Logical analysis of the text Camus A. "Rebellious Man"

Awakened consciousness shows a person the absurdity of life, the incomprehensibility and injustice of the human condition. This gives rise to a rebellion, the purpose of which is transformation, and therefore action. The main motive of the rebellion, according to Camus, is that "man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is."

Most meaningful work Albert Camus, which reveals the idea of ​​rebellion, is the book "Rebel Man" (or "Rebel"). This book is the history of the idea of ​​rebellion against the injustice of the human condition. The rebellion appears as a demand for human solidarity, a common sense of existence for all people. The rebel rises from his knees, says "no" to the oppressor, draws a line with which from now on the one who considered himself a master must be reckoned with, and through which he previously allowed negative circumstances to penetrate his life.

Starting the study of the concept of rebellion, Camus compared rebellion and the concept of murder. He questions the justification for the murder. Camus believed that the starting point of his philosophy remained the same - this is an absurdity that calls into question all values. Absurdity, in his opinion, forbids not only suicide, but also murder, since the destruction of one's own kind means an attack on the unique source of meaning, which is the life of each person. Rebellion, on the other hand, carries a creative principle. Thus, rebellion and murder are logically contradictory. Having committed a murder, the rebel splits the world, destroying the very community and unity of people.

Rebellion certainly implies a certain value. First, the rebellious person contrasts everything that is valuable to him with what is not. Giving the example of a slave's rebellion against his master, Camus concludes that the slave is rebelling against the old order, which denies something inherent in the community of all oppressed people. By itself, the individual is not the value that he intends to protect. This value is made up of all people in general.

At the same time, Camus is distinguished by the concepts of rebellion and bitterness. Anger is caused by envy and is always directed against the object of envy. Rebellion, on the contrary, seeks to protect the individual. The rebel defends himself as he is, the integrity of his personality, seeks to force respect for himself. Thus, Camus concludes, anger is negative, rebellion is positive. With this thought, the author expresses his disagreement with some philosophers who identified the rebellious spirit and bitterness.

In his work, Camus notes that rebellion is impossible in societies where inequality is too great (such as caste societies) or equality is absolute (some primitive societies). The author emphasizes that rebellion is possible in those societies where theoretical equality hides huge actual inequality.

Awareness of the absurdity of being and the unreasonableness of the world is the root cause of rebellion. However, if in the experience of the absurd suffering is individual, then in a rebellious impulse it is conscious of itself as collective. It turns out to be a common lot, writes Camus.

Exploring the concept of rebellion, Camus identifies a number of varieties of rebellion and determines the characteristic features of each of them.

1. Metaphysical (philosophical) rebellion is a man's rebellion against his destiny and against the entire universe. A vivid example is a slave who rebelled against his master and his slave position. That is, the metaphysical rebel rebels against the lot prepared for him as a separate individual. He seems to express in such a way that he is deceived and deprived by the universe itself.

Camus points to one interesting feature. The slave, protesting against the master, thereby simultaneously recognizes the existence of the master and his power. Similarly, the metaphysical rebel, opposing the force that determines his mortal nature, at the same time affirms the existence of this force. So such a rebellion does not deny higher power, and, recognizing it, challenges it.

2. Historical rebellion - a rebellion, the main goal of which, according to Camus, is freedom and justice. The historical rebellion seeks to give man a reign in time, in history. Camus argues that today's history with its strife forces people to recognize that rebellion is one of the essential dimensions of a person. It is the historical reality of mankind, from which one should not run away.

Camus immediately shares the concepts of rebellion and revolution. He believes that revolution begins with an idea, while rebellion is a movement from individual experience to an idea. studying historical facts, he says that rebellion is a phenomenon in which a person spontaneously tries to find a way out of his "Sisyphean position." Therefore, the writer does not recognize an organized, prepared revolution, considering it contrary to his concept. He also considers illusory any hope that the revolution can really provide a way out of the situation that caused it. In addition, the writer believes that humanity has not yet known revolution in its true meaning, since a true revolution aims at universal unity and the final completion of history. The revolutions that have taken place so far have only led to the replacement of one political order by another. Even if it started as an economic one, any revolution eventually became political. And this is also the difference between revolution and rebellion.

Moreover, revolution and rebellion have different aims. Revolution involves the use of man as material for history. Rebellion affirms the independence of man and human nature. Rebellion comes from negation in the name of affirmation, and revolution from absolute negation.

Thus, rebellion (as mentioned above), unlike revolution, is creative. He suggests that humanity must live to create what it is.

3. Revolt in art is a rebellion that includes creativity. This rebellion manifests itself in the simultaneous denial and affirmation: creativity denies the world for what it lacks, but denies in the name of what the world at least sometimes is.

Revolt in art, according to Camus, is the creator of the universe. Any creator with his works transforms the world, as if pointing to the imperfection of this world. According to Camus, art argues with reality, but does not avoid it. However, the writer also points to the inevitability of the existence of creativity: "If the world were clear, there would be no art in it."

Camus finds the limitations of rebellion in the person himself, who has emerged from suffering and brought rebellion and solidarity out of them. Such a person knows about his rights, expresses in rebellion his human dimension and consciousness of the inevitability of the tragedy of human existence. A protest against the human condition is always doomed to partial defeat, but it is just as necessary for a person as his own work is for Sisyphus.

