Foundations of the West - “The Rebel” by Camus

For our first Foundations of the West meetup, we will discuss a work from the mid-20th century by French philosopher Albert Camus: The Rebel (1951). This provides a schema for thinking about our current cultural situation, along with an interpretation of the last 200 years or so of Western history, beginning just before the French Revolution.

Camus divides societies into those based on a shared sense of the Sacred and societies characterized instead by Rebellion, which he says we have been in since 1789. Camus defines the Rebel as “a slave who has taken orders all his life suddenly decides that he cannot obey some new command.” He adds that “The Rebel is a man who is on the point of accepting or rejecting the Sacred, who is determined on laying claim to a human situation in which the answers are all human.”

The Rebel is thus defined by a kind of personalized defiance of a claim upon him previously or generally expected to be authoritative, who finds he has thereby appointed himself judge over all his traditions and received standards. A society in Rebellion is one in which this attitude has become general enough that it sets the tone of the entire society.

We will elaborate what this means to Camus, and the stages of Metaphysical and then Historical Rebellion he describes, along with the inner tendency toward extremes he diagnoses within that history. We may see the origin of the oppressor-versus-oppressed thinking that characterizes contemporary politics and trace its philosophical and spiritual roots.

We will then move to a general discussion relating the above to our own experience, with the following questions offered to focus that discussion. Each participant may speak to any one of the following:

1. Discuss an instance of justified rebellion in your own life\, and whether you see it as raising a limited positive claim or giving rise to a more generalized distrust of others’ demands.

2. Do you think the spirit of rebellion can find moderation when the underlying motives for rebellion seem to be existential and permanent\, at least as Camus describes them?

3. Can we reconstruct any sense of the Sacred when we have ourselves experienced socially approved versions of it as humbug or interested deceptions?

4. Is the initial spirit of rebellion individualist in nature\, or does it appeal to some “we” that transcends the rebel themselves? What happens if that “we” disappoints?

5. What soul therapy can there be for the type Camus describes: resentful mortals convinced they are condemned by an unjust and cruel universe?

GENERAL INFORMATION:
NOTE LOCATION: 245 West Sagebrush Street
Join us at our meetup location at an organizer's in South Gilbert. At the corner of West Sagebrush and West Lago Blvd in the Lago Estancia neighborhood. Avoid parking on Lago Blvd and notice the fire hydrant at the corner.
We have a potluck for everyone to partake of throughout the evening, so bring some food to share if you wish (this could be anything from a bag of chips to a homemade dish).
Our fundamental principle is to encourage the free expression and exploration of ideas. Therefore, we will never silence controversial views that anyone may have about a topic. For the same reason, we do not tolerate direct personal attacks, which only impede genuine dialogue.

DISCORD SERVER (updated link!):
The group has a Discord server! This gives us all a space to talk about stuff between meetups. Use the following link to join, if you haven't already:
https://discord.gg/FRab8G8j2V