Rebellion!

We humans are small group animals with a monkeysphere of 150 individuals each possessed of an individual consciousness and living in cities populated by millions and interconnected via a media web and a globalised trade and travel network involving billions of people. Wow. No wonder we're confused.

The human being is a creature caught between two worlds. It might be argued that the fruit from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil granted mankind consciousness and with that the power of reason. From that point we rose above the other animals to become the gods of Earth. So perhaps the Serpent was not completely lying. However, there was a cost.

The cost is one of the central questions of philosophy. Man the self-aware and conscious individual versus Man the small group social animal. The Romantic takes the path of the individual.

In describing the origins of Romanticism it is possible to take a number of starting points in human cultural history. The original early Romantics of the mid to late Eighteenth Century were called Gothic because they drew their inspiration from the Gothic Period as opposed to the Classical Period embraced during the Enlightenment.

For those not in the know, when we speak of the Middle Ages or the Medieval Period it makes sense to ask, "The middle of what?" On one side is the Classical Period and on the other the Modern. We can say that now with hindsight, but the people of the early Modern Period referred to the Middle Ages as the Gothic Period. The term Romantic is derived from the medieval stories of the troubadours. So both Gothic and Romantic are of similar origins.

The warriors of the various tribal cultures, including the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Goths, Visigoths, Norse, Franks, ect., were very individualistic. On the battlefield they sought to distinguish themselves so that they may be remembered in song forever. This appealed to the Romantics. Even today we admire the image of lone the barbarian warrior in the form of the classic image of the rebel. Think hairy biker.

Another origin story for the Romantics is found in the world of art. According to Classical aesthetics, beauty originates in the object itself and is derived from the laws of proportion. The Romantic artists believed that the emotions invoked by art come from the individual's response to the object, independent of the thing itself. In other words, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Then there is Paradise Lost. When John Milton wrote Paradise Lost, he wanted to make Satan a seductive character so that the reader could truly appreciate the fall of Adam and Eve. The problem was that Satan even seduced some of the readers.

The early Romantics saw Satan as the hero of the poem. The one who declared "It is better to reign in hell than serve in heaven". Satan is read as the individual rebelling against the supreme and authoritarian God/Society.

Finally, we might argue that Romanticism emerged as the culmination of freedom. The Reformation and the Enlightenment brought freedom of thought; the rise of Capitalism brought the means to act on that freedom; and Republicanism brought the ability to act on that freedom. Just a quick side note here. I mean the rise of republican government and not the rise of democracy. A republic protects the individual under the law, whereas a democracy is the mob rule will of the majority regardless of the individual.

I subscribe to all of these origins and I am sure that more strands can be applied. Each of these focus on Man the individual and as those inherent individualistic tendencies were exercised a shift of human consciousness occurred that created the Modern World.

Anthropologists have discovered that the concept of self, though inherent in the human species, is something that develops. As a consequence people living in a tribal situation or even a collectivist society have a less developed sense of self and personal identity. People are just part of the group and they exist in and for the group for mutual benefit.

The Romantics rebelled against society and collectivism. Instead they emphasised their individual thoughts, feelings, and will regardless of social dictates and encouraged others to do the same. To be a Romantic is to be a rebel.

Of course there is a problem here. On the one hand is individual consciousness and on the other there is small group animal –Individualism and Collectivism. Humans work best when working together. The man who works with society will benefit more than the man who works against it.

How many cool teen rebels eventually grow-up and either sell-out or hold their course to become pathetic loners? How many teen rebels learn to market their cool attitude and sell it to the public while maintaining the external image and yet still pandering to society? But this is a false dichotomy. The fact is that there is no either/or question here. Individualism and Collectivism are two extremes and each of us falls somewhere along the line.

Here is a picture of extreme individualism from Charles Baudelaire:

What is love?

The need to go outside oneself.

Man is an adoring animal.

To adore is to sacrifice oneself and to prostitute oneself

Thus all love is prostitution.

A woman is hungry and she wants to eat. Thirsty and she wants to drink.

She is in heat and she wants to be screwed.

What admirable qualities!

Woman is natural, that is to say abominable.

The more man cultivates the arts, the less he can get a hard-on.

A more and more apparent divorce takes place between the spirit and the brute.

Only the brute has no trouble getting a hard-on, and screwing is the lyricism of the masses.

To screw is to aspire to enter another person, and the artist never goes outside himself.

These passages provide an insight into Baudelaire's views on "the artist" (aka the Romantic) and women. If you are a single man who no longer wants to be single, then what do you do? You chase. You pander. You beg. You elevate this other human being to a level of adoration and thus demean yourself in the process, whether this is in a club or on-line. Who does she choose by the end of the night? Usually either "the brute" or the con artist. The brute because she is in heat and wants to be screwed or the con-artist because he can make her feel what she wants to feel. The only one not sucking-up is the brute and that is who she chooses.

This ideology is cruelly honest and to me it rings of perhaps Baudelaire getting passed-over in favour of a man he considers to be a brute.

This sort of extreme individualism seems to hold to the belief that my values are my own and to give them to another is an act of sacrificial trade. Pure trade occurs when there is an exchange of values. You exchange coins for milk and everyone says "thank you". However let's say that the retailer is selling the milk that you need for ten times the market value. You pay it because he is your only option, but you feel abused by the transaction. There is not an exchange of like for like values. When the exchange involves emotional values we feel used – or prostituted.

For Baudelaire, pandering for a woman's affections is a sacrificial trade. Her attentions and potential affections were unequal to his individualism and freedom. I do not necessarily agree, but I do see his point. I see daily the desirable women surrounded by toadying men and the women revelling in the attention. I have reached a stage in my development where I find that pathetic and I refuse to throw my hat in the ring, which of course leaves me wanting.

I'm am wanting because I am not engaging in the marketplace. You see, the balance between the individual and society is to be found in trade. The purely collectivist end of the spectrum demands sacrifice and prostitution. The purely individualist end hoards values like a miser. It confuses ego and arrogance with the self and pride. This is the rebel without a cause.

To be without a cause is to be without purpose. There is no direction. The rebellion is simply a defensive and antagonistic attitude towards society. Generally such people will surround themselves with like minded nihilists.

A rebel with a cause is a person who wants to accomplish something that goes against the social structure. To do this he needs help and to acquire the aid of others he must trade values. They must see some benefit in joining the rebellion.

Then there are the false rebels. I'm writing specifically of those student communists, socialist, and alleged anarchists. These rebels have a cause and their cause is the increase of government authority. What??? Yes, it is true. They are rebelling against the current powers that be because they do not believe that the government is either doing all that it could or should do to control the lives of others. It boggles the mind.

In its most basic sense to rebel is to act against the existing social authority for whatever reason, including just replacing the current leadership with those of your own choosing. So yes, these students can be rebels. However from the Romantic perspective of individualism slavery is slavery no matter who holds the whip, no matter if they strike hard or soft, and whoever promotes it is your enemy, no matter their twisted moral justification.

In the balance between Man the individual and Man the small group animal the pivot is composed of the Natural Rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, as long as you respect and do not violate the rights of others and they do the same for you, then everyone's cool. If they do threaten or violate your rights, then you have also the right to defend your rights and thus are you in a state of rebellion.

As long as everyone plays nice then Man the individual can profit enormously playing Man the small group animal. But never forget. Once that line is crossed the true spirit of the Romantic emerges, for he is always at his heart his own person. He is a rebel.