Camus is doing something counterintuitive here—he's suggesting that even our most forward-looking, angry gestures of defiance are secretly backward-looking, rooted in a memory of what we've lost. Most people think rebellion is about creating something new, but he's arguing it's really about restoring something we believe once existed. When a young person stages their first act of protest against their parents or society, they're not just saying "things should change"—they're unconsciously insisting "things should return to how they actually were, before corruption set in." It's a humbling thought: our fiercest arguments for revolution are arguments for innocence recovered, which is precisely why they can so easily curdle into dogmatism or disappointment.