Situationism

[line b]

As an aside- the way judaism persists in the realm of transgressive, quasi activist, quasi artistic social scenes when those circles are usually functionally athiest is interesting. Theres a big population of them in chicago it seems, lots of jewish group that seem to function as combo film societies, art collectives, and small scale political organizing

 

[version]

As an aside- the way judaism persists in the realm of transgressive, quasi activist, quasi artistic social scenes when those circles are usually functionally athiest is interesting. Theres a big population of them in chicago it seems, lots of jewish group that seem to function as combo film societies, art collectives, and small scale political organizing

I think you can tie that to what Erik Davis says about the text becoming the virtual Jewish homeland after the destruction of the Second Temple:

"The interpretive elaboration of Torah was a godsend for the Jews, for the activity was concrete enough to knit them into a community of interpretation and rootless enough to follow them everywhere they wandered... The study of Torah itself became a sacred act, while the exegetical literature of the Talmud developed an immense hypertextual literature that allowed people to both regulate and debate every facet of their lives... By acknowledging the mystic multiplicity of the text while emphasizing the profoundly human activity of commentary and interpretation, the Jews helped avoid the world-loathing and apocalyptic transcendentalism that often marked the other great religion of the book to emerge from the ancient world: Christianity."

 

[dilbert1]

“[…] the Jews helped avoid the world-loathing and apocalyptic transcendentalism that often marked the other great religion of the book to emerge from the ancient world: Christianity."

@linebaugh funnily enough this is precisely the point of divergence for Tiqqun, who sought to lend their banal activity a millenarian significance by conceiving of it in terms of Sabattean jihad

 

[dilbert1]

As an aside- the way judaism persists in the realm of transgressive, quasi activist, quasi artistic social scenes when those circles are usually functionally athiest is interesting. Theres a big population of them in chicago it seems, lots of jewish group that seem to function as combo film societies, art collectives, and small scale political organizing

 

[version]

Has anyone ever gotten to the bottom of whether the Tiqqun lot really were behind the train sabotage plot? Julien Coupat was supposedly a contributor to at least Tiqqun 1 but he denied being involved in both the alleged plot and The Invisible Committee and all the major charges were dropped against them.

 

[version]

Intro to Civil War is doing something with the traditional aesthetic categories of ‘free play’ and ‘form’, for instance, that commentators never really tease out.

What is it you think commentators have missed?

 

[dilbert1]

The (very abstract) “positive” ethical philosophy advanced right at the beginning of the book, which draws on Spinoza and aleatory (or ‘ancient’, via Epicurus and Lucretius) materialism (the ‘swerve’ of atoms, the clinanmen, etc.), Kant (‘taste’, the ‘free play’ of forms-of-life), Wittgenstein (language and the rule-bound play of f-o-l), Agamben (singularity, f-o-l), Badiou (the event), Bataille (the hostis), Schmitt (friendship-enmity, decision, the political as such). Mostly in the first section “Civil War, Forms-of-life,” and the penultimate one “An Ethic of Civil War,” particularly theses 76-80.

 

[version]

I think in the beginning of the book they talk about aspiring to a “negative anthropology,”

Reading an e-flux thing on Conspiracist Manifesto atm and the author mentions the origins of this:

'To that end, the book constructs what can be termed a negative anthropology of the human. It was the German philosopher Günther Anders who first coined this term to describe the human being as a “fundamentally unhealthy being who cannot be healthy and does not want to be healthy, that is, the undefined, indefinite being, which it would be paradoxical to want to define.” By emphasizing the way in which human beings are constructed by governance, Anders suggests that the human has no fixed essence, and can thus both transform itself and be transformed by its environment. In this regard, Conspiracist Manifesto goes beyond the category of mere biopolitics and advances a critique of what has been called noopolitics, or psychopolitics—techniques of control aimed at colonizing Geist (both mind and spirit).'

Alchemists of the Revolution - Notes - e-flux

Hunter Bolin traces affinitites between Conspiracist Manifesto and The Communist Manifesto.

www.e-flux.com

Can't say I'm sold based on that review; maybe I'll read it if Ill Will do a free version like they did the others.

Some of this stuff can feel like the increasingly flimsy ravings of an apocalyptic religious cult. Each failed prediction of The Revolution only pushing them further over the edge.