Introduction

Albert Camus is a unique personality of his time (although, in my opinion, his ideas are relevant in our time). Choosing his work “The Rebellious Man” for analysis in his abstract (based on the fact that this, one might say, is the main philosophical book Camus), I cannot resist the temptation to mention a few more of his most outstanding works.

But first it is necessary to say a few words about existentialism, philosophical direction The 20th century, to which Camus was considered for a long time, was even considered one of the founders of this trend.

As one of the leading figures in post-war French literature, Camus is intimately acquainted with Jean Paul Sartre. At the same time, the ways of overcoming the absurdity of life did not coincide with Sartre and Camus, and in the early 50s. as a result of serious ideological differences, Camus breaks with Sartre and with existentialism, of which Sartre was considered the leader. In The Man in Revolt, Camus examines the theory and practice of protest against authority over the centuries, criticizing dictatorial ideologies, including communism and other forms of totalitarianism, which encroach on the freedom and, therefore, on the dignity of man. Although back in 1945 Camus said that he had “too few points of contact with the now fashionable philosophy of existentialism, the conclusions of which are false,” it was the rejection of Marxism that led Camus to break with the pro-Marxist Sartre.

But, nevertheless, Camus is still called among the brightest representatives of atheistic existentialism. And if you superficially look at both existentialism and the philosophy of Camus, then you can agree with this. However, in his last interview the philosopher says: "Existentialism in our country led to godless theology and scholasticism, which inevitably had to end with the justification of the inquisitorial regimes." Contrary to existentialism, Camus asserts the immutability of human nature with moral values ​​permanently inherent in it.

Absurdity and Suicide

Absurdity and suicide are the problems that interested Camus most of all in his work: “Does absurdity lead to death? This problem is the first among others, whether it be methods of thinking or passionless games of the spirit ”(“ The Myth of Sisyphus ”).

In the years when Camus was alive in the Western world (though least of all in France) the philosophy of logical analysis of the language of science was very authoritative. Analysis of the structure of science, at the same time - the methodology of thinking and the "dispassionate games of the spirit", deals with absurdity in its, so to speak, logical guise.

It should be recognized that, starting from the absurd, Camus sharpens the issue of order and chaos in thought and life to the utmost and achieves not only greater expressiveness, but also a greater degree of generality than the logician. A speech can be absurd even when the logician cannot say anything about it. Linguists deliberately construct phrases that are absurd in terms of content, but meaningful in terms of phonetics and grammar. Such a phrase, for example, was composed by Shcherba: “Glokaya kudzra boked bokra and curls bokra” - why not the Russian language? More can be seen through the concept of "absurd" than through purely logical terms. You can build a whole concept of the loss of order, structure, meaningfulness, as a result of slipping to the absurd. All these constructions were to some extent inspired by Albert Camus' posing of the question of the absurd.

However, Camus would not have been too interested in all this - he was right that for human being there are things more formidable than the contradictions of set theory or structural linguistics. On the other hand, Camus is not an irrationalist at all. He clarifies and emphasizes again and again that it is not the world that is absurd, but the meeting of a person with the world can be absurd. Of course, reason shields us that part of the world in which we can live, think and act calmly. But sooner or later we are forced to face the world in such a way that the absurdity of our existence becomes blatant. Because the world itself has no meaning - we give it meaning. And our possibilities to embrace infinity with our meaning are limited.

Yes, suicide is the easiest way to get away from the absurd. But we live knowing that all life's efforts, all resistances will end sooner rather than later. Like Schopenhauer and Wagner, Camus agrees that love is the most important thing in life. But these great Germans grimly added death to it. Camus is looking for ways to get away from the absurd in life.

Each culture has its own absurdum: the “absurd” speech of jesters, spontaneous unexpected turns of Taoist and Zen teachers, sacred absurdity describing supercultural religious experience, the amazing emergence of philosophy against the backdrop of myth, the insane speeches of Diogenes, the no less insane faith of Tertullian, the logical delights of the sophists and scholastics, the art of the grotesque. All this only indicates that common sense is not the sphere that can fully satisfy human curiosity, fantasy, and the thirst for truth.

The theme of the absurd is not accidental for the culture of the twentieth century, in which the universality of common sense and logical constructions loses its significance at the methodological level. The absurd becomes not a stop sign, but a sign of transition to other "value coordinates" (E. Fromm), to another "attitude of consciousness" (Husserl), to other "spiritual (breathing) practices" (V. Podaroga) and, finally, to other "artistic spaces" (M. Bakhtin, D. Likhachev, V. Toporov). The absurd becomes a hermeneutic category that implies the boundary of the "other", the feeling of the "other" (Foucault laughs while reading the Chinese Encyclopedia), the recognition of the possibility of a "different" reading of reality.

Moreover, the very concept of reality becomes more complex. This is facilitated by the development of modern physics with its theory of relativity, the corpuscular-wave mechanism, curved space-time, the rounding of the infinite universe, and a whole series of literary experiments guided by their own vision of reality: surrealism, which appeared in France in the 1920s, the Oberiut circle or "Planar", which existed in Russia in the 20s and 30s, plays of the "theater of the absurd" of the 50s.

