The Truth May Be Existential; But Nonetheless;
It is Above All Else: "The Truth".
You said to me "The greatness of one's country is beyond price. Everything is good that contributes to its greatness, and in a world where everything has lost its meaning, those lucky few, who, like us young Germans, are fortunate enough to find a meaning in the destiny of our country, must sacrifice everything else to it." I loved you then, but at this point we diverged. "No," I told you, "Everything must not be subordinated to a single end. There are means which cannot be excused, and I should like to be able to love my country, and still love justice." You retorted "Well you don't love your country."
That was five years ago. We have been separated since then. And I can tell you that not a single day has passed during those long years without my remembering your remark "You don't love your country." No, I didn't love my country, if pointing out what is unjust about what one loves amounts to not loving. No, I didn't love my country, if insisting that what one loves measure up to the finest image you have of her amounts to not loving, then I do not love my country.
That was five years ago, and many men in France thought as I did. Some of them have already been stood up against the wall facing the twelve little black eyes of German "destiny", and those men, who in your opinion, did not love their country, did more for it than you can ever do, for their heroism was that they had first to conquer themselves.
But I am speaking here of two kinds of greatness, and of a contradiction about which I must enlighten you...
-Albert Camus, First Letter to a German Friend-
Resistance, Rebellion and Death (pg.5)
There are means that cannot be excused. And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive. (p. 5)
There are some of us who do not want to keep silent about anything. It is our whole political society that nauseates us. Hence there will be no salvation until all those who are still worthwhile have repudiated it utterly in order to find, somewhere outside insoluble contradictions, the way to a complete renewal. In the meantime we must struggle. (p. 82)
I cannot love all humanity except with a vast and somewhat abstract love. But I love a few men, living or dead, with such force and admiration that I am always eager to preserve in others what will someday perhaps make them resemble those I love. (p. 103)
Our proudest duty is to defend personally to the very end, against the impulse toward coercion and death, the freedom of that culture--in other words, the freedom of work and of creation. (p. 164)
It is not much to be able to do violence when you have been simply preparing for it for years and when violence is more natural to you than thinking. It is a great deal, on the other hand, to face torture and death when you know for a fact that hatred and violence are empty things in themselves. It is a great deal to fight while despising war, to accept losing everything while still preferring happiness, to face destruction while cherishing the idea of a higher civilization.
The triumph of the man who kills or tortures is marred by only one shadow: he is unable to feel that he is innocent.
Thus, he must create guilt in his victim so that, in a world that has no direction, universal guilt will authorize no other course of action than the use of force and give its blessing to nothing but success.
When the concept of innocence disappears from the mind of the innocent victim himself, the value of power establishes a definitive rule over a world in despair.
We have a right to think that truth with a capital letter is relative. But facts are facts. And whoever says that the sky is blue when it is gray is prostituting words and preparing the way for tyranny.
"The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice. I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Let them dare, then, to bring me before a court of law and let the enquiry take place in broad daylight!"
- Emile Zola, J'accuse! -(1898) –
At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.
-Ernesto Che Guevara
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you and may posterity forget that ye were once our countrymen."
-Sam Adams-
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else. "
- Theodore Roosevelt-
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