Rebellion

It is now July 5, the day after the Declaration of Independence was signed, when there was no going back for the men (yes, only men) who signed that document, giving themselves a death sentence.  What came next was rebellion, and, though this is debatable, a revolution.  I am in the midst of reading Camus's essay called The Rebel.  Being a Frenchman, he writes from a very European perspective, but he is piercing, brilliant, at times cynical, but ultimately courageous.  Why is it that the French revolution led from overthrowing a monarchy (something most people today take for granted) to the terror?  Is it inevitable?  What drives that social phenomenon?

For him, rebellion and revolution stem from a rejection of the current normative justice systems that individuals and groups of individuals find themselves.  Camus defines this as a contradiction in the human mind because it is where man finds himself in the absurd position of wanting clarity and seeing meaninglessness.  "It abandons us in this contradiction with no grounds either for preventing or for justifying murder, menacing and menaced, swept along with a whole generation intoxicated by nihilism, and yet lost in its loneliness, with weapons in our hands and a lump in our throats."

This nihilistic despair makes tyranny oh so easy, but Camus fought all his life to chart a path that avoided nihilism.  He makes a very technical argument, but it is one that is well worth examining closely. Quoting Camus:

"This basic contradiction , however, cannot fail to be accompanied by a host of others from the moment that we claim to remain firmly in the absurdist position and ignore the real nature of the absurd, which is that it is an experience to be lived through, a point of departure, the equivalent, in existence, of Descartes's methodical doubt.  The absurd is, in itself, a contradiction...  It is contradictory in its content because in wanting to uphold life, it excludes all value judgments, when to live is, in itself, a value judgment...it is true that it is impossible to imagine a life deprived of choice.  From this simplified point of view, the absurdist position, translated into action, is inconceivable.  It is equally inconceivable when translated into expression.  Simply by being expressed, it gives a minimum of coherence to incoherence, and introduces consequence where, according to its own tenets, there is none."

In other words, if one chooses to rebel at the absurd, at meaninglessness, there is meaning in that rebellion, hence meaninglessness is a false prophet.  The rebel believes in his protest, and that belief matters, it has meaning.  The absurd is not the final answer.  Man finding himself in the absurd has meaning itself.  How men and women act staring at absurdity is some heavy shit, but it certainly means a whole lot.  Murder and terror are not the answers, my friends.

Camus argues that those that follow absurdity to rebellion, revolution, and tyranny (the French Reign of Terror and the Russian Red Terror are some of the most horrific examples) are living a lie, a contradiction that allows them to think mass killing has justification or really anything to do with why they first wanted to rebel.  Camus even claims these mistaken ideas lead forward to the horrors and death camps of the 20th century world wars.  These leaders and conquerors of nation states are mistaken in their understanding of their absurd situation, and tragedy ensues.

For Camus, his final hypothesis on how an individual deals with his reality, that he is here and that he perceives the absurd around him, is to accept "limits."  Camus says, "We now know, at the end of this long inquiry into rebellion and nihilism, that rebellion with no other limits but historical expediency signifies unlimited slavery.  To escape this fate, the revolutionary mind, if it wants to remain alive, must therefore return again to the sources of rebellion and draw its inspiration from the only system of thought which is faithful to its origins: thought that recognizes limits."  He chooses moderation as a cardinal virtue for the rebel: "moderation, born of rebellion, can only live by rebellion.  It is a perpetual conflict, continually created and mastered by the intelligence...Whatever we may do, excess will always keep its place in the heart of man, in the place where solitude is found.  We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes and our ravages.  But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others."

I started this post talking about the American rebellion and revolution.  It is unfortunate that Camus spoke little about how American rebellion fit into the picture.  He was a Frenchman, not an American.  So I can only speculate on where my country fits.  I will say that it appears we avoided mass reigns of terror through both the creation of the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.  Slavery was a stain that survived the revolution to be sure.  Perhaps the civil war could be seen as our reign of terror, where ideas about freedom and culture clashed so completely that mass death ensued.  But these were not purges, these were battles on fields where men fought and died.  And yet, with the war, slavery was abolished.  And yet, the republic as we know it survived the civil war.  That war was not moderate, but its aftermath just might have been.

John Miller proposes that the American revolution is a continuing force in the world.  The ideas that Jefferson encapsulated were too big to contain to a single time and place, perhaps even to a single country.  American global influence is evidence this argument has truth.  He further states that the ideas in the Declaration of Independence are a framework for continuing generations of Americans.  They certainly still inspire me, yet it also troubles me when I look at the current state of our country.  Many don't know why they celebrate the 4th of July.  The ideas of personal responsibility and moderation, which both Camus and our founders took to be central to preserving all of our freedoms, are lost in a sea of ignorance and other ideas antithetical to a truly free society.

Yet here we are.  Here I am, looking at these absurdities around me, yet reaching out, finding friends where I can.  I deal with the demons of excess just as all of us do, and I face them as openly and honestly as I can each day.  I will struggle for my own freedom and the freedom of others.  In that, I aspire to be a rebel in the true sense of the term, where I accept my own limitations in that struggle, believing "that rebellion cannot exist without a strange sense of love."  I am but one man, aspiring everyday to, in the words of Camus "discover the principle of reasonable culpability."  I am responsible for my actions in this world.  It is up to me how I will make it in this world, just how my rebellion could matter and make a better world, avoiding the excesses that too often adjoin it.  For a rebel at the beginning of the journey, before he is lost in his contradiction if he falls prey to nihilism, is someone who truly believes a better world can exist.  In that I rebel for me, for you, for America, for all of us who find ourselves in the human condition that none of us can avoid.  Once more into the breach.