Has the Insurrection Come Yet? A Cartography of The Coming Insurrection, Tiqqun, and their Party

From back cover:

“A major problem with The Coming Insurrection is that it basically dresses up a tried and defeated strategy in new clothes, the strategy of a good part of the European autonomous struggles of past decades. Perhaps this is why it was way more popular in the US than in France: because its suggestions aren’t all that groundbreaking, except here, where there never was an autonomous movement…

…one wonders how else European radicals could repackage the strategy of revolution through the networking of autonomous spaces as though it were a new idea…

…For the Invisible Committee, in the insurrection they prophesy, the real one, their insurrection, we are all “whatever singularities,” without predicates, an emptiness brimming with possibilities. It’s a beautiful dream, and I, for one, believe in fighting for dreams. But there is a certain ownership they exercise over their insurrection, a certain power of exclusion the Invisible Committee have vis a vis the Imaginary Party, that could make this dream nothing more than a maneuver identical to the one by which the communists suppressed difference by demanding adherence to the unified identity of the Working Class. There are no women, there are no blacks, there are only members of the Imaginary Party.”

Has the Insurrection Come Yet pdf

Handful of Objections: A Response to a Proposal for Desertion

From back cover:

“An insurrectionary moment is a qualitative leap, a negation of existing social relations on a whole other level. From there ugly things can happen, beautiful things also. What has changed is our power to make things happen…

…There are those invested in the politics of insurrection, working in the tradition of the authoritarian Blanqui. An Eric Hazan and his Factory (producing theory for the aspiring intellectuals) have measures to implement, the (not so) Invisible Committee has the strategy (tested before and failed) and its (not so) Imaginary Party has the cadre (wannabe politicians) and the infrastructure (thanks to wealthy lefty benefactors). Cynical people willing to manipulate others to realize their authoritarian projects. Nothing new there. It’s up to persons with anarchist sensitivities to recognize these intentions and subvert them (if they care enough). Admittedly, a lot of the radical milieu got seduced by their mystifications….

…I concede this {Desertion} is a theory we are presented with. But more than being a “whole way of seeing” (as Bellamy defines it); a theory is based on generalizations and abstractions. At the best of times, a theory can provide us with tools to find a more conscious relation with what is surrounding us. Mostly though, theory produces crude categories that are imposed on complex beings and dynamic realities; reductions that are counter-productive to understanding. Moreover, a theory that is not understood as having its limitations and shortcomings (and thus, as being a peculiar way of seeing), but instead as forming a complete picture produces its own mystifications and idealizations.”

Handful of Objections_A Response to a Proposal for Desertion pdf

On the poverty of “Joyful Militancy”

From back cover:

““Their notion of “troubled joy” that they implicitly allude to in such roundabout ways, comes off sounding  somewhat like a ruined orgasm (but not in a kinky way), cut short by thoughts of white guilt and internalized Christianity roaming the back of its head. This truncated notion of joy, though carefully detailed as to be all­inclusive, is felt as if manicured to trim off any palpable trace of lust, wrath, or any of the remaining “deadly sins”. Though they reproduce criticism of a Catholic moralism that warns against excesses, one comes off with the impression that if ever playing “fuck, marry, kill” they would only ever choose  “marry”, under the Church no less, lest anyone think they are of ill repute.

Perhaps they should have titled the book “Sad Militancy” since it deals mainly with that, as a problem. Not daring so much to propose ­much less embody­ a concrete way out of that impasse, while also seemingly still being held hostage by its affects. One wonders how they thought they could ever overcome “rigid radicalism”, while paralyzed by the rigor mortis of academia that was so palpable to me during my intercourse with this text.”

On the Poverty of Joyful Militancy pdf