Modern servitude is voluntary, consented to by the mass of slaves who trudge along the face of the Earth.
They themselves buy the commodities that enslave them every day more.
Slaves procure alienating jobs that are bestowed upon the tamed.
They, themselves, choose the masters whom they will obey.
For this absurd tragedy to play-out, it has been necessary to breed in them the ignorance of their own exploitation and alienation.
Behold the bizarre modernity of our time.
As with the slaves of antiquity, serfs of the Middle Ages or the working-class of the first industrial revolutions, today we bear witness to an emerging class of the totally enslaved.
The difference being that they don’t know it or better yet choose to ignore it.
They fail to recognize the one weapon available to the enslaved:
rebellion.
Slaves accept without question the pitiful life that was manufactured on their behalf.
Apathy and resignation are the sources of their misfortune.
Behold the nightmare of the modern-day slave; whose sole aspiration is to be swept away by the macabre dance of the machine of alienation.
Oppression becomes modern spreading out everywhere mystifications that hide our slave condition.
Reveal reality as it is and not as power represents it, is indeed the most genuine subversion.
“Urbanism — “city planning” — is capitalism’s method for taking over the natural and human environment. Following its logical development toward total domination, capitalism now can and must refashion the totality of space into its own particular decor. - Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle.
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View full-sizeDownload In this book, Debord describes and critiques the way we live. The power ofthese ideas lies in their ability to question, identify, and name the common assumptions of the present. Debord develops the concept of The Spectacle, which describes the gaze of contemporary society. From its publication just before the May 1968 revolt in Paris, and ultimately influencing Occupy Wall Street, this book continues to transform a wide range of progressive philosophical and political movements, most notably anti-capitalism, postmodernism, Marxism, and anarchism.
As slaves build their world with the alienated strength of their work, the worlds decor becomes the jail they will be forced to inhabit; a squalid world lacking taste and scent, a host to the misery inherent in the dominant mode of production.
This decor is in a state of perpetual construction, nothing in it is constant.
The ceaseless redesign of the space that surrounds us is justified by the generalized amnesia and insecurity that its inhabitants must live with.
The systems objective is to fashion everything in its image: every day the world becomes dirtier and noisier, like a factory.
Every inch of land in this world belongs to a State or to an individual.
This social theft through the acquisition of lands is manifest by the omnipresence of walls, fences, barriers and frontiers.
These are the visible marks of the divide that invades everything.
The unification of space for commercial ends, however, is the grand objective of our sad age.
The world must become an immense and efficient highway in order to facilitate the transport of merchandise.
Every obstacle, human or natural, must be destroyed.
The inhumane concentration of modern-day slaves into reduced crowded spaces reflects their lives and evokes:
cages
jails
caves
But in contrast to slaves or prisoners, the modern-day slave pays for his own cage.
“Because it is not the man but the world which has become abnormal.” - Antonin Artaud
Artaud in 1926
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View full-sizeDownload Antoine Maria Joseph Paul Artaud (/ɑːrˈtoʊ/; French: [ɑ̃tɔnɛ̃ aʁto]; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), better known as Antonin Artaud, was a French artist who worked across a variety of media. He is best known for his writings, as well as his work in the theatre and cinema. Widely recognized as a major figure of the European avant-garde, he had a particularly strong influence on twentieth-century theatre through his conceptualization of the Theatre of Cruelty. Known for his raw, surreal and transgressive work, his texts explored themes from the cosmologies of ancient cultures, philosophy, the occult, mysticism and indigenous Mexican and Balinese practices.
“A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood.
Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.” - Karl Marx, The Capital, chapter 1, book 4.
In this narrow and mournful place, they inhabit, slaves accumulate the commodities that according to the omnipresent advertising guarantee happiness and fulfillment.
Alas, the more commodities they accumulate the more elusive happiness becomes.
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
Commodities, ideological by nature, estrange from his work he who produces them and divorce from his life he who consumes them.
In the dominant economic system, demand no longer drives supply; it is supply, which determines demand.
New needs are periodically manufactured and hence considered essential by most people:
it began with the radio, then the automobile, later the television set, the computer and now the cell phone.
It is in the manner in which the modern slave feeds himself that better illustrates his degree of decay.
With little time to spare for the preparation of his sustenance, he is reduced to consuming quick meals produced by the agrochemical industry.
He wanders through supermarkets looking for the ersatz that the society of false abundance offers.
Once again, his choice is nothing but illusion.
The abundance of food as a commodity is evidence of its degradation and falsification.
It is nothing more than genetically modified organisms, a mix of colorants and preservatives, of pesticides, hormones and other inventions of modernity.
“It is a sad thing to consider nature talks and humankind does not listen. " - Victor Hugo
The pillage of the planet's resources, the massive production of energy or commodities, the waste products of the ostentatious consumption, jeopardize the possibilities of survival for our planet and the species which inhabit it.