If a person is the measure of all things, then he creates morality as he pleases and as it suits him. Camus is shocked by Pisarev's reasoning that there are no prescriptions forbidding a person, if he wants and benefits from it, to kill even his own mother. But Camus emphasizes that the Russian nihilists did not actually kill any mothers and grandmothers, they served people, not themselves, and even the terrorist-revolutionaries of the first generations of their own life valued in terms of the public good. To kill for good consequences in history, for a cause, consciously giving up one's own life, is also a road to nowhere.

Indifference, awareness of the “foreign” world and, as an opposition, the phenomenon of “don Juanism”

Already the plethora of the life world forces a person to responsibility. The antithesis of natural life is a person who does not care. The source of an unexpected and absurd crime is indifference, which is very clearly represented in the novel "The Outsider". The tragic conflict, in which the human consciousness faces the inevitability of fate, the inevitability of a higher order, develops into a tragicomic spectacle in which there is no meaning - neither human nor superhuman - in which either the blind mechanisms of nature or the blind mechanisms of society rule, transforming human life into abstraction.

"Typewriting" becomes a living medium here. Movements, thoughts, feelings are subject to the inertia of transpersonal mechanisms. A man, left to himself, begins to think about what the boss thinks. A person, squeezed in the grip of a trial, suddenly realizes that he does not have a word: “It somehow turned out that my case was being considered apart from me. Everything happened without my participation. My fate was being decided, and no one asked me what I thought about it”; "I'm being reduced to nothing." The unconscious removal of a person from himself, the impossibility of belonging to himself becomes visible in the inexorable, “impudent evidence” of the death sentence: “The death of the patient is decided from the first minute finally and irrevocably. Here everything is firm, unshakable, established once and for all. Inevitably. If by some miracle the knife is stuck, everyone will start over. And therefore - an annoying absurdity! the convict himself is forced to wish that the machine worked flawlessly ... Here lies the secret of a well-established business. The convict willy-nilly turns out to be at one with those who execute him. It is in his own interests that everything goes smoothly.”

The world loses its internal dimension, turns into a “geometric universe” (Girenok), where, in the literal sense of the word, “they read from the heart” or make the souls readable. It is in such a world that "anyone who does not cry at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death." A person turns into a geometric figure of the world, the inner world is formalized, all gaps between the “face” and the “inside out”, between essence and existence are eliminated, although they continue to talk about both.

The one-dimensional world has a kind of super-rigid logic, where everything from the facial expression at the mother's funeral to the sun provoking a murder on the beach determines the fate of a person. Logic becomes as obsessive as the lack of logic in the description of reality that Shestov offers: behind every calmness lies anxiety, behind every tranquility there is madness, behind every order there is chaos, behind every form there is an ever-hungry monster, behind every crossroads there is an accident, behind every life death. In both cases, the desire for reality turns into a description of what is closest to a nightmare.

Here comes the effect reverse, which we can observe in Dostoevsky or Kafka. Fantastic assumptions, which Dostoevsky occasionally resorts to, and supernatural plots, which Kafka constantly resorts to, help to explore the ultimate reality of human existence, lost among stationery papers and endless dialogues alone with oneself. As for Camus, the absolute absence of fantastic assumptions itself appears as one big fantastic assumption: it is possible to exist in the "geometrical world".

What is a rebellious person? This is the person who says no. But, denying, he does not renounce: this is a person who already says “yes” with his first action. A slave who has been fulfilling his master's orders all his life suddenly finds the last of them unacceptable. What is the meaning of his "no"?

“No” can, for example, mean: “I have endured too long”, “so far - so be it, but then enough is enough”, “you are going too far” and also: “there is a limit that I cannot cross for you allow.” Generally speaking, this “no” asserts the existence of a boundary. The same idea of ​​the limit is found in the feeling of the rebel that the other "takes too much upon himself", extends his rights beyond the border, beyond which lies the area of ​​sovereign rights, putting up an obstacle to any encroachment on them. Thus, the impulse to revolt is rooted both in a strong protest against any intervention that is perceived as unacceptable, and in the vague conviction of the rebel that he is right, or rather, in his belief that he "has the right to do such and such" . Rebellion does not occur if there is no such feeling of being right. That is why the rebellious slave says yes and no at the same time. Together with the mentioned boundary, he affirms everything that he does not clearly feel in himself and wants to preserve. He stubbornly proves that there is something “worthwhile” in him and it needs to be protected. To the order that enslaves him, he opposes a kind of right to endure oppression only to the extent that he himself sets.

Together with the repulsion of the alien in any rebellion, a complete identification of a person with a certain side of his being immediately occurs. Here, in a hidden way, a value judgment comes into play, and, moreover, so thorough that it helps the rebel to withstand the dangers. Until now, he had at least remained silent, sinking into despair, forced to endure any conditions, even if he considered them deeply unfair. Since the oppressed is silent, people assume that he does not reason and does not want anything, and in some cases he really does not want anything anymore. Despair, like absurdity, judges and desires everything in general and nothing in particular. Silence conveys it well. But as soon as the oppressed speaks, even if he says "no", it means that he desires and judges. The rebel makes a roundabout. He walked, driven by the whip of the owner. And now she stands face to face with him. The rebel opposes everything that is valuable to him, everything that is not. Not every value causes rebellion, but every rebellious movement tacitly presupposes some value. About the value of this case is it about?

