I bought this book almost twenty-five years ago, but apparently only read about one-third of it at that time. At least that's what a bookmark I found in it tells me. It's actually a pity because I've missed out on quite a lot of interesting things. Especially the last part, in which Albert Camus advocates for a "Mediterranean way of thinking" that essentially emphasizes the relativity of all worldviews and generally places humanity above abstract systems.

Whatever we do, excess will always retain its place in the heart of man, where solitude dwells. We all carry our prisons, our crimes and disasters within us. But our task is not to unleash them into the world, but to fight them within ourselves and in others. (p. 340)

The true generosity of the future lies in giving everything in the present. (p. 343)

It's very worth reading and still relevant today. Especially in times of increasing polarization and uncompromising opinions.

This is the sort of book that gives intellectuals a bad name. I approached it with some expectation as a book which looked seriously at the idea of the Rebel. However, I soon found out that in his 'history' of 'rebellious' events, Camus quite deliberately defines the word to represent only what he wants it to mean.

He conveniently dismisses any other views as either immaterial to his thesis or as a subject for some other work. I found myself disagreeing with just about every second statement he makes. Camus pontificates and 'philosophises' his subject to within an inch of its life. He is presumptuous and, in the end, I find him pretentious.

By calling this book an 'essay' (can a book of 270 pages really be called an 'essay'?), he can avoid the normal scholarly approach. This would require appropriate references which one might follow up for oneself or use them to 'check' whether Camus is interpreting them correctly. He also doesn't need to provide an index, making it difficult to find out where in his 'essay' Camus' thoughts on a particular subject might be.

The central argument appears to be that rebels and rebellions are always undertaken in order to improve or provide a more perfect world but end up providing more of the same, sometimes even worse than before. One would think that this fits in with the general philosophy of nihilism with which Camus is associated.

On the one hand, Camus seems to be saying that rebels don't improve anything. On the other hand, he seems to be saying that we really have no choice, a kind of 'rebellion for its own sake', so long as we don't make the 'mistake' of thinking that we will improve things when we do. One can't be more nihilistic than that.

And in so doing, Camus gives succour, in my opinion, not so much to the rebels among us as to those who dismiss rebels as mere trouble-makers, preferably to be contained and controlled as much as possible. This is probably one of the reasons that fundamentalist Christians, for example, might enjoy his 'demolition' of those 'rebels' he chooses to demolish, starting with the Enlightenment.

To be fair, perhaps Camus is responding in the only way possible to him to the sheer havoc and devastation of the two World Wars. These effectively destroyed 'Europe' and pointed out the depravity that that civilisation, which considered itself to be the best and most superior the world had ever seen, had descended to.

And that somehow, that was a 'consequence' of the Enlightenment and the liberal thinkers it engendered. Be that as it may, my objection to this conclusion is that it is examined only by limiting his discourse to specific instances of 'rebellion' and by suggesting that such 'rebellions' are based on a desire to 'improve' the world.

It should be pointed out that 'rebellions' which set out to 'improve' anything are based, not so much on the Enlightenment, but on the promises made by Christianity that there is such a better world ('heaven') to which we might aspire, but which we might only achieve only after we are dead.

This 'desire' for the Second Coming' of Jesus to usher in the New Millennium, where everything will be 'perfect', is the true cause for dissatisfaction in the people, especially those used and abused by the hierarchy of the Middle Ages. The 'promise' of the Enlightenment period merely posited that the old way of a dominant hierarchical theocratic society was NOT the only way one could live and that something could be done OUTSIDE the constraints Mediaeval Society could offer.

Camus is useful in pointing out that revolutions based on such utopian dreams are bound to failure in the real world. But that does not mean that the benefits of reason, knowledge, science and technology (some of the children of the Englightenment) have, indeed, improved our way of life in ways which would be appreciated immensely by someone from the Middle Ages.

One can argue about the extent of such 'progress', or indeed whether such things as radio, television, the automobile, education, medicine, surgery, etc etc are 'really' progress or not. After all, anything, anywhere, had both good and bad elements. But one cannot argue successfully that these things merely reiterate the evils they are supposed to replace.

All 'rebellions' which attempt to 'improve' things derive their impetus from religious sentiments based on the imagined reward proffered to the 'perfect' and the elite. It may even be 'true' that such rebellions, in searching for their perfection, end up being 'just as bad'. But from the perspective of the rebels, in general, the people who are suffering are not the same as the ones who were suffering before.

