Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.
The Rebel
Introduction. |
On the day when crime dons the apparel of innocence
through a curious transposition peculiar to our times
it is innocence that is called upon to justify itself.
The Rebel
Part 1. |
One might think that a period which, in a space of fifty years,
uproots, enslaves, or kills seventy million human beings should
be condemned out of hand. But its culpability must still be
understood... In more ingenuous times, when the tyrant razed
cities for his own greater glory, when the slave chained to
the conqueror's chariot was dragged through the rejoicing streets,
when enemies were thrown to the wild beasts in front of the
assembled people, the mind did not reel before such unabashed
crimes, and the judgment remained unclouded. But slave camps
under the flag of freedom, massacres justified by philanthropy
or by a taste for the superhuman, in one sense cripple judgment.
On the day when crime dons the apparel of innocence through
a curious transposition peculiar to our times it is innocence
that is called upon to justify itself.
The Rebel
Part 1. |
What is a rebel? A man who says no.
The Rebel
Part 1. |
The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting
to wear a crown. He must dominate in his turn.
The Rebel |
Nihilism is not only despair and negation, but above all the
desire to despair and to negate.
The Rebel
Part 2, The Rejection of Salvation. |
From Paul to Stalin, the popes who have chosen Caesar have
prepared the way for Caesars who quickly learn to despise popes.
The Rebel
Part 2, The Rejection of Salvation. |
Every ideology is contrary to human psychology.
The Rebel |
To insure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time,
faith is not enough, a police force is needed as well.
The Rebel
Part 3, The Regicides. |
Every rebellion implies some kind of unity.
The Rebel
Part 3, Historical Rebellion. |
Nothing can discourage the appetite for divinity in the heart
of man.
The Rebel
Part 3. |
All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the
power of the state.
The Rebel
Part 3, State Terrorism and Rational Terror. |
A regime [the Third Reich] which invented a biological foreign
policy was obviously acting against its own best interests.
But at least it obeyed its own particular logic.
The Rebel
Part 3, State Terrorism and Rational Terror. |
One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions
of slaves.
The Rebel
Part 3, State Terrorism and Rational Terror. |
More and more, revolution has found itself delivered into
the hands of its bureaucrats and doctrinaires on the one hand,
and to the enfeebled and bewildered masses on the other.
The Rebel
Part 3, State Terrorism and Rational Terror. |
Marxism is not scientific: at the best, it has scientific
prejudices.
The Rebel
Part 3, State Terrorism and Rational Terror. |
The most eloquent eulogy of capitalism was made by its greatest
enemy. Marx is only anti-capitalist in so far as capitalism
is out of date.
The Rebel
Part 3, State Terrorism and Rational Terror. |
Methods of thought which claim to give the lead to our world
in the name of revolution have become, in reality, ideologies
of consent and not of rebellion.
The Rebel
Part 3, Rebellion and Revolution. |
Revolution, in order to be creative, cannot do without either
a moral or metaphysical rule to balance the insanity of history.
The Rebel
Part 3, Rebellion and Revolution. |
Instead of killing and dying in order to produce the being
that we are not, we have to live and let live in order to create
what we are.
The Rebel
Part 3, Rebellion and Revolution. |
Every revolutionary ends by becoming either an oppressor or
a heretic.
The Rebel
Part 3, Rebellion and Revolution. |
The French Revolution gave birth to no artists but only to
a great journalist, Desmoulins, and to an under-the-counter
writer, Sade. The only poet of the times was the guillotine.
The Rebel
Part 4. |
In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary
never again to exist.
The Rebel
Part 4. |
Just as all thought, and primarily that of non-signification,
signifies something, so there is no art that has no signification.
The Rebel
Part 4. |
To be really realistic a description would have to be endless.
The Rebel
Part 4, Rebellion and Style. |
The society based on production is only productive, not creative.
The Rebel
Part 4, Creation and Revolution. |
For those of us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious
melodies and the torturing images of a vanished beauty will
always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of
that harmonious insurrection which bears witness, throughout
the centuries, to the greatness of humanity.
The Rebel |
The rebel can never find peace. He knows what is good and,
despite himself, does evil. The value which supports him is
never given to him once and for all -- he must fight to uphold
it, unceasingly.
The Rebel
Part 5, Nihilistic Murder. |
Absolute freedom mocks at justice. Absolute justice denies
freedom. To be fruitful, the two ideas must find their limits
in each other.
The Rebel
Part 5, Historical Murder. |
Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of
freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely.
The Rebel
Part 5, Historical Murder. |
Lucifer also has died with God, and from his ashes has arisen
a spiteful demon who does not even understand the object of
his venture.
The Rebel
Part 5, Moderation and Excess. |
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.
The Rebel
Part 5, Moderation and Excess. |
Children will still die unjustly even in a perfect society.
Even by his greatest effort, man can only propose to diminish,
arithmetically, the sufferings of the world.
The Rebel
Part 5 Beyond Nihilism. |