was often told he looked like Bogart and enjoyed the compliment. To the French, Bogart was the global avatar of existentialism in cinema. “The raison d'etre of his existence was in some sense just to survive," the French film critic Andre Bazin wrote in tribute. "Distrust and weariness, wisdom and skepticism: Bogey is a Stoic.” And to be a Stoic is the ancient philosophical analogy for being cool. In a key scene in Breathless, Jean-Paul Belmondo stares at an 8x10 glossy of Bogart (right) as if asking, "How can I ever be as cool as Bogart?"
The current analogy for Dr. Rieux would be Governor Cuomo. No matter his political and personal weaknesses, he has been the essence of cool in leadership: reserved but compassionate, straight ahead with no guff, comfortable in his own skin. The suit is not a great look: maybe he should wear a fedora and raincoat to every briefing.
Joni Mitchell wrote a song about this original meaning – called "Be Cool”, of course -- and how each person should aspire to this ideal balance of good and bad, of virtue and vice, of fire and ice. “Don’t whine,” she sings, “you’re nobody’s fool,” because—
If there's one rule to this game
Everybody's gonna name
It's be cool
Albert Camus in Paris, ca. 1946
The Plague was also an allegory of the Nazi occupation of Paris, figuring the Nazis as an invasive disease that must be cast out by the hard work and discipline of a superior system of ethics (like cool, for example). This allegory might also apply to our current political plague but there will be no vaccine. We can only be cool and keep our eyes open for the main chance to restore our democracy.