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summary: Metaphysical Revolt

•  Sade.
•  S8rner.
•  Baudelaire.
•  Nietzsche.
 A summary: Metaphysical Revolt
•  Sade.
–  Sade rejects God.
–  His goal is to act as freely as possible.
–  How does he act more freely? By overcoming limita8ons on
freedom to sa8sfy his desires.
–  What limita8ons are there on freedom? Social and moral rules.
–  Sade thus fantasizes about overcoming social customs and
morality in order to sa8sfy his sexual desires.
–  He thus endorses cruelty and moral crime.
–  How shall one measure success in this project? Through the
ability to overcome more social and moral rules. Thus, the
measure of success for Sade becomes efficacy or power.
 A summary: Metaphysical Revolt
•  S8rner.
–  S8rner argues that the death of God also meant the death of all
morality.
–  What remains is only selfish interest.
–  To pursue our selfish interest is to be indifferent to social and
moral customs.
–  Like Sade, S8rner ends up endorsing social and moral crime.
•  Baudelaire and Breton.
–  Each celebrates overcoming social mores of his 8me.
–  Baudelaire ends up then (some8mes) celebra8ng crime, death,
supernatural or irra8onal beliefs. Breton (to a lesser degree)
endorses random violence as a way to overcome those mores.
 A summary: Metaphysical Revolt
•  Nietzsche.
–  Nietzsche offers two answers to our need for
purpose:
•  love of fate, and
•  Super-animal projects via the ubermensch.
–  Nietzsche’s project, however, replaces “the
beyond with the later on”—the numinous aVerlife
is replaced with a historical project of working to
encourage the appearances of this later
redeemer.
 A summary: Historical Revolt
•  The French Revolu8on.
•  Hegelism.
•  Nazism.
•  Russian revolt of 1890s.
•  Russian Revolu8on.
 A summary: Historical Revolt
•  The French Revolu8on.
–  The crea8on of the concept of the General Will opens
the way for a jus8fica8on of an official state policy on
each issue.
–  The decision to reinstate the death penalty opens the
door to establish ins8tu8ons of violence, such as the
Commi]ee of Public Safety.
–  The Jacobins love jus8ce, but they are too formal:
that is, they some8mes do not see that certain
policies can cause suffering, because they are only
considering their theory of jus8ce and not the actual
concrete effects of their ac8ons.
 A summary: Historical Revolt
•  Hegelism.
–  Human beings are a product of their 8me, and human
character (human “nature”) changes with its 8me: it is a
product of the struggle of ideas that cons8tute that 8me.
–  Our 8me is an incomplete struggle between ideas that will
resolve only when we move closer to some be]er end
state; one can thus see our 8me as irredeemable, as
something not worth valuing. This counsels against trying
to live now in a suitable way.
–  Efforts to improve our 8me should be instead directed to a
struggle for future realiza8on of a be]er historical
moment—that is, the solu8on to our ethical/poli8cal
problems lies in some future 8me, and in the ac8ons that
accelerate the approach of that future.
 A summary: Historical Revolt
•  Nazism.
–  Fascism is like metaphysical revolt—it is
mo8vated by a kind of anger or discontent.
–  But Fascism, and par8cularly Nazism, are explicitly
against all the criteria Camus offers for revolt
justly done (e.g., free expression, pursuit of
equality, rejec8on of ins8tu8ons of violence….)
 A summary: Historical Revolt
•  Russian revolt of 1890s.
–  The early Russian revolu8onaries are enamoured
of violent overthrow.
–  However: their revolt is jus8fied.
–  And: they are willing to accept the consequences
of their ac8ons. (Camus interprets this as not
trying to jus8fy violence.)
 A summary: Historical Revolt
•  Marxism and the Russian Revolu8on
–  Marx offers a materialist version of history like
Hegel’s. This has all the problems that Hegel’s
views had.
–  The revolu8onaries of the USSR are complete
consequen8alists; anything is jus8fied by the
distant outcome of communism.
–  The revolu8onaries establish and maintain
ins8tu8ons of violence.
 Camus’s Assump8on?
•  Do ideas—and in par8cular, do ideas like the
absurd—influence poli8cs and history in a
significant way?
 Some of the An8nomies we have
encountered (not iden8fied by Camus)
•  Efficacy vs virtue/just-ac8on
•  Crowd vs individual autonomy
•  Democrac8c vs liberal
•  Horizontal vs ver8cal
•  Centralized vs anarchist
•  Seeking current embodiment of values vs
seeking a future embodiment of values.
•  Power of ideas vs material condi8ons.