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ObjectionAttacks the positionWhy revolt?
If nothing really has value, the rebel's lucidity and pride have none either: to make them the 'right' answer is already to reintroduce a meaning.
Objects to
Nagel · The Absurd · 1971
- The absurd arises, we are told, from the world's silence before our thirst for meaning; and the right response would be lucid revolt, without hope or resignation.
- But why 'revolt' rather than indifference, or renunciation? If nothing really has value, the rebel's lucidity and pride have no more of it: to set them up as the right response is already to hold something better, and so to reintroduce a meaning.
- The absurdist is thus caught between two terms: either these values hold, and the world is not the desert of meaning he claimed; or they do not, and his revolt is as futile as what it claims to defy.
Therefore So absurdism contradicts itself: it proclaims the absence of meaning while making revolt a meaning. One must either recognize values, and leave the absurd, or renounce even revolt itself.
Possible resolutions of the objection
Challenges
Problem