A. Camus, "Rebel Man": summary, reviews

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

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

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

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

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 Algiers, to an Alsatian and a Spaniard. FROMchildhood, even at preschool age, Camus was forced to do a variety of work to help the family survive. The work of a laborer was poorly paid, and therefore the mother decides to send her son to elementary school. Camus reveals an amazing thirst for knowledge and demonstrates remarkable abilities. Teachers note Albert's innate talent and convince his mother to allow his son to study further. Louis Germain, one of the teachers at the school where Camus studied, not only personally prepared him for the lyceum entrance exams, but also helped the boy financially, securing a scholarship for Albert and paying his running expenses out of 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 wrote down personal observations, analyzes of various philosophical concepts, simultaneously trying to develop his 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 finally became disillusioned with the pseudo-diversity of political views and accepted the attitude that a person will everywhere be only himself, regardless of ideological, racial or gender differences.

Philosophy

Albert Camus in "The Rebellious Man" defined himself asthinker, without relating his beliefs to any of the existing philosophical concepts. In part, the writer's philosophy is still depressive, but the writer himself considered this a consequence of a long illness and a difficult childhood and did not connect this in any way with the modern fashionable tendencies in an educated society towards artificial melancholy and spiritual decline.

“World absurdity” Camus takes for granted, not looking for ways to get rid of it in his works. In The Man in Revolt, Camus briefly outlines the theory of the meaninglessness of many human actions, which only complicate his already short and not very joyful life.

Writing a book

Returning to Paris in the winter of 1950, Camus settled into 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" had a pronounced character of existentialism. The writer for a long time did not dare to admit this side of his beliefs, nevertheless positioning the essay being written as “neo-existentialism.”

In March 1951, AlbertCamus is finishing 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 the book about?

Summary of Camus' Man in Rebel is a full 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 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.

Analysis of Camus' "Rebellious Man" shows that the goal of rebellion is not destruction, but the creation of a new one, changing the existing order for the better, turning 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 occurring 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,personal rebellion of each person against society.
• Historic riot. Absolutely all the prerequisites for uprisings, the purpose of which was to establish freedom and justice, belong to this type. 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 is also carrying out such a rebellion by the mere fact of writing this essay.
• Rebellion in art. This kind of resistance is considered by Camus as a kind of complete freedom of self-expression of a person within certain "permitted" 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 the summary of "The Rebellious Man" by Albert Camus, we can say 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, and also incredibly the short duration of human life.

Criticism

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

Recognition

The popularity of Camus' "Rebel Man" 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 author himself was outraged by this interpretation of his work, because he did not consider discouragement a positive factor for the human psyche.

Camus' "Rebel Man" spawned an existentialist subculture, 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. Such cafes served as a refuge exclusively for supporters of the "depressive philosophy ofalienation". The author himself spoke contemptuously about young people living their lives in meaningless sad thoughts instead of accepting the surrounding reality and learning to live in it.

In Russia

"The Rebellious Man" Camus came out in several Russian publishing houses at the end of the 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 from the period 1951-1959.