They may end up being just as immoral, and just as cruel and murderous, but they are doing it to someone else; it is not happening just to them. And it is here that I believe Camus misses the point. Rebels rebel to relieve themselves from an intolerable situation. They may well replace it with another type of intolerable situation, but it is in THEIR control, not the other way around.

Further, they may well ultimately 'fail' in the 'other' objective of providing for a better world for themselves, but in reality, things after the rebellion HAVE changed. The world moves on to another phase.

Thus I believe the role of the rebel and of rebellion is just as much, if not primarily, motivated by the desire to remove pain and misery. It 'follows' that as a result, there is the hope that things will improve, but to say that rebels are motivated only to 'improve' the situation is simplistic to say the least.

Certainly, Camus has 'shown' us that such 'objectives' may result only in 'failure', but that failure is a relative concept. While ever there is injustice, unfairness, abuse, poverty, etc, then whenever these things become unbearable, rebels will arise whose first concern is to minimise that unbearability, whether or not the result is overall 'better' than before.

The Rebel is a remarkable collection of essays penned by Albert Camus.

These papers delve deeply into the thought-provoking topic of rebellion. Camus meticulously defines who a rebel is and the specific circumstances that have the potential to transform an individual into a rebel. It's important to note that he emphasizes the distinction between a rebel and a revolutionary. He posits that in a rebellion, people may lose their lives, but in a revolution, both principles and people are at stake. After carefully reading this book, I arrived at the conclusion that Camus himself was a rebel.

To buttress his theories, Camus draws support from the works of earlier luminaries such as Dostoyevsky, Karl Marx, and Hegel. He further expounds on concepts like metaphysical rebellion, individual terrorism, and state terrorism. Readers will be struck by the diverse range of examples he provides for each of these topics, spanning from Hitler to Stalin and Mussolini.

What intrigues me is the question of how and where transnational terrorism fits into this framework. I must confess that I am truly impressed by the futuristic perspectives presented in the book. In today's context, when one contemplates state terrorism, countries like Russia and Iran often come to mind. Similarly, when it comes to individual terrorism, Osama Bin Laden and his al Qaeda team are the automatic associations. The lingering question is whether these modern manifestations are in line with what Camus envisioned in this concise yet profound book. I believe that, to some extent, he did touch upon these aspects.

On page 303 of Albert Camus's extensive and thought-provoking long-form essay about the nature of rebellion, the shortcomings of religion, Nihilism, and Marxism, he reaches a significant point.

He states that "Man can master in himself everything that should be mastered. He should rectify in creation everything that can be rectified. And yet, even in a perfect society, children will still die unjustly. Despite his greatest efforts, man can only aim to reduce the sufferings of the world arithmetically. However, the injustice and suffering of the world will persist, and no matter how limited they are, they will continue to be an outrage. Dimitri Karamazov's cry of 'Why?' will continue to resonate; art and rebellion will only cease with the last man."

My issue with this book isn't so much a specific disagreement with its content as it is an inability to understand why Camus needed three hundred pages to state what seems obvious. I'm aware that the danger of this critique lies in anachronism or an underappreciation for philosophy in general. For me, the mark of genius isn't just the possession of knowledge, although that's part of it. It's the ability to convey that knowledge in a way that reveals something about the universe and to do so in a coherent and timely manner (i.e., with utility). I suspect that students working on an MA in philosophy might find some value in this. For the rest of us, perhaps a Kindle Single would be a better option.

As I made my way through each section, I usually felt that I understood the basic point. But how the numerous digressions fit together is anyone's guess; Camus seems to have a great love for the details but very little concern for the overall picture. He rarely, if ever, repeats a point or shows how it combines with a previous subject to advance his thesis. This kind of obfuscation is typical of academic writing, a mutated form of Standard English that someone (I think it might have been David Foster Wallace, or if not, it should have been) called Academicese. You'll be struggling to hold on to the bloated prose when suddenly you'll encounter a passage like this:

"A revolutionary action which wishes to be coherent in terms of its origins should be embodied in an active consent to the relative. It would express fidelity to the human condition. Uncompromising as to its means, it would accept an approximation as far as its ends are concerned and, so that the approximation should become more and more accurately defined, it would allow absolute freedom of speech. Thus it would preserve the common existence that justifies its insurrection." - The Rebel 290

What, if anything, this passage is supposed to mean is, as before, anyone's guess. And if there is someone out there who can offer a simple explanation, please do, but expect my immediate response: "Why didn't Camus say that?"

