Film
Dodge
2006
Where are the folds of the collective?
We thought that the corrupt ideological collectives had come to an end, but they never left us, they came from the great halls of the revolution to our living rooms; from the serious faces of the workers, peasants and soldiers to the smiles of KFC’s uncles; today these great collectives are ‘keeping up with the times’, and moss is growing out of a piece of rubble. They are constantly changing their names, from ‘eighties’ and ‘nineties’ to ‘post-80s’ and ‘post-90s’. ‘——, a nice sounding life? And that world virtualised by this life (and at the same time by this world an object to attack is produced – society), which satisfies our sense of morality, which is what this life is all about, let us vouch for the great collectivity, that so many people are safe together, and that we can share the benefits with all, because I belong to this great multitude. But the bad things are negligible when they are shared, and I don’t even have the chance to share ‘my’ responsibility, because ‘I’ am not responsible, the responsibility belongs to everyone. So we prefer to figure out which collectives to join (and which valid interests to align ourselves with) and pretend that being part of them gives us a powerful voice. But we know that we don’t trust the collective (sometimes it’s just an event), and we’re privately complacent about this distrust, categorising it as a competence (or a strategy) for dealing with things in today’s world, and as a substitute for wisdom.
Today we are ‘forced’ to begin to use ourselves properly again, because we know at the same time that the good life is not worth living, that it does not give us any experience of hope and liberation such as these words describe, that we must speak in our own name and not always hide behind the collective, acting in the name of the others, and that, at the same time, when I am not in a situation of trust, I am not in a situation of trust, but I am in a situation of trust. name, and at the same time, when I am confronted with choices and decisions, ‘it is not always possible to blink and calculate prudently without limits’ (Badiou’s words). I cannot hide; I have only the present moment to assume this path, and the cleverness of looking left and right should be included in the corruption. My separation from us is not a retreat to any side of the individual-collective dichotomy, but requires me to make a radical opening to my environment (which is more than me and us), to a contingent, unconditional subject, and to become a new subject.