"The lesson here is that anyone taking a position within these movements must be careful not to side against delusional beliefs, or even madness; the point is to find a way to let it breathe, for madness can be a miraculous weapon. Poverty causes a soul-destroying form of madness. Trying to pass a smog test in California is madness. Madness can be an intoxicating form of class hatred that drives proletarians to risk everything even when they have little chance of winning against their adversaries. This is why communists must have tools for working with it."

What could go wrong?

🤪

 

[version]

Unless I'm misreading them, the bit in Introduction to Civil War where they say "the immunodeficient" and "the transplant patient" are "born collaborators" is mental,

They are born collaborators. It is not only power that passes through their bodies, but also the police. This kind of mutilated life arises not only as a consequence of Empire's progress, but as its precondition. The equation citizen = cop runs deep within the crack that exists at the core of such bodies.

I get that they're referring to an unwillingness or inability to rock the boat due to dependence on the apparatus, but this reads like a particularly ugly line of someone who went off the deep end during COVID.

 

[droid]

lol Especially since both of those groups are now in year 4 of lockdown, with no end in sight.

 

[version]

It is striking how much of the two I've read feels like it could have been written around COVID. That's perhaps more of a testament to Foucault than them, mind you, as it's usually the bits where they cite him that seem most applicable.

 

[john eden]

Newish Vaneigem - https://libcom.org/article/were-fed-raoul-vaneigem

Translated by David Wise who also did these recently:

The Death of Stuart Wise, eco-Situationist: The end is where we start from - a future affirmation?

David Wise writes in 2021 about the death of his twin brother Stuart, with contributions from close collaborators.

libcom.org

Driving Me Fekkin' Wild: Down and dirty with Extinction Rebellion - David Wise

A dense, meandering, wide-ranging theoretical-cum-practical critique of XR whilst literally stuck in the mud of an artesian well on Wormwood Scrubs Common, West London ....... written February 2023.

libcom.org

 

[version]

If you’re curious at some point, I would really highly recommend reading these two critical pieces which highlight the rather under-appreciated religious motifs and eschatological logic of Tiqqun’s project.

The first is a general critique of the journal immediately subsequent to the release of the first issue, focusing on the Heideggerianism and nihilism, but it also delves deep into the Kabbalist aspect. It is written by other Frenchmen and so the tone is amusingly similar in its polemics, but its coherent, and the best and most comprehensive critique I’ve ever read of their stuff (I’ve read every critique/commentary I could find on them), and on the level of thought rather than picking apart the Tiqqun “type” (which the article also just happens to identify as “bullshitting college kids” lol).

Avant-garde and Mission

D. Caboret — P. Garrone Avant-garde and Mission 1999

theanarchistlibrary.org

This second article, very recent, focuses solely on the Kabbala stuff, but in much more detail (and more sympathetically). Apparently around the time of the journal the group would summon their metaphysical shoplifting powers to procure pasta for Agamben to cook them, as over dinner he discussed Jewish mysticism’s influence on his contemporaneous book project, The Coming Community.

Jewish Esotericism in the Theories and Practices of Emancipation: The Case of the Ephemeral Journal Tiqqun (1999-2001) - Jews, Europe, the XXIst century

In the early 2000s, a radical left-wing magazine referred to the Kabbalah tradition and took a Hebrew name: Tiqqun. The magazine only had two issues, but it constituted the matrix of the Invisible Committee (collective author of The Coming Insurrection) of which Julien Coupat, arrested during...

k-larevue.com

@other_life

You got any thoughts on Tiqqun's use of this stuff? I can imagine you hating it, but I could be wrong.

 

[other_life]

oh tiqqun absolutely passed me by, never read them. but i dont think its insanely unfair to say that their use of jewish themes is shallow/always being mediated by the scholem-benjamin axis. the word "tiqqun" as a cipher for vaguely defined 'social justice work' in renewal circles also rankles me a little

 

[dilbert1]

This is happening in extreme proximity to me this coming Sunday. I’m a fan of Russell’s writing as evidenced by how much of it I post here, but attending might be a bridge too far even for me

 

[dilbert1]

Too bad Gus would never visit this thread he could ambush me and probably find out where I live 😳

 

[luka]

Too bad Gus would never visit this thread he could ambush me and probably find out where I live 😳

@sus

 

[dilbert1]

@sus come thru dawg 🤙

 

[...]

“Extreme proximity”?

 

[dilbert1]

Yeah that means its close to me