I have a certain fondness for absurdism, but my understanding of Camus is very limited, and despite everything, I hope to improve it. In fairness, there are some truly profound moments in this work, mostly when Camus allows himself to be a little more free and combines his philosophizing with a touch of the transcendent. These occasional moments of illumination almost make the slog through the rest of the text worthwhile.

"The world is divine because the world is inconsequential. That is why art alone, by being equally inconsequential, is capable of grasping it. It is impossible to give a clear account of the world, but art can teach us to reproduce it – just as the world reproduces itself in the course of its eternal gyrations. The primordial sea indefatigably repeats the same words and casts up the same astonished beings on the same seashore. But at least he who consents to his own return and to the return of all things, who becomes an echo and an exalted echo, participates in the divinity of the world." - The Rebel 73

Page by page, this book should be read and deeply thought about.

In this book, it doesn't tell a story like before. It is a philosophical article in three parts: metaphysical, historical, and artistic.

In this book, it doesn't put the rebels in opposition but presents the spirit of rebellion in the form of a revolutionary, an artist, and discusses the schools and theories of other philosophers, about how a tyrannical person can bring destruction and ruin with his resistance and rebellious spirit.

In many places in the book, such as the historical and philosophical parts, it really requires that you have a complete acquaintance with the characters in advance in order to enjoy its contents. For this reason, reading this book became a bit difficult and long for me, but I learned so much from it that it was as useful as several books.

Rebel Author Albert Camus

In an era of nihilism and denial, after the fading of the presence and denial of God in people's minds, the most important issue is not the act of killing and self-annihilation.

In such a way that humans need to define their position with sin!

Because self-annihilation and murder are both the taking of one life in exchange for another! So isn't killing necessarily an act of denial? Because by rebelling against God, humans take His place and change their role from creature to creator!

So the Creator is the giver of life to humans.

Should murder be the way forward?

Who is the rebel? Someone who has been obedient all his life and suddenly says no, not for self-denial but to protect the values of freedom and justice!

This value is not self-seeking because he is ready to sacrifice his life for this rebellion...

In ancient times, Prometheus gave fire to humans and rebelled against the gods and was punished, and in the modern era, Marx took two hundred years to rebel against God and was accused of hedonism and denial of moral rules!

Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky came to answer this act of denial against the denial of God with "everything is permitted" and "even if..."

And as a result of this rebellion, humans brought about revolutions that continued from heaven and God to history, humans, and art...

From the French Revolution to Hitler and Nazism...

Rebellion for what? For the denial of God and the pursuit of justice and freedom, a revolution was made, but in order to maintain the revolution, a hand was turned to self-denial, and this very factor was the cause of the failure of socialist and fascist revolutions and the bloody guillotines of the French.

Humans wanted to build a new god by rebelling against the belief in the supernatural and God, and rebelling against history and tyranny, and being easy on themselves. But on the way of this rebellion, they had to become creators!

And what should the creator do? This book must be read many times in different periods of life!

It is not as if that person does not believe in anything, but rather he is a person who does not believe in the existing beliefs... page (100)

Freedom in a global sense means that what is possible can make sense with what is impossible... page (201)

The rebel is not a seeker of life. He is a seeker of reasons for his life. page (141)

When everyone is orderly, it is a crime if a death order is issued and they do not carry it out... unfortunately, an order to do good is issued indifferently. page (246)

Bordeau said (I rebel, therefore we exist.)

Metaphysical rebellion added to this saying (we alone exist). Mere historical thoughts came to say that being is doing. Our revolution is for the attainment of a new being that must come into existence in action and outside of any moral rules!

For this reason, this revolution is condemned to live only for history and with terror. page (233)

Rebellion in the dispute with history adds this point that instead of killing or dying to bring about the existence that we are not, we must live and give life. Until we bring out what we are. page (334)

The rebel, Pouchkine, may seek a certain kind of freedom for himself, but if his behavior is based on logic, he does not want the right to the annihilation of the freedom and being of others! page (376)

In this work where Camus presents the thrilling traces of the history of revolt and revolution, the struggle of man against historical neglect and his effort to exist are addressed.

