Albert Camus said 'What is a rebel? A man who says no.' . When a mother says to her child-go to bed, the child says-no. Rebel? No, this is not a rebel. It is not a metaphor for rebellion against authority, it is unreasonable and stubborn. Not every case in which a person refuses to do something is a case of rebellion, it is the cases where we use our reason to come to the conclusion for refusal. Most of the time a rebel is confused to be a negative person or often even called a hater. I say the opposite- a rebel is the one and only person that loves truly and deeply. He loves art, music, creativity, people and the world. Don't get me wrong- he does hate. He despise stupidity and the absence of reason, the absence of people's own ability to judge and think for themselves. A rebel is an intelligent man who uses his mind; he is not the one who draws graffiti on the bus stop or breaks the window of a shop, he is not the one who drinks on the street after the club closes, he does not cause a fight in a pub or listens to music loud at night. These are the grown up versions of the immature children that said NO to their mothers and that keep seeing no to society. Society has build up this image of a rebel, a teenager that smokes and drinks, a man or woman with no job or perspective for the future, who does nothing but cause destruction and wastes time. These are not rebels.
These are the rebels I am talking about.
They don't look anything like rebels, right? These are not the people who destroy, these are the people who built and create. That's what a rebel is. A man who says no and does it his way, and believe me, he does it better that anyone else.
Hi Natalie,
ReplyDeleteI like the direction of your post and there are many things i agree with. There is just one thing I feel important enough to disagree with. While rebellion is not in the image, image doesn't have to determine rebellion or disqualify it. In those terms, the punks from the top photo may well be the rebels. All that matters is the goal of their rebellion. Rebelling against dogmas and prejudice opens up the doors for people coming after these guys to express themselves more freely. It may just start with the image. But it means more than that. It means that you have opened the doors to rebellion in your mind and shuttered the locks of pre-determinism. I think this is the first step to rebellion no matter which door you choose.
I say that challenging norms IS rebellion.
This is my five cent :)...if it matters.
Nice blog! Keep going!
Cheers!
Hi,
DeleteThank so much for you comment; it does matter!
I used the image of the punks, because from all my encouters with people like that I have seen no real wish for a change, they 'rebel' just for the sake of rebelling against a type of system. And I personally think that any type of rebellion without a cause is just childish. Say for example in Britain, the punks rebel against a system that has given them free health care and free education, they rebel agains a government that can take care of them in many ways. Of course you have to open your mind and shutter the lock of pre-determinism, as you said, but you also need to use your reason and rebel against something that works against you. Of course there are going to be exceptions and that there are going to be people that know what they are doing, but I personally think that in most cases they are just rebels without a cause.
Thanks again for your comment!
:)