popular cultural form that is simultaneously a revolutionary
critique of capitalism. The shift of 'revolutionary action' into a
cultural mode is resultant of four factors: (1) the myth of 1968
being the most important; (2) the formal dominance of pop culture
in society coupled with with an idea that it has somehow been betrayed
and made to speak against its true nature; (3) the passing of the
ownership of revolutionary theory to a specific class of bohemians
who have been fostered at several interchanges of the economy.
particularly at the peripheries of academia, the media, the welfare
state, mental hospitals, the art world; (4) the reversed idea within
revolutionary milieux that personal and social extremism always
constitutes a threat to society and therefore should be recognized,
encouraged and even enacted (a reversal idea because it has
been swallowed whole, it being the basic normal/abnormal
mystification distributed by the media which portrays the world as
being normally at balance but beset occasionally by the symptoms
of contingent and isolated problems, the media says cannabis is
bad, but is this cause enough for the revolutionaries to say it is
good?).
The character of revolutionary organization has largely
transformed since 1950 (in response to Leninism), the ideal of the
bureaucratic party leading the masses has been eroded by the
millions who had a tendency to vote with their feet for anything
stupid the hierarchy told them to vote for, membership of political
parties became something like supporting a football team, you did
it for no reason and without thought. Socialisme ou Barbarie was
the first example of the new model, relatively small, ideologically
pure groups finding their values realized in objective events and
then looking to intervene by means of transmission of
consciousness to the masses, who were prepared and ready to
receive it, by events. The trick was to articulate ordinary
experience of production line life as revolutionary concepts,
perspectives and tactics, the trick was not to be 'separate', to be
within the proletariat and to appreciate it by interpreting what
seemed to be the unsophisticated pursuit of self-interest as
strategic positioning within an objective class struggle. If mass
organizations must always produce a settling tendency towards
bureaucracy and political reaction then the small revolutionary
group resembled in group structure and in the ideology of practical
effectiveness, the artistic avant garde school. The Surrealist and
Dadist groups became the model. Small numbers of people,
critique of capitalism. The shift of 'revolutionary action' into a
cultural mode is resultant of four factors: (1) the myth of 1968
being the most important; (2) the formal dominance of pop culture
in society coupled with with an idea that it has somehow been betrayed
and made to speak against its true nature; (3) the passing of the
ownership of revolutionary theory to a specific class of bohemians
who have been fostered at several interchanges of the economy.
particularly at the peripheries of academia, the media, the welfare
state, mental hospitals, the art world; (4) the reversed idea within
revolutionary milieux that personal and social extremism always
constitutes a threat to society and therefore should be recognized,
encouraged and even enacted (a reversal idea because it has
been swallowed whole, it being the basic normal/abnormal
mystification distributed by the media which portrays the world as
being normally at balance but beset occasionally by the symptoms
of contingent and isolated problems, the media says cannabis is
bad, but is this cause enough for the revolutionaries to say it is
good?).
The character of revolutionary organization has largely
transformed since 1950 (in response to Leninism), the ideal of the
bureaucratic party leading the masses has been eroded by the
millions who had a tendency to vote with their feet for anything
stupid the hierarchy told them to vote for, membership of political
parties became something like supporting a football team, you did
it for no reason and without thought. Socialisme ou Barbarie was
the first example of the new model, relatively small, ideologically
pure groups finding their values realized in objective events and
then looking to intervene by means of transmission of
consciousness to the masses, who were prepared and ready to
receive it, by events. The trick was to articulate ordinary
experience of production line life as revolutionary concepts,
perspectives and tactics, the trick was not to be 'separate', to be
within the proletariat and to appreciate it by interpreting what
seemed to be the unsophisticated pursuit of self-interest as
strategic positioning within an objective class struggle. If mass
organizations must always produce a settling tendency towards
bureaucracy and political reaction then the small revolutionary
group resembled in group structure and in the ideology of practical
effectiveness, the artistic avant garde school. The Surrealist and
Dadist groups became the model. Small numbers of people,
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