{"id":9668,"date":"2017-03-30T10:44:29","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T10:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/?p=9668"},"modified":"2017-05-04T12:34:32","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T12:34:32","slug":"so-where-does-the-anger-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.museunacional.cat\/en\/so-where-does-the-anger-go\/","title":{"rendered":"So, where does the anger go?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Georges Didi-Hubermann<\/h6>\n

The following text is an excerpt from the opening lecture of the exhibition Uprisings<\/a> on view at our museum from February 23 until May 21, 2017. The video of the talk (in French with\u00a0 subtitles in English) is now available at the end of this post.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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Manel Armengol, Demonstrations of 1 February 1976. Call for: ‘Llibertat, amnistia, estatut d’autonomia’ (Freedom, amnesty, statute of autonomy)<\/em><\/a>, 1976 (printing 2003). \u00a9 Manel Armengol, 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

There are \u201crighteous furies\u201d, rages which are justified. But how do we discern the rightfulness of a rage, or the act of justice which it claims? How can we justify the uprisings and passionate outbursts which they invariably imply? How do we regulate these rages? What do we mean when we call them legitimate? What are, therefore, grounds for an uprising?<\/strong> In 1795, in Jacquot, Paris, a pamphlet of five pages appeared which was entitled Insurrection en faveur des droits du peuple souverain. <\/em>It featured the thirty-fifth article of the Declaration of Human and Civil Rights <\/em><\/a>: \u201cWhen the Government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people, and for each section of the people, the most sacred of their rights and the most necessary of their duties.\u201d Meanwhile, either in 1792 or 1793, the \u201cEnraged Ones\u201d of the French Revolution published their writings, addresses or pamphlets which were, eventually, brought together under the title Notre patience est \u00e0 bout <\/em>(Our patience is at an end).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Julio Gonz\u00e1lez, Raised Left Hand<\/em>, circa\u00a01942. \u00a9 Julio Gonz\u00e1lez, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2017<\/p><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Much later, at the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam in 1907, Emma Goldman<\/a> arose during the second to last sitting. She proposed that the assembly adopt a text in favour of the droit de r\u00e9volte <\/em>(the right to revolt), which her peer Max Baginski had also signed. She read: \u201cThe International Anarchist Congress declares itself to be in favour of the right to revolt by the individual as well as by the mass as a whole. (…) Acts of rebellion (…) are the result of the profound impression made upon the individual\u2019s psychology by the awful pressure from our unjust society, (…) (and) can be characterised as the socio-psychological consequences of an intolerable system: and as such, these acts, along with their causes and motives, are more to be understood rather than lauded or condemned.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Alberto Korda, El Quixot del fanal, Plaza de la Revoluci\u00f3n, L’Havana, Cuba<\/em>, 1959. \u00a9 ADAGP, Par\u00eds, 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

When put to the vote, this declaration was unanimously approved. And yet, the \u201cpsychological point of view\u201d which she adopted from the outset never ceased to surprise.<\/p>\n

Therefore, there are historically just rages, and just political rages<\/em>.<\/strong> Let us consider that the Iliad<\/em><\/a> by Homer, the very first political-military chronicle of the West, in the eighth century BC, includes in the very first sentence, the word \u201crage\u201d: \u201cThe rage sing, O goddess, of Achilles, son of Peleus…\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gilles Caron, Manifestacions anticat\u00f2liques a Londonderry<\/em>, 1969 (c\u00f2pia moderna, 2016). Fondation Gilles Caron. \u00a9 Gilles Caron \/ Fondation Gilles Caron \/ Gamma Rapho<\/p><\/div>\n

Peter Sloterdijk<\/a>, in 2006, in a book entitled Zorn und Zeit<\/em> (translated into Spanish in 2010: Ira y tiempo. Ensayo psicopol\u00edtico (<\/em>In English: Rage and Time. A psycho-political Investigation) controversially plays with Heidegger\u2019s Sein un Zeit, <\/em>and proposes a \u201cpsycho-political\u201d analysis of the Western civilisation: from Homer to Lenin, therefore, it would be rage that both troubled and moved societies, <\/strong>although the destiny of said rage is only to find its form in a \u201cproject\u201d. But does not rage coupled with a project result in vengeance and resentment? It is as though every rage can only find its \u201cpolitical economy\u201d within what Sloterdijk calls the \u201cworld bank of rage\u201d, which represents the revolutionary project itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Julio Gonz\u00e1lez, Montserrat Frightened<\/a>, 1940. \u00a9 Julio Gonz\u00e1lez, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2017<\/p><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The impression that this very general description leaves us with is that rage, scarcely recognised in its historical power, is immediately refuted<\/strong>, as it is propelled backwards towards dark intentions or dark destinies \u2014 vengeance, resentment, paranoia \u2014 which will fatally channel it. So, where does the anger go?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Psychological tradition would have it that in all cases it goes badly. If there is indeed a philosophical story of the revolution, from Kant to Marx and beyond, there would be uprisings, with their attached \u201cpsychological\u201d rages, but a disconnected series of anachronistic crises.<\/strong> It is as if rage itself contributes to carving the difference and, soon, the opposition between revolution<\/strong> and revolt<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Chieh-Jen Chen, The Itinerary<\/em>, 2006. Chieh-Jen Chen \/ Galerie Lily Robert. \u00a9 Chieh-Jen Chen, courtesy galerie Lily Robert<\/p><\/div>\n

