- About the Author -
Albert Camus (7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French writer and philosopher, representative of existentialist literature and "absurd philosophy". His major works include "The Outsider" and "Plague".
Camus, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, was considered an existentialist until the 1950s, although he himself repeatedly denied it. In 1951, Camus published his philosophical treatise The Rebel, which provoked a year-long controversy with Sartre and others, and finally broke with Sartre.
What is a rebel? A man who says "no". However, although he refused, he did not give up: he was also the one who said "yes" from the very beginning. A slave who has been receiving orders all his life often feels that new orders are unacceptable. What does this "no" mean?
It can mean "this sort of thing has gone on for too long," "it's okay to go so far, it's not okay to go any further," "you've gone too far," or maybe "there's a boundary that's insurmountable." In short, this "no" affirms the existence of a boundary. The idea of this boundary can also be found in a certain feeling of the rebel, which is that he wants to extend his rights beyond this boundary, but beyond this boundary there is another right to bind him. Thus, the act of resistance is also a categorical rejection of the intolerable violation, a vague belief that he has a legitimate right. Rather, the rebel at this time harbored his enjoyment of "... right" impression. To some extent, if the rebel does not have this feeling of being justified, there will be no resistance. Because of this, the rebellious slaves said both "no" and "yes." While affirming these boundaries, he affirms everything he doubts and wants to keep them within them. He stubbornly says he has something "worth...", asking for attention. He somehow shows that he cannot be oppressed beyond his approval, and with this right he opposes the orders that oppress him.
People hate aggression against themselves. At the same time, in all resistance, he fully adheres to a certain will in himself, and must therefore firmly believe in a value judgment, and remain unswerving in times of danger. Until this time, he remained silent, fell into despair, and accepted the unjust situation. Silence leads to the impression that he is judgmentless, that he has nothing, and that in some cases he really wants nothing. Despair, like absurdity, is generally speaking, judging everything and longing for it. In specific cases, there is no judgment and nothing to ask for. Silence makes this clear. However, as soon as he speaks, even if he says "no," it shows that he is judging and longing. The rebel, in the sense of the etymology of the word, is a great transformation of one hundred and eighty degrees. He marched boldly under the whipping of his master, resisting, confronting everything he did not approve of with everything he approved. Not all values will provoke resistance, but all acts of resistance are self-evidently based on a value. Is there at least one value involved?
From the act of resistance arises an awakening of consciousness, no matter how hazy it may be. He suddenly realized that there was something in his person that should belong to him, even if it was short-lived. This autonomy had not been truly felt by him until this time. Before rebelling, the slaves endured all the oppression. He was even more obedient to his master's orders at that time, completely submissive, though they provoked resistance even more than those which now invited him to refuse. He may not be willing to accept it, but he is more concerned with the immediate interests than he realizes his rights, so he remains silent. When he loses patience and becomes agitated, he begins to act on everything he had previously accepted. This impulse has actually appeared often in the past. When the slave refused the humiliating order of his master, he also denied his own slave status. Acts of defiance have taken him farther than simply refused, even beyond the boundaries set for his opponents, and now demands to treat himself as an equal. This unstoppable initial struggle gradually makes people and resistance one, making it show resistance in every word and deed. He wanted people to respect this part of him and put it above everything else, loving it more than anything, even life. This part came to him as the supreme wealth. Slaves, who used to be in a state of perfection, now suddenly demand "everything" or "nothing." His consciousness awakened with resistance.
One sees that this realization wants both what is still rather vague and "nothing", which means that it is possible to sacrifice oneself for "everything". The rebel wants to be everything, to have the wealth he suddenly realizes, to want people to recognize this wealth in him and pay tribute to it, otherwise he will have nothing, that is, eventually be deprived of everything by the forces that dominate him. If he is robbed of what he calls the sacred of freedom, he will accept the ultimate end of death. I'd rather die standing than kneeling and stealing life.
According to some eminent authors, values "tend to represent a move from facts to rights, from what is desired to what is desired (generally speaking through things that are universally desired)." We see that the fight for rights by resistance is obvious. The same is happening with the trend of "it must be so" towards "I ask for this". Not only that, but there is also the concept of transcending the individual for the common good of the future. The non-"everything", i.e., "nothing", suggests that rebellion, despite its extremely strict personal character, is contrary to popular belief and calls into question the concept of the individual. If the individual accepts death in rebellion and finally dies for it, it shows that he is sacrificing for the benefit of going beyond his own destiny. He would rather die than deny the rights he defends. This is so because he puts this right above himself. He then acted in the name of values, which, though still vague, at least felt that it was common to him and to all men. It is seen that this idea contained in all acts of resistance makes it transcend the individual, it frees the individual from loneliness, and it provides justification for his actions. This value, which exists before all action, refutes historical philosophies that hold that values are acquired at the end of action. It is important to note this. The analysis of the rebellion at least gives one doubt as to the existence of human nature, as the Greeks believed. It is also contrary to the views of contemporary thought. Since there is nothing eternal in you that you can keep, why stand up for it? The slave rose up and rebelled for the sake of all his contemporaries, for he believed that this command negated something in him, which belonged not only to himself, but also to all men, even to those who insulted and oppressed him.
