"Just as we distinguish in private life between what a man thinks and says about himself and what he really is and does, everyone has learned to distinguish the rhetoric and the messianic pretensions of political parties from their organization and real interests: what they think they are, from what they are. A man's illusions about himself and others are not basically different from the illusions which groups, classes, and parties have about themselves. Indeed, they come from the same source: the dominant ideas, which are the ideas of the dominant class, even if they take an antagonistic form."
from: Impossible Participation or Power as the Sum of Constraints
"To the question posed by Cravan, Gide looked at his watch and replied, whatever the real time was, "It is five o'clock." We more often ignore the point at which living poetry disturbs the time ruled by making a living. I don't claim that all of my hours are spent free from work, but I try to break out of the channels of work and boredom, and I know that only the happiness of one and all can perfect my own happiness. I obstinately continue to privilege the time of pleasure, of love, of amenities, of creation, of beginnings [trans: commensalite]. I'm not putting forward, like some hedonist, a remedy to anguish. These moments, which I champion with scorn for received ideas -- they are never finished. They help me to live better, to better explore the labyrinth where one desire hides in another."
from: Refusals and Passions
No comments:
Post a Comment