“Awareness, no matter how confused it may be, develops from every act of rebellion: the sudden, dazzling
perception that there is something in man with which he can identify himself, even if only for a moment.
Up to now this identification was never really experienced. Before he rebelled, the slave accepted all the
demands made upon him. Very often he even took orders, without reacting against them, which were far
more conducive to insurrection than the one at which he balks. He accepted them patiently, though he
may have protested inwardly, but in that he remained silent he was more concerned with his own
immediate interests than as yet aware of his own rights. But with loss of patience—with impatience—a
reaction begins which can extend to everything that he previously accepted, and which is almost always
retroactive. The very moment the slave refuses to obey the humiliating orders of his master, he
simultaneously rejects the condition of slavery. The act of rebellion carries him far beyond the point he
had reached by simply refusing. He exceeds the bounds that he fixed for his antagonist, and now demands
to be treated as an equal. What was at first
the man's obstinate resistance now becomes the whole man, who is identified with and summed up in this
resistance. The part of himself that he wanted to be respected he proceeds to place above everything else
and proclaims it preferable to everything, even to life itself. It becomes for him the supreme good. Having
up to now been willing to compromise, the slave suddenly adopts ("because this is how it must be . . .")
an attitude of All or Nothing. With rebellion, awareness is born.”
―
Albert Camus,
The Rebel
