The contradiction is this: man rejects the world as it is, without accepting the necessity of escaping it. In fact, men cling to the world and by far the majority do not want to abandon it.
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Part 4: Rebellion and ArtAlbert Camus
The world in which we live is very nearly incomprehensible to most of us. There is almost no fact ...that will surprise us for very long, since we have no comprehensive and consistent picture of the world which would make the fact appear as an unacceptable contradiction. ...in a world without spiritual or intellectual order, nothing is unbelievable; nothing is predictable, and therefore, nothing comes as a particular surprise. ...The medieval world was... not without a sense of order. Ordinary men and women... had no doubt that there was such a design, and their priests were well able, by deduction from a handful of principles, to make it, if not rational, at least coherent. ...The situation we are presently in is much different. ...sadder and more confusing and certainly more mysterious. ...There is no consistent, integrated conception of the world which serves as the foundation on which our edifice of belief rests. And therefore... we are more naive than those of the Middle Ages, and more frightened, for we can be made to believe almost anything.
Neil Postman
Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
Abraham Lincoln
The rain has stopped, the clouds have drifted away, and the weather is clear again.
If your heart is pure, then all things in your world are pure.
Abandon this fleeting world, abandon yourself,
Then the moon and flowers will guide you along the Way.Ryokan
The respect inspired by the link between man and the reality alien to this world can make itself evident to that part of man which belongs to the reality of this world.
The reality of this world is necessity. The part of man which is in this world is the part which is in bondage to necessity and subject to the misery of need.
The one possibility of indirect expression of respect for the human being is offered by men's needs, the needs of the soul and of the body, in this world.Simone Weil
Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon, says, ‘Since the world is judged by its majority, and the individual is judged by the majority, if he performs one Mitzva, happy is he, for he has sentenced himself and the whole world to a scale of merit. If he commits one sin, woe unto him, for he has sentenced himself and the whole world to a scale of sin.’ (...) Moreover, it is written, “one sinner destroyeth much good.” This is because one sin sentences the person and the entire world to a scale of sin.
Yehuda Ashlag
Camus, Albert
Canaris, Wilhelm
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