The author examines, on a philosophical scale, the essence that man desperately seeks in the process of revolt, and analyzes the revolutions from the Enlightenment period to the early years of the Cold War when the book was written, as well as the loss of man over time through revolutions, in a language unique to himself.

A criticism that can be directed at the translation of the book is that the translator may be constantly adhering to Ottoman Turkish words and thus, in a sense, undermining the richness of meaning of the work. The use of Turkish words that are rarely used instead of the words we are more familiar with when reading the book distances this important work from the reader to some extent.

Human rebellion is a human narrative throughout history, having passed from the Hellenistic era and the Greek and Roman worlds, and carrying the classical tradition forward to the Renaissance and the French Revolution. With the entry into the modern world, many of its traditions are criticized and examined by Albert Camus. The human being who sees no way but rebellion in front of himself, because no matter how he arranges the world, rebellion and opposition are always at his doorstep. Beauty and nature are threatened by civilizations. Socialism and the civil totality in the name of establishing freedom deprive everyone of freedom. Marxism and the labor movement have no result other than the birth of thousands of crowds with a completely unknown role. In this way, humans think more philosophically. Albert Camus has introduced a philosophical analysis into the concepts of power, loneliness, death, life, and the world, and proves that even philosophy is a great betrayal in this century.

We are heading towards the era of perfect crimes with previous intentions. The criminals of this era are no longer those helpless children who used love as an excuse. On the contrary, they are adults and have a complete pretext: philosophy. And philosophy can be used for any purpose, even to turn executioners into judges.

In the modern era, the ethical foundations also become unreliable and radical. One can neither rely on an ethical principle nor base oneself on it. Because people, in the midst of oppression and poverty, have the desire to experience dictatorship and tyranny.

If the right to shamelessness is offered to the people, one can be sure that they will take it!

With sociological examinations, Camus enters the most important aspect of rebellion: rebellion in art. Art is an activity that both denies and affirms itself in its history. To create art, the artist must both reject reality and affirm it. Art challenges reality but does not hide itself from it.

Reality, prosperity, and beauty are among the other elements examined in this book. Camus's last words, in a strange and indirect way, are a request for the history of humanity today to move away from dictatorship and cruelty.

Right is with Plato, not Moses and Nietzsche: Dialogue at the human level brings a lower price than the Gospel that is forcefully read to humans by totalitarian regimes in a single voice from the top of the mountain fortress alone. In real life too, just like on the stage of the theater, being alone is a prerequisite for death.

June 31, 2018.

I must confess that initially, while reading Camus' account of rebellion, revolution, and nihilism, I didn't perceive much that was particularly profound. However, upon reflection, I realize that he actually has a great deal to offer, and much of it is of great value.

Camus commences by defining the rebel as one who affirms through negation, saying yes while saying no. The rebel decries absolute freedom by establishing boundaries for acceptable behavior. Immediately, he contrasts the rebel with the nihilist, who, in denying the meaning of everything, valorizes a life conception dominated solely by facts and power. He takes issue with the revolutionary movements that emerged in the twentieth century, asserting that most of them betrayed the essence of rebellion by substituting it with an absolutist, even totalitarian, ethic.

Camus respects the efforts of the Russian "revolutionaries" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (excluding Lenin, of course), who rebelled against tsarism and tyranny, often violently. He finds their nobility in the fact that, unlike many of their twentieth-century counterparts, they were often consumed by doubt and engaged in murder and assassination only reluctantly and with moderation. He mourns the disappearance of such doubt and moderation in the nihilism that pervaded much of the twentieth century, which gave rise to the uncompromising ideologies of Marxism-Leninism and, not unrelatedly, Nazism, and denounces their consequences.

Camus also severely criticizes many of his intellectual contemporaries for their unwavering faith in Marxism. He claims that Marxism replicates some of the central problems of religious faith, such as relegating justice to a future post-capitalist society. He also argues that it entails the negation of much that is good and defensible in humanity by reducing human obligation to the promotion of revolution. While I think he has a valid point here, I also believe his reading of Marx is somewhat flawed, as he seems to overlook Marx's concern with emancipation and free conscious activity in his attempt to discredit the approach of the "prophet of justice." Camus proposes a different approach to social change, suggesting that rebels and revolutionaries, in their fight against injustice, should never lose sight of the importance of beauty within the concept of human dignity.

