Albert Camus is one of the most famous philosophers and writers whose theories have found their application in many practical programs and emerging ideologies. Camus's works during the life of the author were reprinted several times and gained incredible popularity in certain circles. In 1957, for his literary achievements, the prose writer was awarded the Nobel Prize.
“Rebel man”, despite its impressive volume, is an essay rather than a treatise describing a person’s historical predisposition to any kind of rebellion and confrontation.
Based on the concepts of Epicurus, Lucretius, Hegel, Breton and Nietzsche, Camus derives from them his own theory of human freedom.
The work gained quite a lot of fame in the circles of people who are adherents of existentialism and its varieties.
Biography
Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in Algeria, in a family of Alsatian and Spanish. From childhood, even in preschool age, Camus was forced to perform a variety of jobs to help his family survive. The work of a laborer was poorly paid, and therefore the mother decides to send her son to primary school. Camus discovers an amazing craving for knowledge and demonstrates remarkable abilities. Teachers celebrate Albert's innate talent and convince his mother to let his son learn further. Louis Germain, one of the teachers of the school where Camus studied, not only personally prepared him for the entrance Lyceum exams, but also helped the boy financially by securing a scholarship for Albert and paying his running expenses from his own pocket.
early years
In 1932, Albert Camus entered the University of Algeria, where he paid great attention to the study of theoretical psychology and philosophy, and also became a student of lectures on cultural studies, aesthetics and history. The knowledge gained prompted the young philosopher to create his own works in a diary form. In his diaries, Camus recorded personal observations, analyzes of various philosophical concepts, simultaneously trying to develop his own on their basis.
The young Camus did not pass over politics either, having managed to be an active member of several political parties. However, by 1937, he was finally disappointed in the pseudo-diversity of political views and accepted for himself the attitude that a person everywhere would be only himself, regardless of ideological, racial or gender differences.
Philosophy
Albert Camus in “Rebel Man” defined himself as a thinker, not referring his beliefs to any of the existing philosophical concepts. Partly, the writer’s philosophy is still depressing, but the writer himself considered this a consequence of a long illness and a difficult childhood and did not connect it with modern fashionable in an educated society tendencies to artificial melancholy and spiritual decline.
Camus takes the “world absurdity” for granted, not looking in his works for ways to get rid of him. In The Rebellious Man, Camus summarizes the theory of the meaninglessness of many human actions that only complicate his already short and not too joyful life.
Writing a book
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 old sketchy concept previously used by the writer no longer satisfied him. Camus wanted something more than just analysis; he wanted to find out the innermost, subconscious causes of various types of human behavior. By the beginning of February 1950, Camus was ready to expound his still emerging views on paper. Having compiled a detailed plan, in which he often made adjustments, the writer set to work.
The philosophy of Camus in The Rebellious Man was of a pronounced nature of existentialism. For a long time, the writer did not dare to recognize a similar side of his convictions, nevertheless positioning the written essay as "neo-existentialism."
In March 1951, Albert Camus completed work on a draft text of the book. After several months of refinement, the philosopher decides to publish some chapters in magazines in order to evaluate the reaction of the thinking layers of society to his new work. The success of the chapters on Friedrich Nietzsche and Lothreamon was so overwhelming that Camus immediately referred the full text of the essay to the Gallimard Publishing House.
What is this book about?
Summary of Camus’s “Rebellious Man” is a complete analysis of the nature of human subconscious resistance and rebellion as such.
The philosopher believes that rebellion is a natural reaction to the strangeness and absurdity of being, caused by the strong concentration of these phenomena in the life of an individual. Awakening, the subconscious mind activates a person’s self-consciousness, which leads to his desire to change reality.
An analysis of Camus’s “Rebellious Man” shows that the purpose of rebellion is not destruction, but creation of a new one, change of the existing order for the better, transformation of chaos into an orderly system understandable to the human mind.
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 riot. In The Rebel Man, Camus compares this form of resistance with the hostility of a slave and a lord. 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 revolt - there is an individual, personal revolt of each person against society.
- Historic riot. This view includes absolutely all the prerequisites of the uprisings, the purpose of which was the establishment of freedom and justice. The historical revolt is very similar to the moral requirements and the voice of conscience of each person. In The Rebel Man, Camus expresses the position of a man who also carries out such an uprising by the very fact of writing this essay.
- Riot in art. This type of resistance is considered by Camus as a type of complete freedom of expression of a person in certain “permitted” frameworks. On the one hand, the 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 the summary of “Rebel Man” by Albert Camus, we can confidently say that the only main idea of the work was only the thesis that any rebellion is useless due to the too much effort expended on it, as well as the incredibly short duration of human life.
Criticism
In order to protect his work from senseless or malicious criticism, Camus repeatedly noticed in the text of an essay that he was not a real, professional philosopher, but, in fact, just published a book of reasoning about human psychology.
Most of the criticisms from fellow writers came in those chapters of Camus' work, where he described a conceptual analysis. Philosophers believed that Albert does not give exact definitions of various psychological phenomena and even more so inaccurately describes the concepts of thinkers of the past, changing the quotations of ancient speakers in his favor, fitting them to his own views on the theory of human freedom.
However, despite the large number of inaccuracies and flaws in Camus’s book “The Rebel Man,” critics noted the innovation of thought, the uniqueness of the author’s conception, and a detailed analysis of the nature of human resistance.
Philosophers who relate themselves to the traditional, academic school, noted the high intuitiveness of Camus reasoning, which often lacks a logical basis.
Confession
The popularity of the "Rebel Man" Camus was not at all what the author expected. It turned out that for most young people who are interested in philosophy, the book has become not a kind of encyclopedia of human feelings, but rather a fashionable attribute denoting that the owner belongs to a special caste of existential intellectuals who were characterized by depressed moods.
The author himself was indignant at this interpretation of his work, since he did not consider the decline in spirit a positive factor for the human psyche.
The “rebellious man” Camus created a subculture of existentialism, providing food for the minds of thousands of young people who recognized Albert as their leader and gathered in special cafes, where the ceiling and walls were covered with black cloth. Such cafes served as a refuge exclusively for supporters of the "depressive philosophy of alienation." The author himself spoke contemptuously about young people burning their lives in senseless sad thoughts instead of accepting the surrounding reality and learning to live in it.
In Russia
The “rebellious man” Camus came out immediately in several Russian publishing houses in the late eighties. Along with the works of many other Western philosophers, the works of Albert Camus were warmly received by Russian cultural experts and psychologists.
Edition “A. Camus “The Rebellious Man” (M., 1990), which became the philosopher’s most popular publication in Russian, included not only his essay, but also part of his diary entries and the full texts of notebooks from the period 1951-1959.