Philippe Garrel's mediation on '68 Paris, Les Amants Réguliers
Paris '68
Photoshoplooter parody of the London 'Shoplifting Riots', hither.
Hannah Arendt; On Violence in Crises of the Republic
"Nothing, in my opinion, could be theoretically more dangerous than the tradition of organic thought in political matters by which power and violence are interpreted in biological terms. As these terms are understood today, life and life's alleged creativity are their common denominator, so that violence is justified on the ground of creativity. The organic metaphors with which our entire present discussion of these matters, especially of the riots, is permeated - the notion of a "sick society," of which riots are symptoms, as fever is a symptom of disease - can only promote violence in the end. Thus the debate between those who propose violent means to restore "law and order" and those who propose nonviolent reforms begins to sound ominously like a discussion between two physicians who debate the relative advantages of surgical as opposed to medical treatment of their patient. The sicker the patient is supposed to be, the more likely that the surgeon will have the last word. Moreover, so long as we talk in non-political, biological terms, the glorifiers of violence can appeal to the undeniable fact that in the household of nature destruction and creation are but two sides of the natural process, sot hat collective violent action, quite apart from tis inherent attraction, may appear as natural - a prerequisite for the collective life of mankind as the struggle for survival and violent death for continuing life in the animal kingdom."
Slavoj Žižek; Shoplifters of the World Unite in LRB
"Although the riots in the UK were triggered by the suspicious shooting of Mark Duggan, everyone agrees that they express a deeper unease – but of what kind? As with the car burnings in the Paris banlieues in 2005, the UK rioters had no message to deliver. (There is a clear contrast with the massive student demonstrations in November 2010, which also turned to violence. The students were making clear that they rejected the proposed reforms to higher education.) This is why it is difficult to conceive of the UK rioters in Marxist terms, as an instance of the emergence of the revolutionary subject; they fit much better the Hegelian notion of the ‘rabble’, those outside organised social space, who can express their discontent only through ‘irrational’ outbursts of destructive violence – what Hegel called ‘abstract negativity’.