There are two facts that can support this judgment. One will first notice that acts of resistance are not selfish in nature. Undoubtedly, it contains certain selfish considerations. But what people rebel against is both oppression and lies. Moreover, despite these concerns, the rebels, with the strongest emotions, opened up everything and did not retain anything. What he fought for himself was respect, but he also believed that the whole of humanity deserved it.
Second, it should be noted that resistance does not only arise from the oppressed, but also when people see others as victims of oppression. Thus, in this case, he sees others as himself. It should be made clear that this is not a psychological identification, not an imaginary feeling that one has been violated. Conversely, it is possible that we ourselves are insulted and do not resist, while seeing others suffer the same insults is intolerable. Russian terrorists commit suicide in protest when they see their comrades being flogged in prison. This is enough to illustrate the above insight. Nor is the problem being that there are common interests. When we see people we see as opponents suffering injustice, we also have feelings of resistance. This is simply due to the fact that there is a common destiny. The values that the individual defends thus do not belong to him personally. This value is formed by all people. Man transcends himself in rebellion by thinking of others. From this point of view, human mutual assistance is innate. It's just that in the current situation, this mutual aid is produced in shackles.
One need only compare this value, which is inferred by all rebellion, with concepts of complete negation such as resentment, to clarify its positive aspects. Seiler had defined the concept of resentment. Indeed, rebellion is not just an act of demanding something back. Resentment is defined by Celer as self-poisoning, long-term stagnation in isolation. Instead, resistance inspires life, helps him get out of the status quo, and makes the still backwaters roll. Thaler himself emphasized the negative aspects of resentment, noting that resentment had a large place in the psyche of women. They indulge in longing and possessiveness. Conversely, when it comes to the origins of rebellion, one of the principles is hyperactivity and full energy. Thaler is not unreasonable to say that jealousy greatly stirs up resentment. People are jealous of what they don't have, while rebels defend what they already have. Not only is he demanding wealth that he does not own or is deprived of, but his goal is to make people recognize what he has. In almost all cases, he thought it was more important than what he might be envious of. Defiance is not realistic. Still, according to Thaler, resentment turns into ambition or vitriol in a strong or weak figure. But in both cases, people are willing to be a different person than they are now. Resentment is always self-blame. Instead, the rebel, in his initial actions, refused to touch his status quo. He fought for the integrity of his personality. What he pursued first was not conquest, but acceptance.
Finally, resentment seems happy to see the object of its hatred suffer. Nietzsche and Thaler saw a wonderful illustration of this affection, and In a passage of his writings, Tedulian tells the reader that the greatest joy of the happy people in heaven is to watch the emperors of the Roman Empire suffer in hell. Honest people also produce this joy when they watch someone being executed. On the contrary, resistance is in principle limited to the rejection of humiliation and does not require humiliation of others. As long as its personality is respected, it is even willing to suffer.
People therefore do not understand why Thaler equates the spirit of rebellion with resentment. His critique of resentment in humanitarianism (which he regards as a non-Christian form of human love) may apply to some form of human idealism, or to the technique of terror. This criticism is wrong to point to people's rebellion against the status quo. This resistance causes individuals to stand up for the common dignity of all human beings. Thaler would like to point out that there is an element of world-hate in humanitarianism. People love human beings in general, not necessarily special people. In some cases, this is correct. When one thinks that humanitarianism is represented by Binsam [3] and Rousseau, Thaler's views are better understood. However, the love between people does not come entirely from the calculation of profit or trust in human nature, which is only theoretical. In the face of the utilitarians and Emile's tutors, there is a logic that Istoevsky embodies in Ivan Karamazov and can be applied to both acts of rebellion and metaphysical rebellion. Thaler understood this and summed it up as follows: "There is not much love in the world, and it can only be inflicted on others and not on others." Even if this claim is true, the despair it expresses should not be despised. In fact, he underestimated the shocking nature of Karamazov's rebellion. Instead, Ivan's tragedy arose when he had too much love but no object of love. Since this love had nowhere to go and God was denied, it was decided to pour it back into humanity in the name of generous accomplices.
In short, in the act of rebellion which we have discussed so far, people do not choose an abstract ideal because of their poverty of mind, nor do they choose out of unnecessary demands. People long for attention to what they cannot be attributed to thought, and this is the part that is useful only to life. Does this mean that there is no element of resentment in any resistance? Not really. In the age of hate, we see quite a few of these situations. However, we should understand this concept from the broadest possible perspective, otherwise it will be misinterpreted. In this regard, resistance transcends resentment in every way. Heathcliff argues in Wuthering Heights that he values love more than God, and that as long as he can be united with the woman he loves, even if it goes to hell. This is not only the cry of his humiliated youth, but also the outpouring of the misery of his entire life. The same sentiment led Eckart to utter a startling and deviant statement: he would rather go to hell with Jesus than live in heaven without Jesus. This is the outpouring of love. In contrast to Celer, one cannot overemphasize the positive element of resistance, which distinguishes it from resentment. Resistance does not create anything, and what appears to be negativity on the surface is in fact an expression of what man should always defend, and thus becomes a complete affirmation.
