A Philosophic Look at Crime

The idea that we are all alone can lead into the justification of murder and if the word murder even exists. ’Man, on an earth that he knows is henceforth solitary, is going to add, to irrational crimes, the crimes of reason that are bent on the triumph of man’ (104). The rebel is than an aspect of society. Many people do not rebel against themselves they rebel against the terms that society places on them. Rebellion ends when we understand that we are alone. We are a part of society so there is no need to rebel if we are not a part of society. If we are all alone then we would have nothing to rebel against. Therefore society is the one that leads to the inevitability of murder. Without society there would be no need to revolt.

The rebel makes the stand to fight not only against his opposition, one that society usually dictates, but against the idea of control. Hitler’s problem was power and the rebel is not looking for power, just simply equality, which society limits. This limitation is first recognized with class distinction and controlling jobs. ‘The freedom, he claims, he claims for all; the freedom he refuses, he forbids everyone to enjoy. He is not only the slave against the master, but also man against the world of master and slave’ (284). The rebel defines history. Without its’ opposition to society, which in turns involves what would be known as crime, then we would be under the rule of human nature. We would either be slave or master and have no control over it otherwise.

Human nature is a societal term. The rebel says that there is no such thing as human nature. ‘Man, by rebelling, imposes in his turn a limit to history, and at this limit the promise of a value is born. Rebellion, in man, is the refusal to be treated as an object and to be reduced to simple historical terms’ (250). History was form by society and even though the rebel is a part of history, he is against the part that labels him and puts him into society. Crime could therefore be eliminated with the removal of the insatiable desire for power which is created by society.