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THE FORTY-ONE CURSES,
CRISES AND CONSPIRACIES
OF EVERYDAY LIFE
(NB!# 21)
William Brown
RETROFUTURISM, 1992
The German critic Walter Benjamin envisioned a book composed entirely
of assembled quotations from other authors.
GREIL MARCUS, 1989
In December 1957, Guy-Ernest Debord . . . produced a book he called
Memoires. He didn�t write it. He cut scores of paragraphs, sentences,
phrases, or sometimes single words out of books, magazines, and
newspaper [...] At first the book seemed entirely a conceit --
precious. In fact it told a very specific story, and carried an
affirmation that it was the only story worth telling.
RAOUL VANEIGEM, 1967
People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to
everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and positive in the
refusal of constraint, have corpses in their mouth
s.
GANG OF FOUR, 1981
I need a cheeseburger to go!
GUY DEBORD, 1961
To study everyday life would be a completely absurd undertaking, unable to grasp
anything of its object, if this study was not explicitly for the purpose of
transforming everyday life. The lecture, the exposition of certa
in intellectual considerations to an audience . . . itself forms a part of the
everyday life to be criticized [...] It is thus desirable to demonstrate, by the
slight alteration of the usual procedures, that everyday life
is right here. These words are being communicated by way of a tape recorder, not, of
course, in order to illustrate the integration of technology into this everyday life
[that exists] on the margin of the technological w
orld, but in order to seize the simplest opportunity to break with the appearance of
pseudo- collaboration, of artificial dialogue, established between the lecturer "in
person" and his spectators.
ROBERT SHEA & ROBERT ANTON WILSON, 1975
Certain dissident elements keep complaining that people don�t get a chance to
participate in decisions made by their government. Yet, at a time like this, when the
whole nation has an opportunity to hear the Attorney Gene
ral, the ratings are not always as good as they should be. So let�s do everything we
can to build up those ratings tonight, and let the whole world know that this is still
a democracy.
STEPHEN E. AMBROSE, 1992
So many important people and powerful agencies wanted to murder President John F.
Kennedy in November 1963 that they all but had to draw straws to see who got the first
shot at him. According to Jim Marr�s book Crossfire:
The Plot That Killed Kennedy -- one of the primary sources for Oliver Stone�s movie
J.F.K. -- Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy. "Who done it?" Mr. Marrs
asks. "A consensus of powerful men in the leadership
of U.S. military, banking, Government, intelligence and organized crime circles
ordered their faithful agents to manipulate Mafia-Cuban-[Central Intelligence]Agency
pawns to kill the chief." This conspiracy has been hidde
n from the public by the greatest cover-up of them all, the Warren Commission.
GUY DEBORD, 1992
"The conspiracy theory of history" was in the nineteenth century a reactionary and
ridiculous belief, at a time when so many powerful social movements were stirring up
the masses.
STEPHEN E. AMBROSE, 1992
That millions of Americans have read these books or seen Mr. Stone�s movie may tell us
more about the attitude people have toward their Government and their educational
experiences than it does about the Kennedy assassina
tion. They believe that government is a conspiracy and that the history they were
taught in school is all lie and myth.
ROBERT SHEA & ROBERT ANTON WILSON, 1975
He reckoned most of his countrymen as total mental basket cases and fondly believed
that he was exploiting their folly when he told them a vast Illuminist conspiracy
controlled the money supply and interest rates [...] Th
at there was an element of truth in these bizarre notions never crossed his mind. In
short, [he] was as alienated from the pulse, the poetry, and the profundity of
American emotion as a New York intellectual.
GUY DEBORD, 1989
A combination of circumstances has marked almost everything I�ve done with a certain
conspiratorial allure.
VARIOUS FRENCH NEWSPAPERS, 1970-1972
The police of Europe keep track of them. Elusive and underground, conspirators in the
tradition, [the Situationist International] refuse[s] all legalities and conformisms,
even socialist ones. The Situationist Internation
al has its base in Copenhagen and . . . is controlled by the security and espionage
police of East Germany [...] Their general headquarters is secret but I think it is
somewhere in London. They are not students, but what
are known as situationists; they travel everywhere and exploit the discontent of
students.
