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    The Rebel
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    The Rebel
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    The Rebel
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Rebel

    Written by Albert Camus

    Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    By one of the most profoundly influential thinkers of our century, The Rebel is a classic essay on revolution. For Albert Camus, the urge to revolt is one of the "essential dimensions" of human nature, manifested in man's timeless Promethean struggle against the conditions of his existence, as well as the popular uprisings against established orders throughout history. And yet, with an eye toward the French Revolution and its regicides and deicides, he shows how inevitably the course of revolution leads to tyranny. As old regimes throughout the world collapse, The Rebel resonates as an ardent, eloquent, and supremely rational voice of conscience for our tumultuous times.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books Audio
    Release dateJan 11, 2019
    ISBN9781980029175
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Rebel

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      The audio cuts off can it be re upload. Without the cut off
    • 4/5
      Not an easy read for one used to novels and histories. But very informative and compelling.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This “essay” (307 pages in English translation) is an extended analysis of the contradictory positive and negative elements of rebellion and how the negative elements can lead to the excesses of revolution. Rising up against slavery, oppression, injustice and other forms of domination is a positive. However, rebellion also has a potential negative side — the rejection of all restraints on liberty, the nihilist conclusion that everything is permitted and the political principle that the ends justify the means, including killing people to achieve a future ideal society. The book is relatively long because Albert Camus looks at these questions in a broad range of contexts: “metaphysical rebellion” against the human condition including the revolt against God who permits suffering (Prometheus, Cain and Abel, Epicurus and Lucretius, DeSade, Rimbaud, Lautreamont, Nietzsche, the Surrealists), “historical rebellion” consisting of political and social revolution against oppression (the French Revolution in particular Robespierre and Saint Just, the Russian terrorists of the 19th century, Hegel and Marx, and Russian communism), and art (Dostoyevsky). It is fascinating the way Camus tracks his theme among these various thinkers and movements and draws out the differences and similarities among them. The fundamental question Camus poses in the essay is whether premeditated murder to achieve a political goal can be justified. The analysis starts with the concept of the absurd which Camus developed in the Myth of Sisyphus. Just as he concluded in the earlier work that suicide was not justified, in this work he rejects a logic of murder. However, he is not willing to deny the positive aspects of revolt because that would amount to acceptance of the status quo with all its injustices. At the same time, he cannot accept the historical logic that leads to revolution ending in a police state. His solution is to assert that there are values outside of history that counter nihilism or a historical logic that worships only the efficacy of results. These values are reflected and arise in the individual’s act of rebellion and include solidarity, equality, freedom of speech, and civil and natural rights. They provide a basis for rules of political action that limit excesses in the exercise of liberty and the establishment of justice. The rebel calls for moderation, not extremism. Violence may be required to respond to violence but should not be used to establish a future ideal society. The end justifies the means and the means justify the end: both are true. The present must not be sacrificed to the future. Camus contrasts a Mediterranean mentality, going back to the Greeks, based on a love of life and nature against the German ideology exemplified by Hegel and Marx who subject nature and life to history. The German ideology inherits the traditional Christian opposition to nature but has deified history to replace the absent God. Camus’s views were controversial in his day when many in France still supported communist revolution in the Soviet Union and elsewhere and revolts against colonialism (such as Algeria) called into question the adequacy of a rebellion of moderation. Today little is left of the tradition to use violence to bring about a future ideal society. However, in the face of authoritarianism, inequality, racism and other ills, Camus’s rebel still has many reasons to rise up against injustice.
    • 4/5
      Albert Camus is known mostly for his novels which investigate human existence – that is, existentialism as a philosophy. His characters question whether there is meaning in human life or not at all (nihilism). This work, however, is not a work of fiction but of non-fiction. In it, Camus expounds on the nature of human rebellion against the present state of affairs – that is, against the meaninglessness of life. He examines this rebellious act historically and spiritually, from Christianity and the French Revolution all the way up to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.Writing after Europe twice almost killed itself in horrific wars, Camus tries to explain how such an “enlightened” continent could almost implode in what was supposed to be a glorious twentieth century. He writes how rebellion, however well-intentioned, can often go awry and turn into nihilism. He writes about how too often, rebels are misguided in their attempts to find the “end” of history (a la Hegel). In its place, he suggests work and human unity ought to occur. This last point, he does vaguely and without specifics – a weakness of his viewpoint.Camus’ examination is very European. (In fact, a deep understanding of European history and literature is almost prerequisite for reading this work.) It is likewise very philosophical. I could only digest in it 20-30 page segments without being too inundated with too many thoughts to process. Unlike his novels (of which I am a huge fan), this pure philosophy lacks the ploys of plot and intrigue to push the reader forward. I doubt that the general reader can access this work.Camus’ views helped shape the post-World-War-II consensus in Western Europe of socialist democracies. For that reason, he deserves to be reckoned with. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and his writings are still standard fare in university coursework. I find his worldview very relevant to twenty-first century life. Fans of philosophy and existentialism will appreciate this work as well as fans of European history. Students of political history might also benefit from this work. Those turned off by the “otherness” of such pursuits (which incorporates much of the American reading public) might choose to read his novels instead.