In a rebellious impulse, a consciousness, albeit unclear, is born: a sudden vivid feeling that there is something in a person with which he can identify himself at least for a while. Until now, the slave has not really felt this identity. Before his rebellion, he suffered from all kinds of oppression. It often happened that he meekly carried out orders much more outrageous than the last one that caused the riot. The slave patiently accepted these orders; in the depths of his soul, he may have rejected them, but since he was silent, it means that he lived his daily worries, not yet realizing his rights. Having lost patience, he now begins to impatiently reject everything that he put up with before. This impulse almost always has the opposite effect. Rejecting the humiliating command of his master, the slave at the same time rejects slavery as such. Step by step, rebellion takes him much further than simple defiance. He even crosses the line he set for the enemy, now demanding that he be treated as an equal. What formerly was man's stubborn resistance becomes the whole man who identifies himself with resistance and is reduced to it. That part of his being, to which he demanded respect, is now dearer to him than anything, dearer even to life itself, it becomes the highest good for the rebel. Until then, a slave who had been living in everyday compromises, in an instant (“because how else ...”) falls into irreconcilability - “all or nothing”. Consciousness arises with rebellion.

This consciousness combines the still rather vague "everything" and "nothing", suggesting that a person can be sacrificed for the sake of "everything". The rebel wants to be either “everything”, completely identifying himself with the good that he suddenly realized, and demanding that in his person people recognize and welcome this good, or “nothing”, that is, to be defeated by a superior force. Going to the end, the rebel is ready for the last lawlessness, which is death, if he is deprived of that only sacred gift, which, for example, freedom can become for him. Better to die standing than to live on your knees.

According to many recognized authors, value "most often represents a transition from fact to law, from the desired to the desired (usually through the mediation of the desired by all)" . As I have already shown, in rebellion there is an obvious transition to the right. And similarly, the transition from the formula "it would be necessary for this to exist" to the formula "I want it to be so." But, perhaps even more important, we are talking about the transition from the individual to the good that has now become universal. Contrary to popular opinion about rebellion, the appearance of the slogan "All or nothing" proves that rebellion, even born in the depths of a purely individual, casts doubt on the very concept of an individual. If an individual is ready to die and, under certain circumstances, accepts death in his rebellious impulse, he thereby shows that he is sacrificing himself in the name of a good that, in his opinion, means more than his own destiny. If a rebel is ready to perish in order not to lose the right he defends, then this means that he values ​​this right more than himself. Therefore, he acts in the name of a value, albeit still obscure, which, he feels, unites him with all other people. Evidently the affirmation implicit in every rebellious action extends to something that transcends the individual insofar as this something relieves him of his supposed loneliness and gives him reason to act. But now it is important to note that this pre-existing value, given before any action, comes into conflict with purely historical philosophical teachings, according to which value is won (if it can be won at all) only as a result of action. The analysis of rebellion leads at least to the conjecture that human nature really exists, according to the ideas of the ancient Greeks and contrary to the postulates modern philosophy. Why rebel if there is nothing permanent in yourself worthy of being preserved? If a slave rises, it is for the good of all living. After all, he believes that, in the existing order of things, he denies something that is inherent not only to him, but which is that common in which all people, and even the one who insulted and oppressed a slave, have a pre-prepared community.

This conclusion is supported by two observations. First of all, it should be noted that, in its essence, the rebellious impulse is not an egoistic spiritual movement. No doubt, it can be caused by selfish reasons. But people rise up not only against oppression, but also against lies. Moreover, at first, the selfish rebel in the very depths of his soul values ​​\u200b\u200bnothing, because he puts everything at stake. Of course, the rebel demands respect for himself, but only to the extent that he identifies himself with the natural human community.

Let us also note that it is by no means only the oppressed himself who becomes a rebel. Rebellion can also be raised by those who are shocked by the spectacle of oppression of which another has become a victim. In this case, he identifies himself with this oppressed. And here it is necessary to clarify that we are not talking about psychological identification, not about self-deception, when a person imagines that they insult him. It happens, on the contrary, that we are not able to calmly watch how others are subjected to those insults that we ourselves would endure without protesting. An example of this most noble movement of the human soul is the suicides out of protest, which Russian terrorists decided to do in hard labor when their comrades were flogged. It is not about a sense of community of interests. After all, we may consider outrageous injustice even in relation to our opponents. Here there is only an identification of destinies and joining one of the parties. Thus, the individual in itself is not at all the value that he intends to protect. This value is made up of all people in general. In rebellion, a person, overcoming his limitations, draws closer to others, and from this point of view, human solidarity has a metaphysical character. It is simply about solidarity born in shackles.

The positive aspect of the value implied by all rebellion can be clarified by comparing it with the purely negative concept of malice, as Scheler defines it. Indeed, a rebellious impulse is something more than an act of protest in the strongest sense of the word. Anger is beautifully defined by Scheler as self-poisoning, as a destructive secretion of prolonged impotence, occurring in a closed vessel. Rebellion, on the contrary, breaks life and helps to go beyond it. He turns stagnant waters into raging waves. Scheler himself emphasizes the passive nature of anger, noting what a large place it occupies in the spiritual world of a woman whose fate is to be an object of desire and possession. The source of rebellion, on the contrary, is an overabundance of energy and a thirst for activity. Scheler is right when he says that bitterness is brightly colored by envy. But they envy what they don't have. The rebel defends himself as he is. He demands not only the good that he does not possess or that he can be deprived of. He seeks recognition of what is already in him and which he himself in almost all cases has recognized as more significant than the object of probable envy. Riot is not realistic. According to Scheler, the bitterness of a strong soul turns into careerism, and that of a weak one into bitterness. But in any case, it is about becoming not what you are. Anger is always directed against its bearer. The rebellious person, on the contrary, in his first impulse protests against encroachments on himself, as he is. He fights for the integrity of his personality. At first, he seeks not so much to gain the upper hand as to make him respect himself.

