I shall add in conclusion that separating freedom from justice is tantamount to separating culture and labour, which is the epitome of the social sin. The confusion of the workers’ movement in Europe springs in part from the fact that it has lost its real home, where it took comfort after all defeats, which was its faith in f reedom. But, likewise, the confusion of European intellectuals springs from the fact that the double hoax, bourgeois and pseudo-revolutionary, separated them from their sole source of authenticity, the work and suffering of all, cutting them off from their sole natural allies, the workers. Insofar as I am concerned, I have recognized only two aristocracies, that of labour and that of the intelligence, and I know now that it is mad and criminal to try to make one dominate the other. I know that the two of them constitute but a single nobility, that their truth and, above all, their effectiveness lie in union; I know that if they are separated, they will allow themselves to be overcome gradually by the forces of tyranny and barbarousness, but that united, on the other hand, they will govern the world. This is why any undertaking that aims to loosen their ties and separate them is directed against man and his loftiest hopes. The first concern of any dictatorship is, consequently, to subjugate both labour and culture. In fact, both must be gagged or else, as tyrants are well aware, sooner or later one will speak up for the other. Thus, in my opinion, there are two ways for an intellectual to betray at present, and in both cases he betrays because he accepts a single thing-that separation between labour and culture. The first way is characteristic of bourgeois intellectuals who are willing that their privileges should be paid for by the enslavement of the workers. They often say that they are defending freedom, but they are defending first of all the privileges freedom gives to them, and to them alone.1 The second way is characteristic of intellectuals who think they are leftist and who, through distrust of freedom, are willing that culture, and the freedom it presupposes, should be directed, under the vain pretext of serving a future justice. In both cases the profiteers of injustice and the renegades of freedom ratify and sanction the separation of intellectual and manual labour which condemns both labour and culture to impotence. They depreciate at one and the same time both f reedom and justice.
It is true that f reedom, when it is made up
1. And, besides, most of the time they do not even defend freedom the moment there is any risk in doing so.
principally of privileges, insults labour and separates it from culture. But freedom is not made up principally of privileges; it is made up especially of duties. And the moment each of us tries to give freedom’s duties precedence over its privileges, freedom joins together labour and culture and sets in motion the only force that can effectively serve justice. The rule of our action, the secret of our resistance can be easily stated: everything that humiliates labour also humiliates the intelligence, and vice versa. And the revolutionary struggle, the centuries-old straining toward liberation can be defined first of all as a double and constant rejection of humiliation.
To tell the truth, we have not yet cast off that humiliation. But the wheel turns, history changes, and a time is coming, I am sure, when we shall cease to be alone. For me, our gathering here today is in itself a sign. The fact that members of unions gather together and crowd around our freedoms to defend them is indeed reason enough for all to come here from all directions to illustrate their union and their hope. The way ahead of us is long. Yet if war does not come and mingle everything in its hideous confusion, we shall have time at last to give a form to the justice and freedom we need. But to achieve that we must henceforth categorically refuse, without anger but irrevocably, the lies with which we have been stuffed. No, freedom is not founded on concentration camps, or on the subjugated peoples of the colonies, or on the workers’ poverty! No, the doves of peace do not perch on gallows! No, the forces of freedom cannot mingle the sons of the victims with the executioners of Madrid and elsewhere! Of that, at least, we shall henceforth be sure, as we shall be sure that freedom is not a gift received from a State or a leader but a possession to be won every day by the effort of each and the union of all.
[1]让·拉辛（Jean Racine，1639—1699），法国剧作家，与高乃依和莫里哀合称十七世纪最伟大的三位法国剧作家。《蓓蕾妮斯》（Bérénice）是拉辛的作品之一，是一部悲剧作品，灵感来自罗马史学家苏维托尼乌斯（Suetonius）记述的古罗马皇帝提图与蓓蕾妮斯的爱情悲剧。——编者注
[2]《南特敕令》（édit de Nantes）是1598年法国国王亨利四世签署的一条敕令。这条敕令承认了法国国内结盟宗（又称胡格诺派）的信仰自由，并保证其信徒在法律上享有和公民同等的权利，是世界近代史上第一份有关宗教宽容的敕令。不过，1685年，法国国王路易十四颁布《枫丹白露敕令》，宣布基督新教是非法的，《南特敕令》亦因此而被废除。——编者注
[3]戈耳狄俄斯之结（Gordian/Gordius Knot）是亚历山大大帝在弗里吉亚首都戈尔迪乌姆时的传说故事。故事中提到了一个神谕：解开戈耳狄俄斯之结的人就可成为亚细亚之王。故事中，是亚历山大大帝斩断了绳结。——编者注
[4]卢·莎乐美（Lou Salomé，1861—1937），出生于俄罗斯，精神分析学家，游历甚广的作家和散文家。她对各种知识的兴趣使她结识了众多杰出的思想家，包括弗里德里希·尼采、西格蒙德·弗洛伊德和里尔克。——译者注
[5]加缪于1945年3月发表本次演说。——译者注
[6]并且，大部分时间，只要捍卫自由存在风险，他们就会袖手旁观。——原注
