(Note: This message dates from a period when, for various reasons, I practiced writing fully justified texts. I’ve set this email in a monospaced font to make that clear.)
To: nettime-l
Subject: Re:
On Mon 06/02/97 at 10:48 PM, Richard Barbrook wrote:
So let me counter-quote from Fred Engels writing about anarchists to Paul Lafargue (30/12/1871):
“All these fine ultra-radical and revolutionary phrases merely serve to conceal the utter poverty of ideas and the most complete ignorance of the conditions in which the daily life of society is carried on.”
Indeed. Unfortunately, it was Marx much more than Engels who
mastered immanent critique; so it was Engels, much more than
Marx, who was given over to silly proclamations like the one
you’ve quoted. One can announce that life as it’s lived is a
state of continual revolution, or one can denounce the lives
we lead for failing to be revolutionary; neither claim bears
much effect, but both privilege the shining ideal of revolu-
tion over what it champions, i.e., life as we would live it.
Ted