Word: camus
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This critic was among many who felt disappointed and a little betrayed when at the end of The Rebel, Camus defined his specific application of the values of rebellion to contemporary politics as "what is traditionally called revolutionary trade-unionism." Influenced no doubt by the use of the word "unions" in America, where it has come to mean something a little different, we thought Camus might be backing down. He wasn't. In a speech titled Bread and Freedom, addressed to a meeting of Parisian workingmen in 1953, he explains: "I have recognized only two aristocracies, that of labor...
...must conress his disappointment in the Algerian Reports. They are topical, a little over-simplified, and a bit too glib. Especially annoying is the tinge of 19th-century liberalism in the appeal for unity and good will where substantive agreement is impossible. Algeria is the one subject on which Camus' patriotic emotions seem to have overwhelmed his lucidity. Even as this is written, the inadequacy of sham solidarity is being made apparent. Yet the values implicit in Camus' appeal are not inconsistent with those of his more dispassionate statements...
Knopf's collections also includes the masterful protections on the GuiMotine, written in collaboration with Arthur Koestler. In a sustained invective, Camus shows compelling skill in his application of The Rebel to another contemporary issue--capital punishment. "Freedom," he said elsewhere, "is the road to perfectibility"--but this must not mislead. Not liberal perfectibility, not optimism, but the stubborn refusal to deprive a man of his only chance at improvement. Under no circumstances can an irrevocable punishment be out, however inhuman the crime. It is, again, precisely because of the wretchedness of life that life must be allowed...
Devotees of Camus will welcome a permanent copy of the superb dialogue with Jean Block-Michel, which was repdinted from in the November 23, 1957 issue of The Reporter. Here, in a translation that lacks the power of the Reporter version, it is retitled The Wager of Our Generation. Serious readers can find no more precise or cogent summary of the values that moved Camus throughout his life...
...circumstances, he is suppress that freedom, temporarily." And read; "One even have to fight a in the of a quarter-truth." Rebellion neither nor accepts rebellion against anything that minishes man, rebellion not in name of what will happen but what might happen--this is wager of Albert Camus. As a journalist, as an Underground fight as a man, never less in action in words, Camus struggled to worthy of his own ideals...