Finally, bitterness seems to revel in advance on the torment it would like to inflict on its object. Nietzsche and Scheler are right in seeing a fine example of this feeling in that passage of Tertullian in which he informs the readers that it will be the greatest delight of the blessed inhabitants of paradise to see the Roman emperors writhing in the flames of hell. Such is the delight of respectable inhabitants who love the spectacle of the death penalty. The rebel, on the contrary, is fundamentally limited to protesting against humiliation, not wanting them for anyone else, and is ready to endure torment, but only not to allow anything offensive to the individual.

In this case, it is not clear why Scheler completely identifies the rebellious spirit and bitterness. His critique of animosity in humanitarianism (which he treats as a form of unchristian love for people) could be applied to some vague form of humanitarian idealism or the technique of terror. But this criticism misses the mark as far as the rebellion of man against his destiny, the impulse that raises him to the defense of the dignity inherent in everyone, is concerned. Scheler wants to show that humanitarianism goes hand in hand with hatred of the world. They love humanity as a whole so as not to love anyone in particular. In some cases this is true, and Scheler becomes clearer when you take into account that humanitarianism for him is represented by Bentham and Rousseau. But the attachment of a person to a person can arise due to something other than an arithmetic calculation of interests or trust in human nature (however, purely theoretical). Emil's utilitarians and educator are opposed, for example, by the logic embodied by Dostoevsky in the image of Ivan Karamazov, who begins with a rebellious impulse and ends with a metaphysical uprising. Scheler, being familiar with Dostoyevsky's novel, summarizes the concept thus: "There is not enough love in the world to waste it on anything other than a person." Even if such a summary were true, the bottomless desperation that is felt behind it deserves something better than scorn. But, in fact, it does not convey the tragic nature of the Karamazov rebellion. The drama of Ivan Karamazov, on the contrary, consists in an overabundance of love, not knowing whom to pour out on. Since this love is not used, and God is denied, the decision arises to bestow it on a person in the name of noble compassion.

However, as follows from our analysis, in the rebellious movement some abstract ideal is chosen not out of mental poverty and not for the sake of fruitless protest. In a person, one must see that which cannot be reduced to an idea, that warmth of the soul, which is destined for existence and for nothing else. Does this mean that no rebellion carries bitterness and envy? No, it does not, and we know this very well in our unkind age. But we must consider the concept of anger in its broadest sense, because otherwise we risk distorting it, and then we can say that rebellion completely overcomes anger. If in Wuthering Heights Heathcliff prefers his love to God and asks to send him to hell, only to unite with his beloved there, then here it is not only his humiliated youth that speaks, but also the painful experience of his whole life. Meister Eckhart felt the same impulse when, in a startling fit of heresy, he declared that he preferred hell with Jesus to heaven without him. And here is the same impulse of love. So, contrary to Scheler, I strongly insist on the passionate creative impulse of rebellion, which distinguishes it from bitterness. Seemingly negative because it creates nothing, rebellion is actually deeply positive because it reveals in a person that which is always worth fighting for.

But aren't both rebellion and the value it carries relative? The reasons for the rebellion seem to have changed with the epochs and civilizations. It is obvious that a Hindu pariah, an Inca warrior, a native from Central Africa, or a member of the first Christian communities had different ideas about rebellion. It can even be argued with high probability that in these specific cases the concept of rebellion does not make sense. However, the ancient Greek slave, the serf, the Renaissance condottiere, the Regency Parisian bourgeois, the Russian intellectual of the 1900s, and the modern worker, diverging in their understanding of the causes of the rebellion, would unanimously recognize its legitimacy. In other words, we can assume that the problem of rebellion has a certain meaning only within the framework of Western thought. One can speak even more precisely, noting, together with Max Scheler, that the rebellious spirit found expression with difficulty in societies where inequality was too great (as in the Hindu castes), or, conversely, in those societies where there was absolute equality (certain primitive tribes) . In society, a rebellious spirit can arise only in those social groups where theoretical equality hides huge actual inequality. And this means that the problem of rebellion only makes sense in our Western society. In such a case, it would be difficult to resist the temptation to assert that this problem is connected with the development of individualism, if previous reflections had not alerted us to such a conclusion.