It appears that many so-called revolutionaries, especially those of the socialist-Marxist persuasion, would reject Camus' analysis as sentimental and, in fact, supportive of the status quo. Does Camus then break away from the predominance of Marxist thought in his day and embrace something akin to anarchism? He certainly seems to reject revolutionary society (at least, the revolutions thus far demonstrated by history), but he remains highly critical of bourgeois society as well. Contemplating these tensions is of utmost importance, and Camus' The Rebel无疑 represents a significant contribution to this debate.

Like a woolly mammoth, sans the mammoth.

Some thoughts presented in this book do have their merits, of course. However, it takes a wrong turn right from the very beginning. When an homme revolts, it doesn't necessarily imply that he is revolting for the sake of all of mankind, including the masters he is rebelling against. Nor does it mean that he has uncovered some profound human value to which he is appealing.

Camus fails to consider the possibility that the homme in question might simply be revolting for himself, for his own dignity and well-being. Just like the master he is revolting against, he could be merely playing the power game, but from the bottom. Why he leaves out this possibility, he doesn't explain. My hunch is that he never even entertained the idea. It is simply an axiom for him that the revolt is for a common human cause, and he has constructed this entire book based on this flawed premise. As a result, it seems to have ended up as 240 pages of misguided and confusing fuzziness.

Even if the revolt wasn't driven by selfish (earthly) motives, but rather by this mysterious 'no!' value that Camus believes he has suddenly discovered, it would still pose problems. This 'no!' would simply be a transcendent (heavenly) value, similar to the inalienable natural rights of the Jacobins. The same ones that Hegel later demolished, referring to them as a Christianity without God. It would be an appeal to a dead God, which Camus knows is futile.

So, it can be argued that Camus's value of revolt represents a philosophical regression.

(... These are my initial thoughts (literally) immediately after finishing the book. So, be aware that I'm basically enjoying the view from mount stupid here. Undoubtedly, there are still some things that I need to understand better. I'll be reading some of the other reviews to help with this process, as well as delving deeper into Camus's philosophy...)

The Rebel Man: A Philosophical Exploration

The concept of the rebel man is a complex and profound one. Let's imagine being Camus. After the war, everything is in ruins, and every country, including Germany, is affected. On one hand, life pulls us to experience, live, and understand it, while on the other hand, something suffocates us, pulls us back, a thought that pains like cancer: how to understand existence if we don't understand how we got here? Just saying that Hitler was a lunatic and influenced various complex monstrosities that followed him is not enough. Sadly, because it wasn't just one or two who followed him, but hundreds of thousands if not millions (including those who, in the years after the war and even today, embrace his atrocities).

What does this mean? Where does it come from? Is there some evil seed in the DNA of the Germans? Can the explanation be that simple? And how could something like this, through biology, explain the terrible child of the Russians, Netchayev, who, if he had prevailed, Hitler would have been a scandalous child compared to him? So there must be something else. And usually, the most destructive weapons are not created just to undermine human life.

For Camus, the solution is given through a historical retrospect from ancient Greek times to the pre-war period, with a parallel correspondence to every philosophical current and every philosopher and politician who influenced history. The consequences, the influences, the fermentations, the similar situations. It leads to a terrible conclusion that everything is intertwined. There is no absolute system that will prove to you that at its roots, nihilism does not burn feverishly, but rather that to say this, you would have to go from the beginning of time to the birth of nihilism and anarchy, you would have to go through currents and philosophers who never imagined that they could have led there. It will convince you with its syllogism that there is nothing more dangerous than the popularization of philosophy. What remains are simple words that can pass in a conversation among friends, in random taverns that gradually form an idea, another way of perception, the persuasion of the propaganda of those who are ready to rebel against their injustice. So what comes is the most tormenting of all, the question of who the rebel man is. I tremble to write it because you will not understand it unless you read this extremely difficult book, the dense, the bitter, the heavy in some places, the blind in others, the vivid in most.