RAOUL VANEIGEM, 1962
Just as God constituted the reference point of past unitary society, we
[situationists] are preparing to create the central reference point for a unitary
society now possible.
ANTONIN ARTAUD, 1927
I regret living in a world where sorcerers and soothsayers must live in hiding, and
where in any case there are so few genuine soothsayers . . . as far as I�m concerned,
I find it astounding that fortune-tellers, tarot-re
aders, wizards, sorcerers, necromancers and other REINCARNATED ONES have for so long
been relegated to the role of mere characters in fables and novels, and that, through
one of the most superficial aspects of modern thin
king, naivete is defined as having faith in charlatans. I believe whole-heartedly in
charlatans, bonesetters, visionaries, sorcerers and chiromancers, because all these
things have being, because, for me, there are no lim
its, no fixed form to appearances.
HENRI LEFEBVRE, 1947
Oh, women with strange faces, portraits and poems with weird imagery, peculiar objects
-- all you prove is that there is no more "feminine mystery," that mystery has
disappeared from our world, that it has degenerated int
o something public, that it is a game, an art-form, that it has lost its ancient
glamour founded on terror and wild hope, that it has become mere journalism, mere
advertizing, mere fashion, a music- hall turn, an exhibit.
. . .
ROLAND BARTHES, 1958
. . . [a] Spectacle.
THE MEKONS, 1991 He is a sorcerer
Before your eyes cast a spell
Out of control. . . .
He�s a bourgeois sorcerer
In a million factories department stores and mills and banks
Dark powers walk in broad daylight
Social forces driven in dreadful directions
Whole populations conjured out of the ground
Ooh! The abyss is close to home.
KARL MARX, 1867
A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its
analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical
subtleties and theological niceties. In so far as it is a use-
value, there is nothing mysterious about it -- whether we regard it as something whose
natural properties enable it to satisfy human wants, or as something which only
acquires such properties as the outcome of human labor
. It is absolutely clear that, by his activity, man changes the forms of the materials
of nature in such a way as to make them useful to him. The form of wood, for instance,
is altered if a table is made out of it. Nevert
heless the table continues to be wood, an ordinary, sensuous thing. But as soon as it
emerges as a commodity, it changes into a thing which transcends sensuousness. It not
only stands with its feet on the ground, but, in
relation to all other commodities, it stands on its head, and evolves out of its
wooden brain grotesque ideas, far more wonderful than if it were to begin dancing of
its own free will.
GREIL MARCUS, 1984
Pure poetry -- and the mystical echoes were no accident. Marx�s allusion was to the
Spiritualists, who in his time clasped hands around tables in Boston, Paris, Prague,
and St. Petersburg, waiting for the spirits of depar
ted loved ones to set their hands knocking on wood, to make the tables dance. The
Spiritualists had nothing to do with commodities, but the commodity had everything to
do with magic.
HENRI LEFEBVRE, 1947
Everything -- life, science, both the ideal and the idea of love, not to mention that
arch-sorcerer of the Western world, money -- conspires to instill in the sensitive,
lucid, cultivated young man with a gift for "belles
-lettres" a feeling of unease and dissatisfaction which can only be assuaged by
something strange, bizarre or extraordinary [...] Thus philosophy has joined forces
with literature in this great conspiracy against man�s ev
eryday life. Even in our so-called "modern" poets� and metaphysicians� most polished
verbal and technical games we can find the elements of a certain criticism of everyday
life, but in an indirect form, and always based u
pon the confusion between the real in human terms and the real in capitalist terms.
THE GRAND MASONIC LODGE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, 1943
[In speaking of Masonry as] a world by itself, with a life of its own . . . the word
"life" itself [is not] a misnomer. To the casual observer Freemasonry might appear to
be a kind of artificial thing, like the wearing of
a fancy dress at a costume ball, something with no roots deep in experience, a luxury
rather than a necessity [...] An experienced Freemason, however, knows that Masonry is
a way of life, a mode of living, which moves in
him and helps to shape his life all of the time, whether inside of Lodge or not.
