Quotes notebook: History/Historiosophy No. 22

Capitalism is probably the first example of a cult that is not expiatory but guilt-inducing. This religious system is driven here into a monstrous movement. A monstrously guilty conscience that does not know how to atone seizes the cult, not in order to atone for this guilt within it but to make it a universal guilt, to saturate the conscience (…). It is in the very essence of this religious movement that is capitalism to persevere until the end (…) until a universal state of despair is reached. The unprecedented aspect of capitalism on a historical level lies in the fact that religion is no longer the reform of being but its devastation. ” (Walter Benjamin – 1921)

“In the same way that industry, intended to free men from work by machines, has so far only alienated them to the work of machines, science, intended to liberate them historically and rationally from nature, has only alienated them to an irrational and anti-historical society.

A mercenary of separate thought, science works for survival and can therefore only conceive of life as a mechanical or moral formula. Indeed, it does not conceive of man as a subject, nor of human thought as action, and that is why it ignores history as a deliberate activity, and turns men into “patients” in its hospitals. Based on the essential lie of its function, science can only lie to itself. And its pretentious mercenaries have retained, from their priestly ancestors, a taste for and need of mystery. A dynamic part in the justification of states, the scientific body jealously guards its corporative laws and the secrets of the “Machina ex Deo” that make it a despicable sect.

…) The current impossibility of research and scientific application without enormous resources has put knowledge, spectacularly concentrated, in the hands of the powers that be and directed it towards the objectives of the State. Today, there is no science that is not at the service of the economy, the military and ideology. And the Science of ideology shows us its other side, the ideology of Science.”

(Internationale Situationniste N° 12 – 9/1969)

“Never make peace with the law that imposes its rule on thought and feeling.” (Hegel)

“As always in history, in this case too there are men and organizations that pursue their lawful or unlawful objectives and seek by all means to achieve them, and it is important that those who want to understand what is happening know about them and take them into account. To speak, for that matter, of a conspiracy adds nothing to the reality of the facts. But to define as conspirators those who seek to know historical events for what they are is simply infamous.” (Agamben)

“The men who are herded within the perimeter of this country have lost the capacity to see the outlines of the human person. In their eyes, any free man seems an original.” (Walter Benjamin)

Constitution of June 24, 1793 – Excerpts from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

Article 9. – The law shall protect public and individual freedom from oppression by those who govern.

Article 11. – Any action taken against a man except in cases and in accordance with procedures prescribed by law is arbitrary and tyrannical; any man against whom such an action is intended by violence has the right to repel it by force.

Article 12. – Those who would solicit, expedite, sign, execute or cause to be executed arbitrary acts, shall be guilty, and shall be punished.

Article 21. – Public relief is a sacred debt. Society owes subsistence to its unfortunate citizens, either by procuring work for them, or by ensuring the means of existence to those who are unable to work.

Article 31. – The offenses of the representatives of the people and of its agents shall not be unpunished. No one is above the law.

Article 33. – Resistance to oppression is the duty of all men.

Article 35. – When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.

Rebounds:

• Quotation book No. 23 – History/Historiosophy _ (Coming soon)
• Quotation book No. 24a – History/Historiosophy _ (Coming soon)