Foreword
With the publication of this book a cloud that has oppressed the European mind for more than a century begins to lift. After an age of anxiety, despair, and nihilism, it seems possible once more to hope—to have confidence again in man and in the future. M. Camus has not delivered us by rhetoric, or by any of the arts of persuasion, but by the clarity of his intelligence. His book is a work of logic. Just as an earlier work of his (Le Mythe de Sisyphe)began with a meditation on living or not living—on the implications of the act of suicide—so this work begins with a meditation on enduring or not enduring—on the implications of the act of rebellion. If we decide to live, it must be because we have decid... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt
For Jean Grenier
And openly I pledged my heart to the grave and suffering land, and often in the consecrated night, I
promised to love her faithfully until death, unafraid, with her heavy burden of fatality, and never to
despise a single one of her enigmas. Thus did I join myself to her with a mortal cord.
holderlin:
The Death of Empedocles
Introduction
There are crimes of passion and crimes of logic. The boundary between them is not clearly defined. But the Penal Code makes the convenient distinction of premeditation. We are living in the era of premeditation and the perfect crime. Our criminals are no longer helpless children who could plead love as their excuse.... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Part One: The Rebel
What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. He is also a man
who says yes, from the moment he makes his first gesture of rebellion. A slave who has taken orders all
his life suddenly decides that he cannot obey some new command. What does he mean by saying "no"?
He means, for example, that "this has been going on too long," "up to this point yes, beyond it no," "you
are going too far," or, again, "there is a limit beyond which you shall not go." In other words, his no
affirms the existence of a borderline. The same concept is to be found in the rebel's feeling that the other
person "is exaggerating," that he is exerting his authority beyond a limit where he begi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Part Two: Metaphysical Rebellion
Metaphysical rebellion is the movement by which man protests against his condition and against the
whole of creation. It is metaphysical because it contests the ends of man and of creation. The slave
protests against the condition in which he finds himself within his state of slavery; the metaphysical rebel
protests against the condition in which he finds himself as a man. The rebel slave affirms that there is
something in him that will not tolerate the manner in which his master treats him; the metaphysical rebel
declares that he is frustrated by the universe. For both of them, it is not only a question of pure and simple
negation. In both cases, in fact, we find a value judgment in the name of... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Part Three: Historical Rebellion
Freedom, "that terrible word inscribed on the chariot of the storm,"[18] is the motivating principle of all
revolutions. Without it, justice seems inconceivable to the rebel's mind. There comes a time, however,
when justice demands the suspension of freedom. Then terror, on a grand or small scale, makes its
appearance to consummate the revolution. Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and
an appeal to the essence of being. But one day nostalgia takes up arms and assumes the responsibility of
total guilt; in other words, adopts murder and violence. The servile rebellions, the regicide revolutions,
and those of the twentieth century have thus, consciously, accepted a burden of... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Part Four: Rebellion and Art
Art is the activity that exalts and denies simultaneously. "No artist tolerates reality," says Nietzsche. That
is true, but no artist can get along without reality. Artistic creation is a demand for unity and a rejection of
the world. But it rejects the world on account of what it lacks and in the name of what it sometimes is.
Rebellion can be observed here in its pure state and in its original complexities. Thus art should give us a
final perspective on the content of rebellion.
The hostility to art shown by all revolutionary reformers must, however, be pointed out. Plato is
moderately reasonable. He only calls in question the deceptive function of language and exiles only poets
from his rep... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Part Five: Thought at the Meridian
Rebellion and Murder
Far from this source of life, however, Europe and the revolution are being shaken to the core by a
spectacular convulsion. During the last century, man cast off the fetters of religion. Hardly was he free,
however, when he created new and utterly intolerable chains. Virtue dies but is born again, more exacting
than ever. It preaches an ear-splitting sermon on charity to all comers and a kind of love for the future
which makes a mockery of contemporary humanism. When it has reached this point of stability, it can
only wreak havoc. A day arrives when it becomes bitter, immediately adopts police methods, and, for the
salvation of mankind, assumes the ignoble aspect of an i... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
[1] Lalande: Vocabulaire philosophique.
[2] The community of victims is the same as that which unites victim and executioner. But the executioner does not know this.
[3] There is, of course, an act of metaphysical rebellion at the beginning of Christianity, but the resurrection of Christ
and the annunciation of the kingdom of heaven interpreted as a promise of eternal life are the answers that render it
futile.
[4] Sade's great criminals excuse their crimes on the ground that they were born with uncontrollable sexual appetites
about which they could do nothing.
[5] Sade, mon prochain.
[6] Maurice Blanchot: Lautreamont et Sade.
[7] A dominant theme in William Blake, for example.
[8] French literature sti... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