BROTHER S. JAY KAUFMAN (32-DEGREE), 1919
[The power of the Scottish Rite] amounts to a group of self-inspections looking to a
specific daily conduct. And for Average Men always. For that matter, are we not all
average men? [...] [In conclusion] may we repeat wha
t we said a year ago -- that Masonry is as near Utopia as anything we know. That to
bring about a consideration, by so many men, of finer living is a force for world
progress in an every-day way which the world must encou
rage.
ADAM WEISHAUPT, 1776
And what is this general object [of the Order of the Illuminati]? THE HAPPINESS OF THE
HUMAN RACE. Is it not distressing to a generous mind, after contemplating what human
nature is capable of, to see how little we enjoy?
When we look at this goodly world, and see that every man may be happy, but that the
happiness of one depends on the conduct of another; when we see the wicked so powerful
and the good so weak; and that it is in vain to
strive singly and alone, against the general current of vice and oppression; the wish
naturally arises in the mind, that it were possible to form a durable combination of
the most worthy persons, who should work together
in removing the obstacles to human happiness [...] Would not such an association be a
blessing to the world? . . . The slightest observation shows that nothing will so much
contribute to increase the zeal of the members a
s secret union. We see with what keenness and zeal the frivolous business of
Freemasonry is conducted, by persons knit together by the secrecy of their union. It
is needless to enquire into the causes of this zeal which s
ecrecy produces. It is a universal fact, confirmed by the history of every age.
GUY DEBORD, 1988
Secrecy dominates this world, and first and foremost as the secret of domination.
According to the spectacle, secrecy would only be a necessary exception to the rule of
freely available, abundant information [...] No one
sees secrecy in its inaccessible purity and its functional universality. Everyone
accepts that there are inevitably little areas of secrecy reserved for specialists; as
regards things in general, many believe they are in
on the secret [...] Their only role is to make domination more respectable, never to
make it comprehensible. They are the privilege of front-row spectators who are stupid
enough to believe they can understand something, n
ot by making use of what is hidden from them, but by believing what is revealed!
ADAM WEISHAUPT, 1778
We have to struggle with pedantry, with intolerance, with divines and statesmen, and
above all, princes and priests are in our way. Men are unfit as they are, and must be
formed, each class must be the school of trial for
the next [...] Every person shall be made a spy on another and on all around him.
Nothing can escape our sight; by these means we shall readily discover who is
contented, and receive with relish the peculiar state-doctri
nes and religious opinions that are laid before them; and, at last, the truly worthy
alone will be admitted to a participation in the whole maxims and political
constitution of the Order.
NESTA WEBSTER, 1921
Amongst the whole correspondence which passed between Weishaupt and his adepts laid
bare by the Government of Bavaria, we find no word of sympathy with the poor or
suffering, no hint of social reform, nothing but a desire
either for domination, for world power, or sheer love of destruction, and throughout
all the insatiable spirit of intrigue. For this purpose every method was held to be
justifiable, since the fundamental doctrine of the
sect was that "the end sanctifies the means."
ADAM WEISHAUPT, 1781
If in order to destroy all Christianity, all religion, we have pretended to have the
sole true religion, remember that the end justifies the means, and that the wise ought
to take all the means to do good which the wicked
take to do evil.
KENNETH MACKENZIE, 1877
Had the Order [of the Illuminati] been allowed free scope, much good would have
resulted, as the members were, as a rule, men of the strictest morality and humanity,
and the ideas they sought to instill were those which w
ould have found universal acceptance in our own times.
GUY DEBORD, 1988
The ubiquitous growth of secret societies and networks of influence answers the
imperative demand of the new conditions for profitable management of economic affairs,
at a time when the state holds a hegemonic role in the
direction of production and when demand for all commodities depends strictly on the
centralization achieved by spectacular information/promotion, to which forms of
distribution must also adapt. It is therefore only a nat
ural product of the centralization of capital, production and distribution. Whatever
does not grow must disappear; and no business can grow without adopting the values,
techniques and methods of today�s industry, spectacl
e and state. In the final analysis it is the particular form of development chosen by
the economy of our epoch which dictates the widespread creation of new personal bonds
of dependency and protection.
