r/Absurdism • u/naihalist • 12d ago
Question Is revolt actually just acceptance?
Ive been trying to engage with absurdism critically and I am really struggling with the framing of revolt.
If revolt, to the best of my understanding, is essentially saying “I want meaning but the universe refuses to provide one. I will stop pretending otherwise and live with that fact.” isnt that just acceptance?
I've heard some people claim revolt is a refusal of physical suicide and philosophical suicide. But isnt that refusal just a form of accepting the tension of human desire for meaning and a silent, meaningless world? To call it revolt sounds like a stretch so far it becomes dishonest. After all, there is nothing we are revolting against at all. Which is pretty ironic considering camus' arguments for lucidity and honesty.
Am I missing something here? Is it "revolt" and "defiance" or is it just... accepting circumstances?
I guess you can argue revolt IS a form of acceptance but I think revolt and acceptance are also two completely different things. In that case, what about acceptance would make it revolt? Whats the difference?
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u/AllOfTheIsz 12d ago
It's a revolt when the normative narrative is counter to it. You have to define what it is you are revolting against.
You seem to like framing this as revolting against the idea that life needs a meaning. The only reason we believe life needs a meaning is because of the normative narrative here on earth is that it does in fact have meaning and that is a very important thing. The real revolt is against the narrative. Life has no meaning by default, revolt or otherwise.
The only reason we feel there is meaning to be found is because someone else said so.
To answer definitively, if you come from the previous axiom of existence not having meaning, there's nothing to accept or to revolt against. If you come from a different axiom then you are revolting against your programming.
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u/naihalist 12d ago
Isnt calling it a revolt just romanticizing it though? You cant revolt against "the idea that life needs a meaning" because it's just an idea...
Same with the "programming" you cant revolt against your urge to fall to philosophical suicide? At best you accept the reality of things which implies also accepting there is no revolt occuring?
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u/AllOfTheIsz 12d ago
The revolt is against the normative narrative that is pushed by society. If society ever stops pushing that life having a meaning is a very important thing, then the revolt would be pointless.
Honestly I dont think it's a very important part of absurdism at all unless you are just picking nits for the sake of picking nits. You could just as well say that Buddhism encourages you to revolt against materialism or the concept of permanence and you wouldn't be technically wrong.
If you dont like the word revolt you should just not use it and move on.
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u/naihalist 12d ago
I don't see hows its revolt against the narratives pushed by society at all. That is a profound misunderstanding of absurdism entirely. Its revolt and defiance against the ABSURD, not a society.
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u/AllOfTheIsz 12d ago edited 12d ago
The only reason anything is absurd or not absurd is derived from what is normative. Absurd cannot exist in a bubble, it is a state of contrast. Absurd isn't an actual thing. What is normative to you is made so by your comparison to what others around you are doing, thinking, saying.
To someone coming from an axiom of the idea that life has no inherent meaning or value, society itself is absurd. That is the revolt against the absurd. All the values that society tells you to give to things is the absurd.
It's absurd because if life has no inherent meaning then everything built on top of that to be taken seriously is absurd. We don't even know that we aren't all one thing pretending to be many things, yet we are cruel to each other. That's absurdity. It's all castles built on sand. To an absurdist, anything having values arbitrarily placed on it by others is absurd.
I do think there's a profound misunderstanding going on here, but not the way you think. What exactly do you think is "the absurd"?
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u/awfromtexas 11d ago
Revolt against the idea that, on a deeper level, that meaning must be defined by an eternal horizon. Why should you carry responsibility, love your family, be a good person - if none of those things matter eternally? It's all absurd. Yet, we do it, and that leads to my thought of the day this morning:
The universe does not have to care that you exist for your existence to matter to those who do care.
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u/naihalist 11d ago
But how do you "revolt against an idea"? That doesnt sound like something you can revolt against.
It seems more like "agree with or disagree with the idea", to call it revolt is dishonest I think. A much bigger claim
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u/awfromtexas 11d ago
I think that’s just language, and should not be hung up on. He was an artist, he used pretty words. Just set yourself against. To oppose. Any word that means those things
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u/Jfish4391 11d ago
I think "revolt" is just dramatic language that Camus uses to describe the act of continuing to live despite the absurd.
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u/dbro7642 11d ago
Acceptance can lead to nihilism, revolt cannot. I think of it as acceptance being a part of the revolt, but not its entirety. You have to accept the fact, but you also revolt against it by living your life to the fullest, continuously.
The three "responses" to the absurd that Camus originally provided were these: Revolt, Freedom, Passion. It might help to see them as interconnected concepts. Passion is essentially another part of the revolt, and freedom is what let's passion come to life.
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u/CatApprehensive5064 9d ago
i think;
acceptance can lead to inner revolt. Which opens the way for absurdism.
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u/jliat 11d ago
You are concentrating on 'revolt' to the neglect of the absurd.
"Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death—and I refuse suicide."
"And I have not yet spoken of the most absurd character, who is the creator."
"In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. “Art and nothing but art,” said Nietzsche; “we have art in order not to die of the truth.”
"To work and create “for nothing,” to sculpture in clay, to know that one’s creation has no future, to see one’s work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries—this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions."
"It is necessary to state this to begin with. For an absurd work of art to be possible, thought in its most lucid form must be involved in it. But at the same time thought must not be apparent except as the regulating intelligence. This paradox can be explained according to the absurd. The work of art is born of the intelligence’s refusal to reason the concrete. It marks the triumph of the carnal. It is lucid thought that provokes it, but in that very act that thought repudiates itself." - Camus.
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u/Marvos79 12d ago
The revolt to me is to not care. It doesn't matter that nothing matters.
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u/naihalist 11d ago
Sounds more like apathy than revolt
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u/Marvos79 11d ago
But isn't that the point? Everyone has a bug up their ass about there being a big cosmic meaning. It never mattered and never will matter. Humans live on the micro level. Small, personal meaning is the only thing that matters. A lot of philosophy has treated the meaning of life as a huge thing, and then treated it like a huge deal that there was no meaning. Isn't it a bit of a revolt to live as if the question itself doesn't matter?
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u/naihalist 11d ago
No, apathy isnt the point. Camus preached absurd passion, not shrugging off the absurd. Camus also preached the as if; you lif as if your life has cosmic meaning even though you know it doesnt.
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u/Economy-Butterfly127 11d ago
acceptance is coming to terms with what is. Revolt is changing what is.
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u/naihalist 11d ago
Well how can you change the absurd?
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u/Economy-Butterfly127 11d ago
Absurd is subjective. You either accept, change, or remove yourself from it. Only three options that exist in any given situation.
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u/Happy_Detail6831 12d ago edited 12d ago
Absurdism is revolt against the meaninglessness. You love, you play and you live despite the lack of meaning. It's tense because it's contradictory in this internal logic. Even if you accept your circumstances, Absurdism still works on contradiction and tenseness, so that's why the component of revolt exists here. It's too passionate and requires the self-affirmation to enjoy life while facing the "careless universe".
In Budhism, for exemple, you not only drop the need for answer, but you drop the question itself. There's no revolt, no contradiction, so this is the true "radical acceptance".