However, in order to give way to brutal capitalism, the growth must continue.
Produce, produce and keep producing.
Those who contaminate are today misrepresenting themselves as the saviors of the planet.
Those show business buffoons, sponsored by multinationals firms, try to convince us that a simple change in our habits will be enough to save the planet from disaster.
And while they blame us, they keep on contaminating the environment and our souls.
Those poor pseudo ecological views are repeated by corrupt politicians in need of advertising slogans.
Those in charge take pains to avoid making significant change in the production system and as always, change is halfhearted and superficial, things remain as they are and have always been.
What would they do if they didn’t have to suffer this torture called work?
These Alienating activities are touted as freeing.
What degradation and what misfortune!
Always pressured on by the time clock or the whip; every movement of the slave is designed to increase productivity.
The scientific organization of labor is at the heart of the workers divestment from himself, the fruit of his labor and his time - which is misspent in the automated production of commodities or services.
The worker's labor is mistaken for that of the machine in the factories, or the computer in the office.
Paid time will never be recovered.
Every worker is assigned a repetitive duty, be it physical or intellectual.
The worker is a specialist in his own field.
This specialization can be seen on a worldwide scale within the framework of the international division of labor.
“Man is conditioned to have a productive behavior by the work organization; and outside the factory, he preserves the same skin and the same head” - Christophe Dejours
2nd-century bust from Delphi sometimes identified as Plutarch
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View full-sizeDownload Plutarch (/ˈpluːtɑːrk/; Ancient Greek: Πλούταρχος, Ploútarchos, Koinē Greek: [ˈplúːtarkʰos]; c. AD 40 – 120s) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of illustrious Greeks and Romans, and Moralia, a collection of essays and speeches. Upon becoming a Roman citizen, he was possibly named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Λούκιος Μέστριος Πλούταρχος). The generalized degradation of his environment, of the air he breaths, of the food that he consumes; the stress of his working environment, his entire social condition are the origins of the new diseases befalling the modern slave.
His servile standing is an ill for which there will never be a cure.
Only the complete emancipation from his present condition would allow the modern slave to recover from his suffering.
Western medicine knows only one way to cure the maladies of modern-day slaves:
mutilation.
Under commercialized medicine, patients are subjected to surgeries, antibiotics or chemotherapy.
The origins of pain are never considered, only its consequences, such a search would inevitably lead to a condemnation of the social structure in its totality.
Just as the current system reduces everything in our world to mere commodities, so does it transform our bodies into such, into the object of study and experimentation of the pseudo-wise men of commercial medicine and molecular biology.
The masters of the world are set to patent every living thing.
The complete sequencing of the DNA of the human genome is the point of departure of a new strategy decided on power.
“Under a government, which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.” - Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
Thoreau in 1856
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View full-sizeDownload Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument in favor of citizen disobedience against an unjust state.
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View full-sizeDownload Thoreau wrote his famous essay, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, as a protest against an unjust but popular war and the immoral but popular institution of slave-owning.
Nonetheless, there are individuals who escape mental control, but they are under surveillance.
Every uprising or act of resistance is considered deviant behavior or an act of terrorism.
Freedom is reserved for those who defend the commercial interests.
Henceforth, the real opposition to the dominant system is totally clandestine.
For its retractors, repression is the law.
The silence of the majority of slaves facing this repression is the result of a political and media campaign that denies the existence of this real conflict.
“What we did before for the love of God, nowadays we do it for the love of money, which means, for the love of what gives us the sensation of highest power and good conscience” - Aurora, Nietzsche
Nietzsche in Basel, Switzerland, c. 1875
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View full-sizeDownload Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest professor to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel. Plagued by health problems for most of his life, he resigned from the university in 1879, and in the following decade he completed much of his core writing. In 1889, aged 44, he suffered a collapse and thereafter a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and vascular dementia. He lived his remaining 11 years under the care of his family until his death. His works and his philosophy have fostered not only extensive scholarship but also much popular interest. As with all oppressed human beings throughout history, the modern slave needs mysticism and God to anaesthetize the evil that torments him and the suffering that overwhelms him.
But this new god to whom he gave his soul is naught but nothingness:
a piece of paper, a number that, through his common consent, acquires artificial value.
It is in the name of this god that people:
work
study
fight
and sell themselves.
It is for this god that man forsakes his values and is prepared to do whatever.
He believes that the more money he possesses the freer he will be from all constraints, as though ownership and freedom went hand in hand.
Freedom is the asceticism that comes from self-control, from the desire and will to act.
To be, not, to have.
One must resolve to never serve and obey under any condition.
But to be free, it is necessary to break with habits that no one, it seems, dare challenge.
