[分享] Rebellion , the nature of Man

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Rebellion, the nature of man

The question remains---must we conform? Or can we, somehow, resist the powers that conspire to domesticate us? And if so, with what arms are we to redeem our almost-lost manhood? Where are we to find the weapons of resistance?

I believe that the question of conformity, in the long run, answers itself. I think that if there was a possibility, once, of a yes or no if at one time humans could decide “you must conform” or “ we must not”-that possibility has been lost in the long reaches of evolution, far back along the corridors of time. The simple truth is that we cannot conform.

Built into man, is an instinct. I have chosen to call it the “instinct of rebellion”, since it reveals itself as a drive or urge toward mastery over every obstacle, natural or man-made, that stands as a barrier between man and his distant, perhaps never-to-be-achieved but always striven-after goals. It is this instinct that underwrites his survival, this instinct from which he derives his nature-a great and powerful dynamic that makes him what he is restless, seeking, curious, forever unsatisfied, eternally struggling  and eventually victorious. Because of the instinct of rebellion man has never been content with, the limits of his body; it has led him to extend his senses almost infinitely, so that his fingers now probe space, his eyes magnify the nuclei of atoms, and his ears detect whispers from the bottoms of seas. Because of the instinct of rebellion man has never been content with the limits of his mind; it has led him to inquire the secrets of the universe, to gather and learn and manipulate the fabulous inventory of the cosmos, to seek the very mysterious of creation.

Man is a rebel. He is committed by his biology not to conform, and herein lies the paramount reason for the awful tension he experiences today in relation to society. Unlike other creatures of earth, man cannot submit, cannot surrender his birthright of protest, for rebellion is one of his essential dimensions. He cannot deny it and remain man. In order to live he must rebel. Only total annihilation of humanity as a species can eliminate this in-built necessity. Only with the death of the last man will the revolt that is the essence of his nature also die.