It would occur to a political anthropologist to think rage at work in the motions of uprising: to consider the intrinsic power of the movement<\/strong> before imagining the project<\/strong> in the order of the power relations or questions of power. Could we not imagine a phenomenology of political rages?<\/p>\n

Georges Bataille<\/a> indicates an excessive movement of which the Hegelian genius, according to him, had allowed us to glimpse: when the thought itself experiences rage without letting go of its consistence and rigour. This is undoubtedly an anarchist\u2019s point of view.<\/p>\n

Not by chance, the texts of Mikhail Bakunin<\/a> waste no time in constructing something like an anthropological equivalence between the act of thinking and that of uprising<\/strong>. The two faculties, both precious and concurrent, granted to the human species are therefore the faculty of thought and the faculty, the need to revolt. Bakunin concluded that, in general, revolt is nothing but another side, negatively expressed, of what is positively identified by the word \u201cpleasure\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Ken Hamblin, Beaubien Street<\/em>, 1971. Joseph A. Labadie Collection, Special Collections Library, University of Michigan, Estats Units<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1871, Jules Vall\u00e8s<\/a> in turn would describe the Paris Commune from a point of view which was, amongst other things, like a mad f\u00eate. A way of saying that, in every uprising, rage itself is at the heart of the party,<\/strong> lest we forget that there are also piacular parties (made with collective tears), funereal parties, military parties, wild parties, etc. The festive image of uprisings belongs undoubtedly to mythology which is adopted, at the time or afterwards, by the participants in every revolt.<\/p>\n

Therefore, festivity<\/strong> is intrinsically powerful.<\/strong> It is for this reason that Dionysus is its divine protector. It transforms rage into effusive power, even into the power of happiness. It transforms the gesture of fear or aggression into choreographic power. During periods of festivity, which appear timeless, rage become joy and violence a parody. However, states Yves-Marie Berc\u00e9<\/a>, it remains indisputable \u201cthat festivities can be dangerous\u201d, in the sense of the most trivial or immediate danger to the people. Berc\u00e9 also describes how festivities sooner or later turn the signs of power upside down. Waiting to turn power itself on its head.<\/p>\n

There is perhaps nothing better than traditional festivities, accepted by everybody, therefore permitted by the government, for expressing desires, even the catchphrases of an uprising. During the two centuries prior to the French Revolution, the political use of festivities went in two opposite directions: to establish or to undermine the existing power.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Wolf Vostell, Dutschke<\/em>, 1968. Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, \u00a9 Wolf Vostell, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

And in this manner, festivities<\/strong> create active violence<\/strong>, by a reciprocal motion to the grief experienced by the violence suffered. But violence acts in all directions: it is neither a value, nor a non-value in itself.<\/p>\n

In his book R\u00e9voltes et r\u00e9volutions dans l\u2019Europe moderne, <\/em>Yves-Marie Berc\u00e9 details enough cases for us to understand the complexity of the future towards which every revolt is likely to branch. A revolt rises:<\/strong> it shoots up, it surges at first. It is an extraordinary occurrence, unpredictable. But afterwards?<\/strong> After, it may disperse<\/strong> from itself, die away like the cinders of a firework. Or it may be crushed<\/strong> by the authority that it had all too spontaneously contested. In many cases, it ends up being channelled<\/strong>, in other words it is contained, lead astray, halted in its own spurt. When the revolt becomes organised or ordered, this often means that it is subjected to devices and often ends with the subsequent submission to a power, whatever that power may be. Or it gives in to being seduced<\/em>, steered towards an objective which was not its starting point.<\/p>\n

Are there not other destinies for the anger of nations than submission on one side and resentment on the other?<\/strong> It is true that a book like that of Barrington Moore on Les Origines sociales de la dictature et de la d\u00e9mocratie <\/em>incites the thought that revolts have indiscriminately lead to both the worst and the best.<\/p>\n

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Maria Kourkouta, Idomeni, March 14, 2016. Greek Macedonian Border,<\/em>\u00a02016. Producci\u00f3 Jeu de Paume, Par\u00eds. \u00a9 Maria Kourkouta.<\/p><\/div>\n

This serves, in any case, to warn us that the words “uprising”, “insurrection” or “revolt” are unable in any way to provide the keys \u2014 such as the magic words \u2014 to everything concerning desires of emancipation and, in general, to the constitution of the political field. We still have a long way to go (modesty will therefore be necessary). So, where does the anger go?<\/strong> It\u2019s a question that doesn\u2019t unilaterally depend on the strength with which its torrent gushes. It is a dialectical question, or one which calls for a dialectical answer.<\/strong> Bertolt Brecht<\/a> gives us an insight which is both very simple and very subtle as, in his Journal de travail <\/em>dated the 28th of June, 1942, he reflects upon the paradox that \u201chatred is not especially necessary for modern war\u201d. So where is the anger in warlike totalitarianism? \u201cFascism, responds Brecht, is a government system capable of enslaving a population to such a point that they can be used to enslave others.\u201d<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t tell me that this only refers to the past.<\/p>\n

Georges Didi-Hubermann
\nCurator of the exhibit Uprisings<\/h6>\n