The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt

Camus repeatedly returns to the dangers of extremist ideologies, especially those that can justify violence and oppression in the name of some grand, overarching ideal. Camus observes that while the modern era has witnessed a general waning of traditional religious faith, the irrational fervor of religious thinking has often been transferred to modern secular ideologies: “Reason, among the nihilists, strangely enough, annexed the prejudices of faith” (337). Utopian ideologies like Marx’s communism also take on religious significance by replacing the traditional promise of a perfect afterlife with the promise of a heaven on earth: a perfect society in which mankind can finally achieve perfection. As Camus writes, “The idea of progress alone is substituted for divine will” (420), and “Utopia replaces God by the future” (452).

The greatest problem Camus sees with these ideologies is their potential to justify an almost limitless amount of crime. Utopian thinking “proceeds to identify the future with ethics; the only values are those which serve this particular future. For that reason, Utopias have almost always been coercive and authoritarian” (452). Most troubling of all, once a man is persuaded that his revolutionary ideology can bring about a world that is perfect in some way, such a man begins to disregard the needs and rights of real human beings in the present in the name of his idealized vision: “Henceforth, violence will be directed against one and all, in the service of an abstract idea” (351-52). With his unshakeable belief in a perfect future, a man will cease to think critically and will instead become persuaded of the necessity of undertaking any measure that promises to make his dream a reality—up to and including violence against his fellow men.

While rebellion sometimes morphs into outright revolution in terms of historical context, it is important to note that for Camus, rebellion and revolution are not necessarily the same thing by default. In fact, he often presents them as contrasts.

Revolution is often driven by a kind of extremist ideology, in which the usual moral scruples and due processes of justice are jettisoned in favor of achieving some idealized, utopian ends as quickly as possible: “When revolution is the sole value, there are, in fact, no more rights, there are only duties” (355). Since the revolution promises a heaven on earth, the worth of the individual and the importance of human values in the present are disregarded in favor of taking an “ends justify the means” approach. As Camus writes, “a revolution is an attempt to shape actions to ideas, to fit the world into a theoretic frame” (233), and all those who stand in the way of this are persecuted or eliminated, since “[r]evolution consists in loving a man who does not yet exist” instead of preserving the lives and liberties of those in the present (23). Camus argues that this is why revolutions so often begin with idealistic aims only to descend into terror and oppression: When the promised utopia fails to materialize, the revolutionaries become more authoritarian and more desensitized in trying to reach their goal.

Rebellion, on the other hand, is less organized and often far less efficient than revolution, but it is also truer to the spirit of man and his better impulses. Rebellion rejects abstract utopian thinking in favor of asserting the worth and dignity of human beings, both in the here and now and as a transcendent value that defies the march of history. In Camus’s view, “[r]ebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended” (48). Camus stresses that rebellion, unlike revolution, “relies on reality”—not utopian theories—“to assist it in its perpetual struggle for truth” (645). Most importantly of all, a true rebel never loses sight of the rights of others, as he wishes to “support the common dignity” (643) and to stand against arbitrary terror and oppression by “specifically attack[ing] the unlimited power that authorizes a superior to violate the forbidden frontier” (615). For Camus, rebellion requires accepting the fact that there will be no perfect ending, no promised utopia; “instead of killing and dying in order to produce the being that we are not”—as is the case in revolutionary thinking—“we have to live and let live in order to create what we are” (548).