Camus notes that Stendhal saw that speculation seems to irritate rather than calm the Germans. Why does this happen? The book does not target the Germans randomly, and the reason is not the Nazis. The reason is... Let's take it a little differently. I come from the realm of pessimism, which has common ground with existentialism in general and with Camusian existentialism in particular. One of these is also the reason why their speculation irritates the Germans so much. What do the Germans have that other peoples don't? They have Hegel. Existentialism, like pessimism, distinguishes in ambiguity, in uncertainty, in the idea that everything is logical, and in the irony of the "beautiful soul" that answers to the ideal of love, the danger of conformism. What Camus notes in simpler words is that if everything is only logical, then justifications of every kind are allowed because everything can be rationalized. Especially if we think that Hegel could not distinguish the cause from the effect and the initial cause from the subsequent causes. Then the whip can be justified, the fifteen-hour workday for nine hundred euros can be justified, as long as you go back as far as it suits you so that you can draw a conclusion and say that you found the cause. But which cause? Only if there is no specific reason behind it, otherwise, you just followed the thread, you got to where you could put a full stop and ignored the rest of the thread. Look at it a little differently, only logical means that there is no reason for ethics, there is no reason to tell the truth because in the end, you will end up in everything is allowed, whatever your position, that of the master or the slave, without love, you will be led far from understanding, far from fellowship, and far from people.

We could perhaps compare the influence of Hegel's theory to the influence and echo that the Quran has. Hundreds of different interpretations of the genuine text, along with those that are popularized and simplified, circulate. If you think a little about the suicide bombers in correspondence with what the cross with the rotating ends represents, you get an idea of where all these mass-produced theories and interpretations can lead. If you put on one end everything is logical and on the other the core of Manichaeism, you will be glad that the slaughter does not continue to this day. Because if everything real is also logical, then the emptying is also logical. If the real is logical, then the whole world is real, but since the world is a thing, it must also belong. It belongs to the man who is born with self-consciousness as a logical being and is pushed into partisanship and progress to prevail, to rule. The purpose of self-consciousness is to be recognized and greeted by other people because we are objects of others as well as others are objects of us, that is, creators and created. That is, masters and slaves.

However, I would like to note that none of the above implies that Hegel should be forgotten, not read, or his books burned. Nor does it mean that because Camus saw something, or I saw something, you should not read it. You should read everything equally to come to your own conclusions. Everything can be read with the necessary attention. If you reject a philosopher because others did, first of all, those others have read him, and secondly, you are not doing anything different from our ancestors who completely rejected Epicurus because they disagreed or did not understand his theory.

If the rebel man is Hitler, then what were all our ancestors? In the state, there is opposition. In the revolution, there is counter-revolution. None of them has been cured. Why? And both will take up arms. They will fight fire with fire. Can it be otherwise? Can there be a cure in some way? Is it possible?

"It is the scattered and fugitive discovery of a human value that stands between innocence and guilt, logic and illogic, history and eternity," writes Camus about all the murders of an entire thirty-year period around the world and especially in Russia, in the name of concession, the recognition of man by man as consubstantial and equal, instead of master and slave. It is at the same time the recognition that violence is wrong and necessary when it states here and sings to us in the Just that if there are children, they will not throw the bomb. The illogical triumphs.

The terrorism of the rulers in the 19th century is complemented and supported by each other, answers to Russia, for example, with the proclamation "Death to death", a nationalist uprising begins in Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain, peaks, murders are committed (let's not forget the current rise of nationalists in all of Europe because when we forget, it's as if we ignore that forgetfulness is what causes the repetition of history, and let's not encourage friends who, in known fountains and cafes, when the conversation turns to immigration, to wages, with a romantic disposition of exaggerated gloom, maintain the intention of hitting back with a hit. This is not the solution, whatever justifications may sound very logical. This is the perpetuation and repetition, it is 1.11111111111111111 and the repeating decimals never end).

Camus correctly notes that this is the position of the uprising in reality that aims to answer injustice and leads to blind will, it boils the water, exceeds 100 degrees Celsius, and before it evaporates, it will be spilled out with the revolution that requires a change of position, restructuring, with violence, when metaphysically you feel your position within the position of the other. But when has a revolution that started with ideals and rose to power not ended up having to impose, lie, and wrong those it was supposed to defend in order to succeed, strengthen itself, and strike? And if it wrongs even one person, that one is enough for us to talk about the perpetuation of the illness, about not being cured, and the end that cannot be given. How many people are completely healthy and balanced? One? A thousand? None? One wrong person is enough, and then all those who are prepared will be spilled out gushing. Howling from the soul for freedom mixed with justice, but can the rules of justice really be applied to everyone and every ideal that contributes to freedom be maintained at the same time? What is freedom and what is justice? Where do they go together? Where do they get lost? If we choose to be parallel, they cannot intersect, only diagonally can they oppose each other. If we choose to intersect, in how many points will this happen? One will have to be repeated, relocated each time. And in the end, will we be free, or liberals?

