Epiphany with Sartre

“The concrete situation of the conscience of the world must in any time serve as a singular motivation to the establishment of the unreal”. Good shot, Mr Sartre, my newly-met mate. Although rather elitist, this is one of the “it-changed-my-life” quotes that, personally, I can still recall by heart whenever I want to flirt with myself. You know, that kind of things that make you feel witty and charming.

By the way we are not here to talk about one’s love for oneself. That quote is a brilliant spark to every rebel who’s not interested in building up his/her career in professional politics – for this purpose, you should probably check handbooks by italian leftoid politicians, who have the best experience in losing battles without even setting the goal of their war (this can be a wonderful example that my sardinian mates will understand). But for us few, happy few anarchist dreamers, incoherent, rambling, wanna-be-che-guevara anarchist dreamers, a handbook of just a sentence can be enough. No need to praise the author (as much rambling and so on as us), no schemes, rules, initiation rituals: just learn to be a free thinker. As Ali Shari’ati (which is a sort of muslim existentialist; Sartre is said to have declared once “I have no religion, but if I had one, it would be that of Shari’ati”) says, “the free thinker’s functions are to remove the contradictions and discrepancies that exist in the heart of a society and enter them into the feeling and consciousness of the society. As long as such contradictions exist in objectivity they will not cause any movement.” That is precisely the root of the problem: we will never, and I know it can sound banal, be able to revolt this system since we are not strong and brave enough to nullify it, to deny its very deep assumptions by delving steadily into the morbid of its contradictions.

In history, many attempts have been made in this direction: monotheistic religions and rebel ideologies (which are so similar to each other) tried to subverse society by giving colourful and deep poetic meaning to the rationale of this revolt. It always ended in nothing, with religion selling itself to the powerful, and socialism settling down to compete peacefully and meaninglessly. But this is not a good reason not to try.

And by the way, again, so many people have gained their wealthy career by eruditely commenting such words as those of Sartre, but as they were dead speeches of an old tribunus plebis.

So, my dear glass comrades (as Sardinian people refer to the ones who drink with them – and I suppose you are that kind of people), I just won’t say more about this. Just stick that sentence in your mind, repeat it while you are stuck in the traffic jam, say it loud at night when you are going home after hanging out, and after all of this.. Just act.

And, yes, probably luddism is not a bad idea.

P.S. Today it’s Epiphany, or Befana in italian. What the hell is this holiday about? I don’t think I will ever understand.