Journal #18

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

---Albert Camus

Living in a world where freedom is favored, but rebellion is looked down upon, the meaning of life becomes a paradox. In order to rid someone of the chains that hold them down from the freedom of speech, religion, and press, it's important that they continue to stand up for what they believe in. Camus claims that in order to overcome the burden of that world, one must create an existence that goes against the normalcy of the rules of a government, higher power, or societal pressures.
The government controls the whole of a nation, more specifically, in the United States.The government is in charge of keeping order and maintaining the rights of its citizens. However, those rights become questionable when a government is continuously trying to find a way around them. For example, the justice system asserts the statement, "innocent until proven guilty." However, a justice system that favors white culture over minorities already stems a bias towards white assailants. This bias creates a jury that has an altered perception of who they choose to prosecute. Freedom of speech has the same effect. They will only value the phrase freedom of speech when what they want to hear is being said. Anything that goes against this fact is a taboo, a crime, a simple act of rebellion.