"When the race risks being oppressed... the problem of legality plays a secondary role," Hitler will say, paraphrasing Nietzsche at every point and will claim world domination. "Action is everything," Mussolini will say, will follow with the aim of eliminating difference, creating the World Workers' Industry. The rubble, the disappointment, the nihilism of 1933, will open the way to hell. "One leader, one people, means one master and millions of slaves."

Camus will note somewhere that indoctrination - oppression inward is called propaganda and outward is called the army, and below that when everyone is a soldier, it is a crime and disobedience to say no to the commission of the crime, finally ending the dysfunctional defense of all the low-level Hitlers in the Nuremberg trial. The people in Hitler's machine were divided into organs and consumer products. Only blind obedience can lead to efficiency, to continuous movement, to the defense of a race that constantly creates its enemies so that it can abolish legality indefinitely. There should be no other way than sleepy followers who will not think and will be led far from love and every by-product of it. When the superiority of the strong triumphs, which punishes, which tortures, every opposition is submerged in a misinterpreted guilt, besides, the continuous trampling of legality gives it no other room than to break the law against authorities that it never supported but were imposed, and so the only way left is the weapon and death. And here I note one of my disagreements with the author. While his arguments so far seem very convincing without further explanation, he concludes that Hitler, by chance, amazed by his successes, proceeded to the destruction of world domination and that the real threat will come from the only current that aims at the unification of all peoples under one border, Russian communism.

And then he takes up the thread again from the beginning with the aim of proving how he was led to the theory of Capital. Somewhere here, it's not that what he writes is not interesting, and it is interesting and intelligent, but it approaches exaggeration because if Marx's prophecies collapsed and only the hope of the long-term promise remained, on the other hand, in the same long-term threat, Camus also refers, in a period that was a period of reconstruction of the peoples and when the Russians contributed to the victory over the Nazis, or at least were not enemies. Nor can I accept so unquestionably that in the Nuremberg trial, only the most heinous crimes were condemned, while the entire German culture should have been condemned. No, I'm sorry, I don't find this agreeable. As above, nor do I find the idea of the future threat from the all-powerful Russia in an essay published after the war agreeable, I think it is very extreme. In addition, because the book as a whole is excellent and I want to end with my disagreements, Camus, on the one hand, recognizes the responsibility of his national identity and never escapes from the mindset of France as one of the great powers. A tendency to defend French philosophy as a form of cure and the French Revolution as the event that lit up the world is evident. With the same tendency, Germany, also a great power, is targeted. I will reverse a common argument of Camus. If even one person is not bad, not a fascist, not unethical, then we have no right to generalize, every justification falls dead to the ground, otherwise, we lose our fairness, we become inconsistent.

But despite all this, this book is a feat, and it is right to say these things because somewhere it caught my eye that it shows off knowledge to the learned, the work is philosophical, not literary. If philosophy has rights, as a science, it also has the obligation of proof, and one of its tools is the reference to history, and for this reason, this book, if nothing else, no one else on this subject can say a word, it has given its proofs. It is not necessary to follow its final implications, but for the coherence it attempts, we should bow. Personally, I will follow him in his conclusions about the irreconcilable and the contradictions in the foundation of Marx's theory, as well as the danger that prophecies entail when the facts are not realized, of course, the mania will lead to the violent realization in some time. Living in a society that is now, at least ostensibly, leftist and experiencing a continuous strangulation from which the golden handcuffs are absent, without changing the essence of the right, and all this is in a whirlwind of global chaos where the forces that collide are those that concentrate matter and believe in its superiority and those that, either from the extreme left or from the extreme right, aim at the uprising, besides, for anarchy, whether from the right or from the left, the action is common, the justification and the signs only change the sign.

