The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1951

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2 Summary: “Metaphysical Rebellion”

In Part 2, Camus explains that there is a difference between ordinary rebellion and metaphysical rebellion. Ordinary rebellion is rooted in the immediate material circumstances and injustices of one’s condition; metaphysical rebellion is more abstract and involves one’s rebellion against the state of the universe at large. Camus offers some brief thoughts on the loss of faith as a kind of metaphysical rebellion, referencing the works of ancient Greek thinkers Epicurus and Lucretius, and the biblical story about Cain and Abel. While metaphysical rebellion is more sophisticated in a certain sense, it is also more dangerous, as it can lead to more extreme forms of ideology and, ultimately, more extreme forms of action.

Camus then discusses the works of the notorious Marquis de Sade, whom Camus blames as the fountainhead of European nihilism. Camus describes Sade’s idea of freedom as cynical and destructive, completely selfish and rooted in a desire only for violent license and unchecked impulses. He then traces this tendency as appearing—albeit in a milder form—in the works of the Romantic poets, who claim to idealize solitude and who interpret liberty as inherently individualistic instead of communal.

Nihilism then finds perhaps its greatest theoretician in Friedrich Nietzsche. For Camus, Nietzsche’s rejection of traditional morality and enthusiastic embrace of a “superman” who can dominate the world through his strength and intelligence represent the essence of nihilism. While Camus does not blame Nietzsche for all the abuses his thought has inspired, he nevertheless insists that Nietzsche does bear at least some responsibility for the ways his ideas have been used. Camus then speaks a bit about nihilism in the works of the surrealists, then concludes by reflecting upon how nihilism is now the dominant mode of thought in modern Europe.

Part 2 Analysis

In Part 2, Camus begins to shift his focus to what goes wrong when men mistake the true nature of rebellion and freedom. In becoming obsessed with power and selfish ends, the rebel can easily lose the moral authority his original rebellion gave him: “The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown” (60). When the rebel starts to think in terms of achieving his own ends or gives into more abstract, utopian thinking, his rebellion becomes corrupted and can give way to more revolutionary tendencies.

Camus’s analyses of both Sade and Nietzsche are particularly important, as he uses both as originators of ideas that he considers harmful and destructive in the 20th century. Camus writes, “Sade’s success in our day is explained by the dream he had in common with contemporary thought: the demand for total freedom, and dehumanization coldly planned by the intelligence” (107). Sade’s ideas about liberty were anything but communal and humanistic. The celebration of violence, vice, and domination in his works presented liberty as something exercised by strong individuals over weaker ones, a liberty that would not accept any limitations placed on it by morality or legal strictures. Sade’s ideas of liberty are therefore in direct opposition to Camus’s, and Camus sees Sade’s influence in the Romantics as well, with negative results: “If the romantic rebel extols evil and the individual, this does not mean that he sides with mankind, but merely with himself” (123). This selfishness is a betrayal of the nature of true freedom and rebellion.

As for Nietzsche, Camus accuses him of promoting the kind of nihilism that also leads to amorality and the rejection of all traditional limitations on social conduct. Nietzsche’s influence was dominant in the 20th century, with tragic results. Camus argues that “[i]t is not the nobility of rebellion that illuminates the world today, but nihilism” (226), then asserts that this nihilism has led only to crimes against humanity on a massive scale: “man’s greatest liberty consisted only in building the prisons of his crimes” (227). Thus, the era that began with promises of liberty, egality, and fraternity in the French Revolution culminated only in totalitarianism and servitude nearly two centuries later.