Gramsci
You probably won't understand the following passage because most of you are not very clever, no need to worry it doesn't concern you anyway. These are the words of Italian revolutionary, Antonio Gramsci. I don't share his ideological leanings 100% but the following is a beautiful quotation:
'Indifference is actually the mainspring of history. But in a negative sense.
What comes to pass, either the evil that afflicts everyone, or the possible good brought about by an act of general valour, is due not so much to the initiative of the active few, as to the indifference, the absenteeism of the many.
What comes to pass does so not so much because a few people want it to happen, as because the mass of citizens abdicate their responsibility and let things be.
They allow the knots to form that in time only a sword will be able to cut through; they let men rise to power whom in time only a mutiny will overthrow.
The fatality that seems to dominate history is precisely the illusory appearance of this indifference, of this absenteeism.
Events are hatched off-stage in the shadows; unchecked hands weave the fabric of collective life - and the masses know nothing.
The destinies of an epoch are manipulated in the interests of narrow horizons, of the immediate ends of small groups of activists - and the mass of citizens know nothing. But eventually the events that are hatched come out into the open; the fabric woven in the shadows is completed, and then it seems that fatality overwhelms everything and everybody.
It seems that history is nothing but an immense natural phenomenon, an eruption, an earthquake, and that we are all its victims, both those who wanted it to happen as well as those who did not, those who knew it would happen and those who did not, those who were active and those who were indifferent.
And then it is the indifferent ones who get angry, who wish to dissociate themselves from the consequences, who want it made known that they did not want it so and hence bear no responsibility. And while some whine piteously, and others howl obscenely, few people, if any, ask themselves this question: had I done my duty as a man, had I sought to make my voice heard, to impose my will, would what came to pass have ever happened? But few people, if any, see their indifference as a fault - their scepticism, their failure to give moral and material support to those political and economic groups that were struggling either to avoid a particular evil or to promote a particular good.
Instead such people prefer to speak of the failure of ideas, of the definitive collapse of programmes, and other like niceties. They continue in their indifference and their scepticism.
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Fucking robotic peasants.
Ciao.
'Indifference is actually the mainspring of history. But in a negative sense.
What comes to pass, either the evil that afflicts everyone, or the possible good brought about by an act of general valour, is due not so much to the initiative of the active few, as to the indifference, the absenteeism of the many.
What comes to pass does so not so much because a few people want it to happen, as because the mass of citizens abdicate their responsibility and let things be.
They allow the knots to form that in time only a sword will be able to cut through; they let men rise to power whom in time only a mutiny will overthrow.
The fatality that seems to dominate history is precisely the illusory appearance of this indifference, of this absenteeism.
Events are hatched off-stage in the shadows; unchecked hands weave the fabric of collective life - and the masses know nothing.
The destinies of an epoch are manipulated in the interests of narrow horizons, of the immediate ends of small groups of activists - and the mass of citizens know nothing. But eventually the events that are hatched come out into the open; the fabric woven in the shadows is completed, and then it seems that fatality overwhelms everything and everybody.
It seems that history is nothing but an immense natural phenomenon, an eruption, an earthquake, and that we are all its victims, both those who wanted it to happen as well as those who did not, those who knew it would happen and those who did not, those who were active and those who were indifferent.
And then it is the indifferent ones who get angry, who wish to dissociate themselves from the consequences, who want it made known that they did not want it so and hence bear no responsibility. And while some whine piteously, and others howl obscenely, few people, if any, ask themselves this question: had I done my duty as a man, had I sought to make my voice heard, to impose my will, would what came to pass have ever happened? But few people, if any, see their indifference as a fault - their scepticism, their failure to give moral and material support to those political and economic groups that were struggling either to avoid a particular evil or to promote a particular good.
Instead such people prefer to speak of the failure of ideas, of the definitive collapse of programmes, and other like niceties. They continue in their indifference and their scepticism.
------------------------
Fucking robotic peasants.
Ciao.
posted by Shafik @ 4:29 PM
1 Comments:
At 2:05 PM,
Pink said…
salaam, long time no blog. anyway, hope u get ur comments emailed to u otherwise this is a right waste of time.
r u running in SU elections by any chance? saw a flier wt ur name on it, and SD involvement - but then u're so anti-establishment i thought i was seeing things. anyhoop, if u are - all the best, and if u're not - why not?! u should be helping the isoc!!
ws
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