From Scheler's remark, one can clearly deduce only that in our Western societies, thanks to the theory of political freedom in human soul a lofty conception of man takes root, and that, as a result of the practical use of this freedom, dissatisfaction with one's position grows correspondingly. Actual freedom develops more slowly than man's ideas about freedom. From this observation, only the following can be deduced: rebellion is the work of an informed person, who firmly knows his rights. But nothing gives us reason to speak only of the rights of the individual. On the contrary, it is highly probable that, thanks to the solidarity already mentioned, the human race becomes more and more fully aware of itself in the course of its history. Indeed, the problem of rebellion does not arise among the Incas or pariahs, since it was solved for them by tradition: even before they could raise the question of rebellion, the answer to it was already given in the concept of the sacred. In the sacred world there is no problem of rebellion, just as there are no real problems at all, since all answers are given once and for all. Here the place of metaphysics is occupied by myth. There are no questions, there are only answers and endless comments to them, which can be metaphysical. But when a person has not yet entered the sphere of the sacred, or has already left it, he is questioning and rebelling, and he questions and rebels in order to enter this sphere or leave it. A rebellious person is a person who lives before or after the sacred, demanding a human order, in which the answers will be human, that is, reasonably formulated. From this moment on, every question, every word is a rebellion, while in the sacralized world every word is an act of grace. It could thus be shown that for human spirit only two universes are available - the universe of the sacred (or, to use the language of Christianity, the universe of grace) and the universe of rebellion. The disappearance of one means the emergence of the other, although this may come in puzzling forms. And here we again meet with the formula "All or nothing". The urgency of the problem of rebellion is determined solely by the fact that today entire societies seek to isolate themselves from the sacred. We live in a desacralized history. Of course, man is not reduced to rebellion. But today's history, with its strife, forces us to recognize that rebellion is one of the essential dimensions of man. It is our historical reality. And we need not to run away from it, but to find our values ​​in it. But is it possible, staying outside the sphere of the sacred and its absolute values, to acquire a rule of life behavior? is the question posed by the rebellion.

We have already had the opportunity to note a certain indefinite value that is born at the limit beyond which the uprising takes place. Now it is time to ask ourselves if this value is found in modern forms of rebellious thought and rebellious action, and if so, to clarify its content. But before continuing the discussion, we note that the basis of this value is rebellion as such. The solidarity of people is determined by a rebellious impulse, and this, in turn, finds its justification only in their complicity. Therefore, we have the right to declare that any rebellion that allows itself to deny or destroy human solidarity ceases to be rebellions because of this and in fact coincides with a deadening conciliation. In the same way, devoid of holiness, human solidarity finds life only at the level of rebellion. Thus, the real drama of rebellious thought manifests itself. In order to live, a person must rebel, but his rebellion should not violate the boundaries opened by the rebel in himself, the boundaries beyond which people, united, begin their true being. Rebellious thought cannot do without memory; it is characterized by constant tension. Following her in her creations and actions, we must always ask whether she remains true to her original nobility or, out of fatigue and madness, she forgot about him - in the drunkenness of tyranny or servility.

In the meantime, here is the first result that the rebellious spirit has achieved thanks to reflection, imbued with absurdity and a sense of the obvious barrenness of the world. In the experience of the absurd, suffering is individual. In a rebellious impulse, it realizes itself as a collective. It turns out to be a common lot. The first achievement of a mind bound by estrangement is the understanding that it shares this estrangement with all people and that human reality suffers in its entirety from isolation, estrangement in relation to itself and to the world. Evil experienced by one person becomes a plague that infects everyone. In our daily trials, rebellion plays the same role that the "cogito" plays in the order of thought; rebellion is the first evidence. But this evidence brings the individual out of his loneliness, it is the common thing that underlies the first value for all people. I rebel, therefore we exist.

1 Lalande. Vocabuiaire philosophique.

2 The community of victims is a phenomenon of the same order as the community of the victim and the executioner. But the executioner does not know about it.

3 L'homme du ressentiment.

4 Of course, the rise of Christianity is marked by metaphysical rebellion, but the resurrection of Christ, the heralding of his second coming and the kingdom of God, understood as the promise of eternal life, are the answers that make rebellion unnecessary.

Albert Camus is one of the most famous philosophers and writers, whose theories have found their way into many practical programs and emerging ideologies. Camus's works were reprinted several times during the author's lifetime and gained incredible popularity in certain circles. In 1957, the prose writer was awarded the Nobel Prize for his literary achievements.

The Rebellious Man, despite its impressive length, is in its structure more of an essay than a treatise describing the historical predisposition of man to any kind of rebellion and opposition.

Taking as a basis the concepts of Epicurus, Lucretius, Hegel, Breton and Nietzsche, Camus derives on their basis his own theory of human freedom.

The work has gained quite a lot of fame in circles of people who are adherents of existentialism and its varieties.

Biography

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in Algeria to an Alsatian and a Spaniard. Since childhood, in preschool age, Camus was forced to do a variety of jobs to help the family survive. The work of a handyman was poorly paid, and therefore the mother decides to send her son to primary school. Camus shows an amazing thirst for knowledge and demonstrates remarkable abilities. Teachers note Albert's innate talent and convince his mother to allow his son to continue his studies. Louis Germain, one of the teachers at the school where Camus studied, not only personally prepared him for the entrance lyceum exams, but also helped the boy financially, securing a scholarship for Albert and paying his current expenses from his own pocket.

early years

In 1932, Albert Camus entered the University of Algiers, where he paid great attention to the study of theoretical psychology and philosophy, and also became a listener of lectures on cultural studies, aesthetics and history. The knowledge gained prompted the young philosopher to create his own works in diary form. In his diaries, Camus recorded personal observations, analyzes of various philosophical concepts, along the way trying to develop their own based on them.

The young Camus did not bypass politics either, having managed to be an active member of several political parties. However, by 1937 he was finally disappointed in pseudo-diversity political views and accepts for itself the installation that a person will everywhere be only himself, regardless of ideological, racial or gender differences.

