Raoul Vaneigem

Raoul Vaneigem (born 21 March 1934) is a Belgian writer and activist known for his 1967 book The Revolution of Everyday Life, which subsequently influenced the student led French protests of May 1968.

Quotes

The Revolution of Everyday Life (1967)

• The history of our time calls to mind those cartoon characters who rush madly over the edge of a cliff without seeing it: the power of their imagination keeps them suspended in midair, but as soon as they look down and see where they are, they fall.
  • Chapter One
• Enlightenment philosophy accelerated the descent into the concrete, for the concrete was in some ways brought to power along with the revolutionary bourgeois. From the ruins of Heaven, humanity fell into the ruins of its own world.
  • Chapter One
• How very lucky the insurgents of Lyons and Fourmies have turned out to be - albeit posthumously! The millions of human beings shot, imprisoned, tortured, starved, brutalized and systematically humiliated must surely be at peace, in their cemeteries and mass graces, to know how history has made sure that the struggle in which they died has enabled their descendants, isolated in their air-conditioned apartments, to learn from their daily dose of TV how to repeat that they are happy and free. 'The Communists went down, fighting to the last man, so that you too could buy a Phillips hi fi.' A fine legacy indeed - one that must surely warm the cockles of all those revolutionaries of the past.
  • VII. "The Age of Happiness"

See Also

• Guy Debord, fellow Situationist,
• Daniel Cohn-Bendit, participant in May 1968 protests