The man in revolt

The man in the revolt ( French L'homme révolté ), published in 1951, is a collection of philosophical-political essays by the French philosopher and writer Albert Camus . In contrast to the previous essay The Myth of Sisyphus , Camus does not only want to describe "the evil that an individual suffered", but also to record the development of nihilism into a "collective plague" in philosophy, politics and political theory. As before, the starting point for this is his philosophy of the absurd.

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Historical and metaphysical revolt

This collection of essays resembles a parforce hunt through the history of ideas of modernity , through the political theories and practices that have emerged from historical philosophies of all varieties. Albert Camus discovers underlying relationships between apparently contradicting ideologies ; he sharpens the individual theories and political strategies to the point of self-contradiction, refutes entrenched interpretations:

• In supposedly anti- bourgeois Marxism , he discovered, among other things, a very bourgeois piety in science.
• Camus exposes positivism, which is concerned with scientistic exactness, as unscientific.

Similarly, he demonstrates the absurdities of political movements of the most varied of stripes:

• The classic, allegedly liberal anarchism of Bakuninian stamps was actually more authoritarian and dictatorial.
• The Jacobin "friends of the people" were at the time of the French Revolution lonely, isolated and not understood by the masses sectarians .
• Even the National Socialists , self-declared and fanatical anti-Semites , worked with biblical cues in their “ national revolution ”, which was presented as “redemption” . Camus, a brilliant polemicist, describes Hitler as "Jehovah in Boots".
• Nietzsche , the alpine hiker , Übermensch herald and relentless critic of Judeo-Christian “herd morality”, the author joins the Decalogue recipient Moses on the mountain.

Camus' conclusion from “two centuries of metaphysical or historical revolt”: One cannot argue with fanatical followers of an ideology or a belief. Some strive for salvation within the world, others for salvation outside the world. Both miss the currently available, relative possibility of change, the perception of which requires continued "tension" and attention. A “promised land” of absolute justice and sincerity cannot be found here.

Specifically directed against the Eastern Bloc , Camus writes: Authoritarian socialism has confiscated living freedom in favor of an ideal, yet to come, freedom. The statement is understood in the literature as directed against Jean-Paul Sartre , who had declared himself for the PCF at the time .

The absurd and the revolt

As already developed in the myth of Sisyphus, Camus falls back on the concept of revolt. The revolt represents one of the few philosophically coherent positions in which man can behave towards the absurd without dissolving its tension (between rationality and irrationality). While in The Myth of Sisyphus the revolt is identified individually as the "certainty of an overwhelming fate", Camus expands this conception in The Man in the Revolt by a more practical and universal aspect. To the extent that it is no longer about an individual experience of the absurd, but about a collective, i.e. the suffering of all people from the absurdity of being (Camus dealt with this fact in the novel The Plague ). This is done with recourse to a value common to all humans, which Camus calls "human nature". The concept of revolt that has been gained is again restricted, so the murder is discarded right at the beginning (with reference to the remarks on suicide in The Myth of Sisyphus ). Camus then deals with the metaphysical and historical revolt, drawing a conclusion from two centuries of metaphysical and historical revolt.

expenditure

• L'homme révolté . Gallimard, Paris (1951) 2002, ISBN 2-07-032302-1
• The man in revolt . Rowohlt, Reinbek (1953) 2006, ISBN 3-499-22193-4

literature

• Heinz R. Schlette, Martina Yadel: Albert Camus, L'homme révolté. An introduction and register. Row: Philosophy. The blue owl, Essen 1987, ISBN 3-89206-156-4
• Edgar Neis: Albert Camus' The Plague , The Myth of Sisyphus , The Man in Revolt. King's explanations and materials , 165. C. Bange Verlag , Hollfeld 5. neub., Erw. Edition 1977, most recently 1996 ISBN 3-8044-0202-X

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus . 3. Edition. Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-499-22765-7 , p. 73 .
2. ↑ Albert Camus: The man in the revolt . Rowohlt Verlag, Hamburg 1996, p. 16 .