Philosophy

Albert Camus in "The Rebellious Man" defined himself as a thinker, not attributing his beliefs to any of the existing philosophical concepts. In part, the writer's philosophy is still depressive, but the writer himself considered this to be the result of a long illness and a difficult childhood and in no way connected this with the modern fashionable tendencies in an educated society towards artificial melancholy and spiritual decline.

Camus accepts the “global absurdity” as a given, not looking for ways to get rid of it in his works. In The Rebellious Man, Camus briefly outlines the theory of the meaninglessness of many human actions, which only complicate his already short and not very joyful life.

Book writing

Returning to Paris in the winter of 1950, Camus settled in his old apartment, trying to put his own views on human psychology in order. The former fragmentary concept, previously used by the writer, no longer satisfied him. Camus wanted something more than just analysis, he wanted to find out the hidden, subconscious causes of various types of human behavior. By early February 1950, Camus was ready to put his still-forming views on paper. Having drawn up a detailed plan, in which he often made adjustments, the writer set to work.

The philosophy of Camus in "The Rebellious Man" wore brightly pronounced character existentialism. The writer for a long time did not dare to admit this side of his convictions, nevertheless positioning the essay being written as “neo-existentialism”.

In March 1951, Albert Camus finished work on the draft text of the book. After several months of refinement, the philosopher decides to publish some of the chapters in journals in order to assess the reaction of the thinking sections of society to his new work. The success of the chapters on Friedrich Nietzsche and Lautreamont was so overwhelming that Camus immediately takes the full text of the essay to the Gallimard publishing house.

What is this book about?

The philosopher believes that rebellion is a natural reaction to the strangeness and absurdity of being, caused by a strong concentration of these phenomena in the life of an individual. Awakening, the subconscious activates the self-consciousness of a person, which leads to his desire to change reality.

An analysis of Camus' "Rebel Man" shows that the goal of a rebellion is not destruction, but the creation of a new one, changing the existing order for the better, turning chaos into an orderly, understandable human mind system.

main idea

Developing the concept of rebellion in the human mind, the philosopher identifies three types of resistance that occur in the human subconscious.

• metaphysical rebellion. In The Man in Revolt, Camus compares this kind of resistance to the enmity between a slave and a master. Despite the hatred of the master, the slave not only recognizes his existence, but also agrees with the social role assigned to him, which already makes him a loser. Metaphysical rebellion is an individual rebellion, a personal rebellion of each person against society.
• Historic rebellion. This type includes absolutely all the prerequisites for uprisings, the purpose of which was to establish freedom and justice. Historical rebellion is very similar to the moral requirements and voice of the conscience of each person. In The Man in Revolt, Camus expresses the position of a man who also brings about such a rebellion by the mere fact of writing this essay.
• Riot in art. This kind of resistance is considered by Camus as a kind of complete freedom of self-expression of a person within certain "allowed" limits. On the one hand, creative vision denies reality, but on the other hand, it only transforms it into a form acceptable to the creator, since a person cannot create something that has never been in the global consciousness.

Looking at summary“The Rebellious Man” by Albert Camus, it can be said with confidence that the only main idea of ​​​​the work was only the thesis that any rebellion is useless due to too much effort expended on it, as well as an incredibly short duration human life.

Criticism

In order to protect his work from meaningless or malicious criticism, Camus repeatedly noticed in the text of the essay that he was not a real, professional philosopher, but in fact, he simply published a book of reasoning about human psychology.

The bulk of criticism from colleagues in the pen fell on those chapters of Camus's work, where he described conceptual analysis. Philosophers believed that Albert did not give precise definitions of various psychological phenomena, and even more so inaccurately describes the concepts of thinkers of the past, changing the quotes of ancient speakers in his favor, adjusting them to his own views on the theory of human freedom.

However, despite the large number of inaccuracies and flaws in Camus' book "The Rebellious Man", critics noted the innovation of thought, the uniqueness of the author's concept and a detailed analysis of the nature of human resistance.

Philosophers who identify themselves with the traditional, academic school noted the high intuitiveness of Camus' reasoning, which often lacks logical justification.

Confession

The popularity of "The Rebellious Man" by Camus was not at all what the author expected. It turned out that for most young people who are fond of philosophy, the book has become not a kind of encyclopedia of human feelings, but rather a fashionable attribute, indicating that the owner belongs to a special caste of existentialist intellectuals, who were characterized by depressive moods.

The "rebellious man" Camus gave rise to the subculture of existentialism, giving food for thought to thousands of young people who recognized Albert as their leader and gathered in special cafes where the ceiling and walls were hung with black cloth. Cafés like these served exclusively as a haven for the adherents of the “depressive philosophy of alienation.” The author himself spoke contemptuously of young people who spend their lives in meaningless sad thoughts instead of accepting the surrounding reality and learning to live in it.

In Russia

"The Rebellious Man" by Camus was published by several Russian publishing houses at once in the late eighties. Along with the works of many other Western philosophers, the works of Albert Camus were warmly received by domestic culturologists and psychologists.

Edition "A. Camus "The Rebellious Man" (M., 1990), which became the most popular publication of the philosopher in Russian, included not only his essays, but also part of diary entries and full texts of notebooks of the period 1951-1959.