The sports media, becomes a channel through which slaves feel the:
success
failure
effort
and victory, they no longer experience in the flesh.
They live by proxy in front of the television set.
While the Emperors of Ancient Rome lulled their people into submission with the promise of “bread and games”, today's acquiescence is procured through entertainment and the consumption of emptiness.
“We think we master words but in fact words master us.” - Alain Rey
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View full-sizeDownload Alain Rey (French: [a.lɛ̃ ʁɛ]; 30 August 1928 – 28 October 2020) was a French linguist, lexicographer and radio personality. He was the editor-in-chief at French dictionary publisher Dictionnaires Le Robert. His wife, Josette Rey-Debove, was also his colleague. The domination of consciousness is the result of the misuse of language by the social and economic ruling class.
As the masters of all means of communication, the power elite disseminate the market ideology through the fixed, partial and concocted meaning it gives to words.
Words are invoked as neutral and their definition as evident; however, when controlled by power, words fix a very different meaning to the reality of life.
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View full-sizeDownload Jacques Élisée Reclus (French: [ʁəkly]; 15 March 1830 – 4 July 1905) was a French geographer, writer and anarchist. He produced his 19-volume masterwork, La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes ("Universal Geography"), over a period of nearly 20 years (1875–1894). In 1892 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Paris Geographical Society for this work, despite having been banished from France because of his political activism. Despite his bonds the modern slave is convinced of his citizenship.
The illusion of choice and free determination is fueled by the ability to vote and freely elect those who will conduct his affairs.
When it comes down to deciding the society we want to live in, is there really any fundamental difference between the Social Democrats and the Populist Right in France, between Democrats and Republicans in the United States, between Labor and Conservatives in the United Kingdom?
There is no opposition, because the main political parties agree on one essential thing:
the conservation of the present mercantile society.
None of the political parties that enter into power question the commodities dogma.
And those political parties with media complicity monopolize the airwaves.
They squabble about trite matters ensuring the status quo.
They fight over who will hold the seats that the mercantile parliamentary offers.
Those petty disputes are disseminated by the media as a distraction from the critical debate about the election of the society we want to live in.
Appearance and triviality eclipse the confrontation of ideas.
None of this resembles, not even from afar, a democracy.
Real democracy is defined, firstly, by the mass participation of citizens in the governance of community affairs.
It is direct and participative.
The popular assembly and the permanent dialogue about the organization of a common life are Democracy’s most authentic expressions.
Representative and parliamentarian forms of government usurp the name of democracy, limiting the power of citizens to the simple act of voting, that is, to nothing.
Deciding between light grey and dark grey is not a real election.
Parliamentarian’s seats are mainly occupied by the dominant economic class, be it the right or the pseudo leftist social democrats.
Power is not to be conquered; it is to be destroyed.
It is tyrannical by nature, whether exercised by a king, a dictator or an elected president.
“Nature did not create masters nor slaves; I do not want to give nor receive laws” - Denis Diderot
Portrait of Denis Diderot by Louis-Michel van Loo, 1767
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View full-sizeDownload Denis Diderot (/ˈdiːdəroʊ/; French: [dəni did(ə)ʁo]; 5 October 1713 – 31 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during the Age of Enlightenment. The dominant system is defined thus by the omnipresence of its mercantile ideology.
It occupies every space and every sector of life.
It calls us to:
“produce, sell, consume, and accumulate.”
The dominant system has reduced all human interaction to dry mercantile relationships and considers our planet a mere commodity.
Our duty is to be servile.
The only recognized right is the right to private property.
The only god it worships is money.
The right to appear is monopolized by those in power.
The stage is reserved for the men and speeches that uphold the dominant ideology.
Critical thinking is drowned out in a sea of media that determine what is right and what is wrong, what can and cannot be seen.
The omnipresence of ideology
the worship of money
the media’s bias
the absence of democratic pluralism
the lack of a visible opposition
the will to transform mankind and all the world in its image
and repression in all its forms.
Behold the true face of modern totalitarianism.
The majority calls it “liberal democracy”, it is time to call it what it truly is:
The destruction of the totalitarian mercantile society is not a matter of choice, it is an absolute necessity.
Given powers breadth and reach, it must be everywhere and always contested.
The reinvention of language, the permanent revolution in everyday life, disobedience and resistance, are the key elements of the rebellion against the established order.
But in order to make a revolution out of this rebellion, we have to gather all these individual resistances in a united front.
We must work to unify all the revolutionary forces.
This can be attained by remaining conscious of our past failures.
Neither sterile reformism nor totalitarian bureaucracy can be the solutions of our dissatisfaction.
It comes down to inventing new forms of organization and struggle.
Self-management for workers and direct democracy on a communal level are the foundations of this new organization, which must be anti-hierarchical in form as well as in content.
Power is not to be conquered; it is to be destroyed.
