synopsis:

The rebel is a philosophical examination on the historical political tradition of Europe. According to Camus, there are two kinds of rebellion: metaphysical and historical. The metaphysical rebellion is rebellion against God: humans, when confronted with the absurdity of life, rebel against that which, according to their religious tradition, gave them life: God. They condemn God because they don't want to accept the fact that their suffering and pain and the necessity of dying are given to them and necessary, so they reject God. With this rejection they also reject the grounds of moral values and become nihilistic (see Nietzsche). After this rejection humans will search for another (non-metaphysical) way to give their life sense. They will do this by clinging to absolute and radical political values. So they replace the heavenly metaphysical kingdom they strive to by an earthly kingdom. The striving for this kingdom gives sense to life and gives new absolute values: to establish this kingdom, this utopia, is the highest aim so everything that can be done for attaining this end is ‘good' and everything what is against this end is ‘bad'. We can see this in all revolutions: the end justifies the means and all enemies of the utopia must be killed. Camus calls this ‘historical nihilism', because it is indifferent to human life. With this book he condemned all radical politics which support historical nihilism, especially communism, which was very brave in this time, because most French intellectuals – lead by Sartre – supported communism. Camus also rejected capital punishment in this book. See also his ‘Reflexions sur la guillotine' on this theme.

Camus pleas for the rejection of historical nihilism and for recognition of the value of human life. We must always be realistic: human life is prior to ideas and principles. Not revolution but revolt is necessary. Revolt is a positive value: it is based on solidarity. Revolt against everything that threatens human life. ‘Je me révolte, donc nous sommes' (‘I rebel therefore we are') is a famous phrase in this book, based on Descartes' ‘I think therefore I am'.

He also rejects romantic views on rebellion: complete self-denial in favour of ideals is never good. Therefore he thinks Jesus as human-being was very interesting, but the metaphysical and religious myth-building around his person is wrong.

on this book:

This bundle of essays contains a couple of hundred names, of which Nietzsche, Hegel, chestov, pascal and Marx are the most important. By the publication of this book Camus was completely denied by the French literary establishment and especially by Sartre because he rejected the bloody facts of the French revolution and because he principally rejected communism, which was not-done for the French intellectuals; they sympathised with Soviet-communism. Camus mentioned the concentration camps under Stalin in his work, the existence of which were completely denied by intellectuals in this time.

Although most of the ideas in this book are not original, (a lot were mentioned before by Shelley, Byron and Keats), this book was of main influence on many political thinkers, also nowadays. Especially after Kruschev publicly informed the world about the terror of the Soviet regime.

See also: George Orwell who, as Camus, always struggled against totalitarian political views and whose political thinking has a lot of matches with Camus'
"A slave begins by demanding justice and ends..."