I have recently begun reading a book of philosophy titled "The Rebel" written by Albert Camus. I have heard of Camus in the past, but since my interest in diversifying my reading has taken on a more significant vitality, I ended up purchasing this little piece of intrigue.
I am over 100 pages into it thus far, and i must say i am disappointed. Before I begun reading it, i was of the hopeful outlook that Camus might have been a revolutionary author of the intricacies of rebellious mind-sets; complementing and glorifying that of the historical revolutionaries such as Rousseau or Marx. Considering Camus is a philosopher of the 20th century, I had some reasonable expectations that he would live up to some typical standards of revolutionary thought and possibly even codify it into a much more reputable philosophical application. This turned out to be false, considering his "thoughts" are more appropriately "judgments" or rather-criticisms, *ON* rebellion.
I do not abhor critical or analytical inquiries of philosophical subjects, especially one centered upon rebellion, however, what i had thus far gathered from Camus is his sheer presumptuousness to encapsulate a human stigma such as "rebellion" into a (so far) narrow minded perception. He argues that man is confined to a rebellious nature due to his either "negation" or "affirmation" of what it is he is rebelling against. In other words, he who rebels wants "all" of everything, or "none" of anything (which i somewhat agree with), and it is this desire for death or life (defined by the rebels terms) that stirs man into rebellion against both his existence and against his situation. Camus thinks that the act of rebellion is geared solely towards *DEATH* or destruction. His reasoning is based on the fact that man "by nature" abhors what he is, which Camus labels as-"metaphysical rebellion". And because every act of rebellion (according to Camus) is a pursuit to rid oneself of the inevitability of mortality by inventing a "moral" code of which to abide by, the act is self-destructive and self-contradictory.
He thinks rebellion is either passive or aggressive, or that it is can only be a pursuit to attain personal power (he supports this claim through the work of Nietzsche), and only succeeds in blinding man of what he is-a creature of existence.
As far as i can tell into as far as i have read, is that Camus ignores such questions as "Why are all rebellious acts based on the fear or negation of death?" "Why are all rebellious acts destructive?". From what i have gathered he has made nothing more than assumptions-clever as they are-of why rebellion is always destructive or progressive to that of death and the *will to power* in accordance with self-dogma to promote freedom.
I have a few hundred pages to go before i complete it...
I'll see if Camus can possibly provide a more formidable logic than he already has.
Subject: Camus 
Sun Jun 28, 2009 1:16 am
