I obtained this from a post on sci.life-extension from Tim(timthytn@my-deja.com)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One hundred and fifty years of metaphysical rebellion and of nihilism
have witnessed the persistent reappearance, under different guises, of
the same ravaged countenance: the face of human protest. All of them
decrying the human condition and its creator, have affirmed the
solitude of man and the nonexistence of any kind of morality. But at
the same time they have all tried to construct a purely terrestial
kingdom where their chosen principles will hold sway. As rivals of the
Creator, they have been unescapably led to the point of reconstructing
creation according to their own concepts. Those who rejected, for the
sake of the world they had just created, all other principles but
desire and power, have rushed to suicide or madness and have
proclaimed the apocalypse. As for the rest, who wanted to create, who
wanted to create their own principles, they have chosen pomp and
ceremony, the world of appearances, or banality,, or again murder and
destruction. But Sade and the romantics, Karamazov or Nietzche only
entered the world of death because they wanted to discover the true
life. So that by a process of inversion, it is the desperate appeal
for order that rings through this insane universe. Their conclusions
have only proved disastrous or destructive to freedom from the moment
they laid aside the burden of rebellion, fled the tension that it
implies, and chose the comfort of tyranny or of servitude.
Human insurrection, in it's exalted and tragic forms. is only and
can only be, a prolonged protest against death, a violent accusation
against the universal death penalty. In every case that we have come
across, the protest is always directed at everything in creation that
is dissonant, opaque, or promises the solution of continuity.
Essentially then we are dealing with a perpetual demand for unity. The
rejection of death, the desire for immortality and for clarity, are
the mainsprings of all these extravagances whether sublime or puerile.
Is it only a cowardly and personal refusal to die? No, for many of
these rebels have paid the ultimate price in order to live up to their
own demands. The rebel does not ask for life, but for reasons for
living. He rejects the consequences implied by death. If nothing
lasts, then nothing is justified; everything that dies is deprived of
meaning. To fight against death amounts to claiming that life has
meaning, to fighting for order and for unity.
The protest against evil that is at the very core of metaphysical
revolt is significant in this regard. It is not the suffering of a
child, which is repugnant in itself, but the fact that the suffering
is not justified. The insurrection against evil is, above all, a
demand for unity. The rebel obstinately confronts a world condemned to
death and the impenetrable obscurity of the human condition with his
demand for life and absolute clarity....It is not rebellion that is
noble, but its aims...
The metaphysical rebel attacks a shattered world in order to demand
unity from it. He opposes the principle of justice which he finds in
himself to the principle of injustice which he sees being applied in
the world...Metaphysical rebellion is a claim, motivated by the
concept of complete unity, against the suffering of life and death and
a protest against the human condition for its incompleteness.
Albert Camus
"The Rebel"
