through europe

At the beginning of an essay on Debord’s cinema, Agamben recalls a conversation that he had with Debord himself. He says: “when I was tempted (as I still am) to consider Guy Debord a philosopher, he told me: ‘I’m not a philosopher, I’m a strategist.’ Debord saw his time as an incessant war that engaged his entire life in a strategy.” [1]
‘I’m not a philosopher, I’m a strategist.’ Of this statement made by Debord on Debord, and directed to Agamben the philosopher, we could try to read the drive, in relation with its context: I’m not interested in establishing an ontology, or defining a contemporary state of things, but rather in moving some “pieces” of a Game of War, some elements available to me, in a certain way. [2]

¿Estamos de vuelta a la Edad Media? ¿Será el Antiguo Régimen nuestra próxima parada? ¿No avanzábamos, iluminados por la luz de la razón, hacia el progreso, cabalgando a lomos del Estado de bienestar, sobre un paisaje cuyo fondo fue la “guerra fría”? ¿Fue ésta el motor de ese Estado? ¿No fue el Estado de bienestar el refugio necesario de la reacción a la espera de tiempos mejores? ¿Hemos llegado a la síntesis de la tesis una vez eliminada la antítesis? ¿Nos hemos quedado sin el motor de la dialéctica una vez eliminados sus antagónicos enemigos? ¿Por qué no quedan ya malditos, herejes, librepensadores, hedonistas, pervertidos, inmorales, anticlericales, revolucionarios? ¿Dónde se refugian?

The financial collapse that hit the world economy since September 2008, particularly affecting Europe after the Greek crisis a year ago, has blatantly exposed the failure of the Neoliberal ideology, and has shown that the main source of unemployment and of misery is the greed of the financial class and the obsession of profit. Did you expect that the leaders of the EU listen to the urgent demand for wealth redistribution, and for a democratic change in the economic life?

a small italian room. in a small italian town. outside of venice. barred door closed, people inside. smoking.

Mass Zynismus

Nel libro Le courage de la verité, trascrizione del corso al College de France del 1984 Le gouvernement de soi et des autres, Michel Foucault parla di Diogene e degli altri filosofi antichi che sono correntemente conosciuti come cinici, e collega il loro pensiero alla pratica del dire la verità (parresia). Nei nostri tempi moderni la parola cinismo ha acquisito un significato totalmente differente, quasi un significato opposto: una persona cinica, per noi, è qualcuno che abitualmente mente a tutti, specialmente a se stesso/a.