The culprit is not Philosophy, nor is it Nietzsche. I dare to say that I was moved because despite the harsh criticism, he defends him. Nor is it Saint who abolishes God and is the one who first introduces the deified man. We are all culprits as victims of our futility and our temple that we prefer the ready-made meal and the semi-ignorance that leads to propaganda, to the deployment of plans that we graphically describe, but slowly as time passes, as they are said, as they are shown, they acquire familiarity, finish, they become part of the mindset, if not entire mindsets, and then the moments that come are very dangerous. And this book is much more contemporary than we think. It is laborious, it is heavy, it is like the vascular system where you get lost in the measurement and the separation of the veins, but it wants you to take your coffee, light your cigarette, and say I'm here, for as long as you can stand it. Tomorrow again, in a little while, and whenever you have the disposition, it will be there and it will not leave.

One of the most beautiful thoughts I hold is that by recognizing and documenting values in suicide, we nourish the crime in a cocoon of logic.

It is said that Camus' opposite was Sartre. Instead, I will agree with the preface. They move parallel, but they are not identical. His real opposite is Saint, and I cannot hide my wild joy that Camus confronts him in his real dimension, that of the philosopher, and refutes the absurd and petty theories about high literature. De Saint is in high philosophy. The so-called rebel in imagination that we will meet in Stirner and later Nietzsche will intoxicate with nihilism the psychology of the persecuted that we meet in De Saint, who becomes the tool for the collision of the faith in a higher power that, however, does not care about us, with the principles of Epicurus and the Logic of Aristotle. He collapses in the tower with the common people and the victims of 120, the prophecy of the Second World War, in the same tower the Idea of the concentration camps, and it is completed with the suicide - self-targeting of Hitler, the crystallization of incoherence, he commits suicide, committing suicide a people "since they do not have the strength, the will to fight, let them be lost", he will say, feeling betrayed and justified that he was betrayed. But at the same time, Camus himself will give the greatest proof of his resistance to the Illogical: the sweetest proof of his resistance to the Illogical, Camus shows with the tender defense of Nietzsche, who was to become the first victim of Hitler 33 years after his death.

"The uprising is a testimony without continuity. The revolution begins with the idea," and for this reason, it has as its goal change and transformation, while the uprising refers more to the metaphysical action - understanding - mutual support, the "I become my neighbor before I become myself again," and somewhere there it makes a bluff because it is associated with the Event and not with the Whole Idea that contains it.

The great significance of this work is that it proves the tremendous power of Philosophy: it comes out of the world, out of oneself, the concerns and hopes of the world, it crosses history and places, it spreads and becomes a tool and a friend of the healthy and thinking man, as Seneca would say, or the weapon of the appropriate crazy charmer at the right time, see Hitler.

The book, traversing the history of communism and indirectly capitalism, along with the One-Dimensional Man of Marcuse, prophesies the moment we are living. Materialism was given in abundance at some point in time, and thus the economic strangulation is crowned with absolute success, and the languages, the common currencies, create a common center of a global autocracy because forgetfulness has returned. When you expect balls and gifts come to you, you relax your resistances, you forget. But when they take them... soon someone will be found to pick up the thread from the beginning, Hegel, Stirner, Feuerbach, Marx, perhaps, and they will find their extremes in figures as absurd as Hitler, who will aim at a lowest level, at a continuous action, at the persecuted conqueror.

The truth is that the book has a plethora of names, theories, and ideas that are developed and intertwined, it is not easy to read, and it is very likely that I have been lost and made a mistake somewhere, or I have misinterpreted everything. The scope and depth are such that everything is possible. I liked it, but it also tired me, and if something makes reading easier is that Camus does not adopt the tone of the academic, nor the imposition of an opinion of the type this is how it is and not otherwise, which is a heinous trick of professional philosophers. I am relieved that he knew this himself and that he preferred it this way.

I find myself extremely ill qualified to comment or review this masterpiece.

Camus has an extraordinary ability to condense such paradoxical questions into words and explain them with such ease. It is simply incredible.

This work definitely helps a great deal in understanding the obscurity through the mind of this unmatched genius.

All I can say is that it is undoubtedly one of the best books I've ever read. It is also a must-read to help understand the conundrum of the illogical reign of man.

The quote "No, our civilization survives in the complacency of cowardly or malignant minds - a sacrifice to the vanity of ageing adolescents. Lucifer also has died with God, and from his ashes has arisen a spiteful demon who does not even under stand the object of his venture." adds another layer of depth and complexity to the overall theme. It makes us think about the state of our civilization and the role of human nature in its survival.

Overall, this book is a profound and thought-provoking piece of literature that leaves a lasting impression on the reader.