The Rebel
From Freepedia
The Rebel is a book-sized essay by Albert Camus, which treats both the metaphysical and the historical development of the revolution in modern society. Camus relates figures like the Marquis de Sade, Max Stirner (whom he misrepresents to some extent), Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Karl Marx in an integrated portrait of man in revolt.
One of Camus' main arguments in The Rebel is that the urge for revolt always comes from an urge for justice. Another theme is the idea that once a revolution is established it will become more tyrannic than the original government because the ideal of a utopia justifies everything.
It also points out that the rejection of religion leads to political utopian philosophies such as communism, perhaps as a way to replace the tradition vision of a utopian afterlife with an earthly one. He rejects this idea because, as pointed out in the previous paragraph, the ideal of utopia justifies everything.
The writing has a rather complex structure, the trademark of French philosophy, making it difficult to read as a continuous story.
- The Rebel is a 1915 movie, directed by J.E. Mathews and starring Allen Doone, from the play The Rebels by James B. Fagan.
- The Rebel is a 1933 movie, directed by Edwin H. Knopf and starring Luis Trenker.
- The Rebel is a 1961 movie starring Tony Hancock.
- Le Rebelle (1930, 1980), El Rebelde (1943), Amakusa shiro tokisada (1962), El Motamarreda (1963), Poliziotto solitudine e rabbia (1980), La Ribelle (1993), and Das Fähnlein der sieben Aufrechten (2001) have all been distributed with the international English title of The Rebel.