But isn't this rebellion and the value it conveys relative? As times and cultures change, the reasons for people to resist are indeed changing. Obviously, the Dalits of India, the warriors of the Inca Empire, the primitives of Central Africa or the original Christians, their motives for rebellion were not the same. It is even asserted, with great probability, that the concept of rebellion is meaningless for these definite situations. However, a Greek slave, a serf, a captain of the Italian Renaissance cavalry, a Parisian gentleman of the Regency period,[4] a Russian intellectual of the early twentieth century, and a contemporary worker, even though their reasons for rebellion varied, there is no doubt that their revolt was justified. In other words, the question of rebellion acquires a precise meaning only within the confines of Western thought. If, like Celer, we notice that in extremely unequal societies (the Caste system in India) or, conversely, in societies of absolute equality (some primitive societies), the idea of rebellion is difficult to express, our views are even clearer. In society, only when theoretical equality masks great inequality in fact can a spirit of rebellion occur. Thus the question of rebellion is only relevant within the scope of our Western society. It can then be asserted that the question is related to the development of individualism, if we do not object to this conclusion because of the previous opinion.
The conclusion that can be drawn from Thaler's discourse is that in our society, in terms of the theoretical aspect of political freedom, the consciousness of the concept of man is growing, but in the practical situation of this freedom it is far from satisfactory. In fact, freedom did not increase proportionally with the growth of people's sense of freedom. From this, it follows that resistance is the action of people who are aware of their rights and have awakened. But we must not say that resistance concerns only the rights of individuals. On the contrary, judging from the mutual assistance already pointed out above, resistance shows that human beings are becoming more and more aware of themselves in their existential activities. In fact, the plebeians of the Inca Empire or the Dalits of India did not raise the question of resistance, because before they raised it, it had been resolved in accordance with tradition, and the answer was sacred and untouchable. In a world ruled by God, the reason why there is no question of resistance is because people never thought of asking this question, and it has already got all the answers. Metaphysics is replaced by myth, and there is no longer any questioning, there are only eternal answers and interpretations, which may be metaphysical. However, before people enter the realm ruled by God and after they come out of it, there is questioning and rebellion, so that they will enter and exit happily. Rebels exist only after entering or emerging from God's realm. He was committed to demanding a system of respect for man, in which all answers should be human, that is to say, rationally expressed. From this point on, all inquiry, all speech, became rebellion, and in God's realm, all speech was an act of thanksgiving. It can be said that there are only two possible worlds in the human mind, the world of God (the world of grace in Christian language[5]) and the world of rebellion. The disappearance of this world is the emergence of the other world. Although the other world appeared, its form was confusing. Speaking of which, we are again involved in "everything" or "nothing.". The reality of the problem of rebellion is simply due to the fact that certain societies today want to stay away from God's realm. We are now living in an era of non-sanctification. Of course, man cannot be reduced to rebellion. But today's history, and its controversies, compel us to say that resistance is one of the fundamental aspects of human existence. This is the reality of our history. Unless we escape from reality, we should find our value in defiance. When people turn away from God and His absolute worth, can they find a code of conduct? This is precisely the question that the resistance is asking.
We can already determine the hazy value that arises within the scope of the rebellion. It is time for us to ponder whether this value can be rediscovered in the various manifestations of contemporary rebellious thought and action. If you can find it, you should find out its contents. But before proceeding further, it should be noted that the basis of this value is the rebellion itself. Human mutual assistance is based on acts of resistance, which in turn find its basis in this interaction. We are therefore justified in saying that any resistance which is intended to negate or destroy this mutual assistance can no longer be called a rebellion, and in fact it is no different from consenting to the act of killing. Also outside the realm of God, this mutual aid can only be brought to life at the level of rebellion. This is the true meaning of the idea of rebellion. Man must rebel in order to survive, but this resistance should not cross a boundary that he has discovered, that is, people come together to begin to survive. The rebellious thought thus cannot escape the memory: it is always in tension. When we consider its actions and deeds, we should wonder whether it is faithful to the original noble principles or, on the contrary, whether it has forgotten the noble principles and indulged in despotism or slavery because of its fatigue or impulse.
This was the first progress that began to be deeply contemplated with the idea of rebellion against the absurdity and superficial desolation of the world. In absurd experiences, the pain is personal. As soon as it enters into rebellion, the pain becomes collective, the suffering of the multitude. The first advance in a peculiar idea is thus to recognize that all human beings have this peculiarity, and that human reality as a whole suffers by alienation from this thought and the world, making the disease of suffering of a single person a plague of collective infection. In our daily suffering, rebellion plays the same role as "I think" plays in the realm of thought. It is the first obvious fact, yet this fact frees one from loneliness. It makes all people accept the first value. I rebelled, so we existed.
Camus |
This article is compiled from The Rebel