Raoul Vaneigem
Raoul Vaneigem
Raoul Vaneigemis a Belgian writer. He was born in Lessines. After studying romance philology at the Free University of Brusselsfrom 1952 to 1956, he participated in the Situationist International from 1961 to 1970. He currently resides in Belgium and is the father of four children...
NationalityBelgian
ProfessionPhilosopher
CountryBelgium
world-upside-down transformation commodity
The world of the commodity is a world upside-down, which bases itself not upon life but upon the transformation of life into work.
real men absence
In the twentieth century, death terrifies men less than the absence of real life.
philosophy men four
There are more truths in twenty-four hours of a man's life than in all the philosophies.
fall character air
The history of our times calls to mind those Walt Disney characters who rush madly over the edge of a cliff without seeing it, so that the power of their imagination keeps them suspended in mid-air; but as soon as they look down and see where they are, they fall.
taken knowledge mind
Everything has been said yet few have taken advantage of it. Since all our knowledge is essentially banal, it can only be of value to minds that are not.
love positive struggle
People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth.
creativity opposites
Work is the opposite of creativity.
art passionate construction
The work of art of the future will be the construction of a passionate life.
atheism consuming cycles
Work to survive, survive by consuming, survive to consume; the hellish cycle is complete.
drinking order making-love
Purchasing power is a license to purchase power. The old proletariat sold its labour power in order to subsist; what little leisure time it had was passed pleasantly enough in conversations, arguments, drinking, making love, wandering, celebrating and rioting. The new proletarian sells his labour power in order to consume. When he’s not flogging himself to death to get promoted in the labour hierarchy, he’s being persuaded to buy himself objects to distinguish himself in the social hierarchy. The ideology of consumption becomes the consumption of ideology.
mean numbers rich
To be rich nowadays merely means to possess a large number of poor objects.
pain suffering delight
Suffering is the pain of constraints. An atom of pure delight, no matter how small, can hold it at bay.
blessing guarantees-that boredom
Who wants a world in which the guarantee that we shall not die of starvation entails the risk of dying of boredom?
love drinking dancing
The same people who are murdered slowly in the mechanized slaughterhouses of work are also arguing, singing, drinking, dancing, making love, holding the streets, picking up weapons and inventing a new poetry.