"Rebellious Man"

But Camus doesn't stop there. The Second World War is on. Camus is involved in the resistance movement. His works deal with the theme of rebellion. One who understands that "this world does not matter, will gain freedom." You can gain freedom only by rebelling against the universal absurdity. Rebellion and freedom are inseparable. Ilyin, V.V. History of Philosophy: A Textbook for High Schools. SPb., 2005.

"The Rebellious Man" is a multi-layered work, difficult to understand and interpret. Briefly, we can say this: Camus seeks to understand how a person and humanity become capable of murders, wars, through what ideas and concepts their justification is carried out.

Camus recalls the results he achieved in the philosophy of the absurd. Since humanity has become adept at both condemning and defending ("when necessary, inevitable", etc.) wars and murders, it should be recognized that the existing ethics does not provide an unambiguous, logically justified solution to the problem. The rejection of suicide in the philosophy of the absurd indirectly testified that arguments could also be made against murder. But the question still remained unanswered.

Now, in The Rebel Man, he was on the agenda. Starting from the philosophy of the absurd, Camus argues, we have come to the conclusion that "the first and only evidence" that is given in the experience of the absurd is rebellion.

"The Rebellious Man" is the first theme of Camus' work under consideration. “This is the person who says no. But in denying, he does not renounce: he is a man who says yes with his very first action.

The rebellion of a Roman slave who suddenly refused to obey his master, the suicide of Russian terrorists in hard labor in protest against bullying of fellow soldiers are examples from the analysis of which Camus concludes: “In the experience of the absurd, suffering is individual. In a rebellious breakthrough, it acquires the character of a collective existence. It becomes a common undertaking... The evil experienced by one person becomes a plague that infects everyone. Riot is the first evidence. But this evidence draws the individual out of his loneliness, it is the common thing that underlies the first value for all people. Camus A. Decree. op.

Camus analyzes the question of "metaphysical rebellion". “Metaphysical rebellion is the uprising of a person against his destiny and the entire universe. This rebellion is metaphysical because it challenges the ultimate goals of man and the universe." The meaning of metaphysical rebellion is great. At first, rebellion does not encroach on the elimination of God. It's just a "talk on an equal footing". "But this is not about a courtly conversation. It's about controversy, inspired by the desire to take over." Ibid. Then Camus follows an analysis of those forms of rebellion and those "studies" of rebellion, which are analyzed using the examples of the work of the Marquis de Sade, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, and surrealist poetry.

The main content of the book is an analysis of those forms of rebellion that in the 19th and 20th centuries. turned into devastating revolutions. Camus approaches the "historical revolt" neither as a historian nor as a philosopher of history. He is most interested in what mindsets and ideas pushed (and are pushing) people to regicide, revolutionary unrest, terror, wars, mass destruction of foreigners and fellow tribesmen.

Philosophical and socio-political ideas are credited with a truly decisive role in these processes. The philosophy of Hegel and the Hegelians, in a word, varieties of "German ideology" both on German and "Germanized" Russian soil of the 19th century. are carefully studied as the ideological prerequisites for destructive revolutionary uprisings. Special attention is paid to Belinsky, Herzen, Russian nihilists of the 60s, anarchist theorist Bakunin, Narodnik Nechaev. The chapter "Pickling Killers" dissects the history and ideology of Russian terrorism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Marxism is also analyzed, including its perception on Russian soil. "Rebellion and Revolution" - this theme remains for Camus pivotal throughout his analysis. The connection between the overthrow of principles, the revolutionary upheaval of foundations, and the annihilation of people seems to the author of The Rebellious Man undoubted. “The revolution in the field of principles kills God in the person of his vicar. Revolution of the 20th century It kills what is left of the divine in the principles themselves, and thus sanctifies historical nihilism ” Camus A. Decree. op..

Camus sees similarities between fascism and communism, although he takes into account the differences between them. But there is a similarity, and it stems ultimately from a false philosophy of history, from a call to revolt. “Fascism wanted to institute the advent of the Nietzsche superman. And then I realized that if God exists, he can be anyone and anything, but above all - the lord of death. If a person wants to become God, he must arrogate to himself the right to life and death of others. But, having become a supplier of corpses and sub-humans, he himself turned not into God, but into a sub-human, into a vile servant of death. The rational revolution, in turn, seeks to realize the all-man predicted by Marx. But as soon as we accept the logic of history in all its totality, it will lead a revolution against its own high passion, will start stronger and

cripple a person more severely and in the end it itself will turn into an objective crime. Camus A. Decree. op.

Despite the harsh criticism of rebellion and revolution, Camus pays tribute to rebellion and revolutionism, since they are generated by the human lot. And therefore, despite the greatest risk and danger, rebelliousness must go through self-criticism and self-restraint. "... The revolutionary spirit of Europe can, for the first and last time, reflect on its principles, ask itself what kind of deviation pushes it to terrorism and war, and, together with the goals of rebellion, gain loyalty to itself" Ibid ..

The closing pages of The Rebel Man are hardly convincing. Having brilliantly debunked the rebellious, revolutionary, nihilistic consciousness and action, Camus tried to convince his reader that "true rebellion" and "new revolutionaryism" are possible, free from destructive consequences. And yet, faith in a person who has taken upon himself the "risk and difficulties of freedom", more precisely, faith in millions of singles, "whose creations and works daily deny the boundaries and former mirages of history" Ibid. - this is what the outstanding writer and outstanding philosopher Albert Camus spoke about in his last works.