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THE REVOLUTION OF EVERYDAY LIFE - VANEIGEM INTRODUCTION
I have no intention of revealing what there is of my life in this
book to readers who are not prepared to relive it. I await the
day when it will lose and find itself in a general movement of
ideas, just as I like to think that the present conditions will
be erased from the memories of men.
The world must be remade; all the specialists in reconditioning
will not be able to stop it. Since I do not want to understand
them, I prefer that they should not understand me.
As for the others, I ask for their goodwill with a humility they
will not fail to perceive. I should have liked a book like this
to be accessible to those minds least addled by intellectual jargon;
I hope I have not failed absolutely. One day a few formulae will
emerge from this chaos and fire point-blank on our enemies. Till
then these sentences, read and re-read, will have to do their
slow work. The path toward simplicity is the most complex of all,
and here in particular it seemed best not to tear away from the
commonplace the tangle of roots which enable us to transplant
it into another region, where we can cultivate it to our own profit.
I have never pretended to reveal anything new or to launch novelties
onto the culture market. A minute correction of the essential
is more important than a hundred new accessories. All that is
new is the direction of the current which carries commonplaces
along.
For as long as there have been men -- and men who read Lautréamont
-- everything has been said and few people have gained anything
from it. Because our ideas are in themselves commonplace, they
can only be of value to people who are not.
The modern world must learn what it already knows, become what
it already is, by means of a great work of exorcism, by conscious
practice. One can escape from the commonplace only by manhandling
it, mastering it, steeping it in dreams, giving it over to the
sovereign pleasure of subjectivity. Above all I have emphasized
subjective will, but nobody should criticize this until they have
examined the extent to which the objective conditions of the contemporary
world are furthering the cause of subjectivity day by day. Everything
starts from subjectivity, and nothing stops there. Today less
than ever.
Scenewash Kiosk |
Lobbies |
Marginalia |
Luxmachina |
Rhesus Pride |