    • 5/5
      The Rebel by Albert Camus is not only a work which addresses The Rebel as universal idea but also details historical "rebels" which in some cases, the reigning version of history has forgotten. Individuals like Ivan Kalyayev, who Camus brings up in his essay, and later uses as a character in his play The Just Assassins, I had never heard of. While I was taking world history and even a Russian history class in high school, the important parts of Russian history were generally thought of as the reign of the Tsars clashing with the advent of the Soviet Union, with Lenin being portrayed as "idealistic" and "outdated" and Stalin being portrayed a murderer. What mainstream history always focuses on is The Revolution, whether it be the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution(s), or the Chinese Cultural Revolution, as much of a sham as the latter was. Mainstream history, especially in middle and high school never focuses on the idea of The Rebel, the section of mankind who says "We rebel therefore we exist," and adds "And we are alone." Perhaps this seems nihilistic to the timid reader, but what Camus is essentially fighting in this essay is nihilism itself. It is only through a stark encounter with the death of the human spirit (whether it be through totalitarian, capitalist, or bureaucratic means) that mankind realizes that he must fight to retain that very spirit even in the face of his own physical death. Though adults often have trouble reading what is arguably Camus' most difficult work, I, personally, would love to distribute sections of this rather lengthy essay to high school Seniors in an AP English class in order to inspire them to "live through their work," not necessarily to preserve their legacy after death but to prove to themselves that they are currently using the full potential of their human spirit. The Rebel as an inspirational tool could be used in exercises such as writing short plays, poems, and essays, as well as drafts for novellas. I believe that the narcissism of today's youth can be utilized as an energy source for creativity; to transfer the ego of petty crime to the ego of art crime is a constructive way of saving kids and building the libraries of the future.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The Rebel is one of Camus' longer and less accessible works. It deals with the idea of the "Rebel" – the man who says "no", who starts to think for himself and refuses to be complicit in the (political) system and current state of things. This can lead to Rebellion, which is the movement of men, of Rebels, to free themselves from their chains – whether physical, metaphorical, or metaphysical.What we have here is an historical and philosophical treatment of the concept of the Rebel and of Rebellion. The history focuses primarily on the Russian and French rebellions and revolutionary movements. We learn that man has rebelled against different things – against God (Nietzsche, Voltaire), against the King (in France and Russia), and against bourgeois conventions. Camus discusses the philosophical motivations and problems of rebellion, including Nihilism and the challenge of creating something new out of the disorder and destruction that can be left behind. We also see the moral challenges that come with the violence implicit in rebellion, and the different ethical systems through which Rebels justify their actions. While there is much of worth here in this volume in terms of insight and scholarship, it is much wordier and carries less immediate impact than many of Camus' shorter essays and stories. That this is more of a comprehensive and in-depth work than we would normally expect from this author is not a criticism than can be levelled against this book fairly in its own terms though, but it explains why it is one of his less popular works. However this is still a worthwhile read though for the fan of Camus's Existentialism, or those who are particularly interested in topic of Rebellion. There is a lot of stimulating thought here, and it also ties in well with the philosophical and historical aspects of Camus's play Les Justes, which tells the story of the Russian Revolutionaries in 1905 and their attempts to carry out terrorrist bombings.
    • 2/5
      This was not an easy book, and on more than one level. I am always leary of philosophical arguments where the writers accepts only his own terms and definitions. Camus gets so wrapped up in his idea of a rebel that he approaches it as a universality. I really couldn't buy into his thought process after that.The best parts of the book for me were the discussion of revolution in France, along with the ideas of Rousseau and Saint-Just, and his references to [book:The Brothers Karamazov|4934]. It made me very glad to find a copy around the house. I still have to find a copy of the Social Contract but I'll be reading them all after reading The Rebel. I guess that makes getting through this book worth it!
    • 5/5
      camus' philosophical ponderings always seemed preferable to his fictional efforts
    • 4/5
      The strongest voice against nihilism ever.It's a bit weighed down by the many years passed.It was written in the 50's -Stalin was still alive- as a strong breaking off with most of the french intellectual vanguard.In a book that has much more to share with poetry and art than with philosophy or history, Camus explatin to us why the revolt of man against the unfairness of his condition mustn't decay in a revolution against the whole universe, a total negation of every sense and value, even of the human nature and of the humans' sufference that triggered revolt at the beginning.
    • 3/5
      Why do men revolt? Why do we rage against our masters, our government, our Gods? The short version, we revolt to prove a point. We revolt against our governments to prove that we can do things better than they can, as slaves we rebel against our masters to prove that we are not lesser men, to tell them that we will be slaves no more. As disciples we revolt against our Gods because we want to be Gods ourselves. We revolt to take what we don’t have.The book is long winded at times but still interesting, Camus is one of the best writers of the 20th century and this essay is one of his best works, in my opinion. Camus discusses both rebellion and revolt, both metaphysical and actual. My favorite part of the book is where Camus discusses the Russian Revolutionaries of the late nineteenth century, one part sticks out to me, a revolutionary was sent to bomb a Colonel who was at a play or concert (something like that) it was a place where a man might be with his wife, the revolutionary said “if his wife is with him, I will not throw the bomb.”