HENRI LEFEBVRE, 1947
To understand this properly, we need to think about what is happening around us,
within us, each and every day. We live on familiar terms with the people in our own
family, our own milieu, our own class. This constant imp
ression of familiarity makes us think that we know them, that their outlines are
defined for us, and that they see themselves as having those same outlines [...] But
the familiar is not necessarily the known [...] Familia
rity, what is familiar, conceals human beings and makes them difficult to know by
giving them a mask we can recognize, a mask that is merely the lack of something. And
yet familiarity . . . is by no means an illusion. It
is real, and is part of reality. Masks cling to our faces, to our skin; flesh and
blood have become masks.
RAOUL VANEIGEM, 1962
There is a place where you create yourself and a time in which you play yourself. The
space of everyday life, that of one�s true realization, is encircled by every form of
conditioning. The narrow space of our true realiz
ation defines us, yet we define ourselves in the time of the spectacle. Or, put
another way: our consciousness is no longer consciousness of myth and of
particular-being-in-myth, but rather consciousness of the spectacle
and of particular-role-in-the-spectacle.
HENRI LEFEBVRE, 1947
If there were no roles to play, and thus no familiarity, how could the cultural
element or ethical element which should modify and humanize our emotions and our
passions be introduced into life? The one involves the other
. A role is not a role. It is social life, an inherent part of it. What is faked in
one sense is what is the essential, the most precious, the human, in another.
GUY DEBORD, 1988
The highest ambition of the integrated spectacle is still to turn secret agents into
revolutionaries, and revolutionaries into secret agents.
NEAL WILGUS, 1978
One of the most ironic and revealing things about Carr�s version of Illuminoid history
is that if you take such thinking far enough to the right you�ll find far leftwingers
coming to meet you on common ground: it�s a cons
piracy! And indeed it is a conspiracy, an unending secret war between rich and poor,
haves and have-nots, ins and outs.
LT. COL. GORDON MOHR, 1990
Today, the natural organization of labor, which has been founded on mutual need
between capital and labor and which has been traditional in all periods of recorded
history, has been upset. Now the worker is proclaimed to
be equal in all respects with his employer, while he is exempted from the duties and
responsibilities of the employer. The result has been a senseless "class struggle"
which has all but destroyed American industry and whi
ch was designed to do just that.
NEAL WILGUS, 1978
Dan Smoot, Gary Allen and Phoebe Courtney may seem ludicrous in their attack on the
Council of Foreign Relations as the brains of the conspiracy, yet what they�re saying
is essentially the same as scholarly leftwingers su
ch as C. Wright Mills and other trackers of . . . the Military-Industrial Complex.
GARY ALLEN, 1971
The Nixon "Game Plan�� is infinitely more clever and dangerous than those of his
predecessors because it masquerades as being the opposite of what it is.
NEAL WILGUS, 1978
The argument is not whether there�s a conspiracy --
GARY ALLEN, 1978
The ultimate advantage the creditor has over the king or president is that, if the
ruler gets out of line, the banker can finance his enemy or rival. Therefore . . . it
is wise to have an enemy or rival waiting in the win
gs [...] If the King doesn�t have an enemy, you must create one [...] The key to
control over governments has always been [the international bankers�] control of money.
NEAL WILGUS, 1978
-- but what to do about it.
GIORGIO DE CHIRICO, 1929
And then revolts break out as storms break out in the burning summer sky. Resolute and
savage men, led by the kind of bearded colossus like an ancient god, wrested beams
from the workshops and hurled them like catapults a
gainst the armour-plated palace doors. The most cautious had made
their get-away; others than fallen under the first blows and these
were precisely the people who had never wanted to believe in the
revolt, maintaining that these rumors had no foundation and were
started by greedy bankers who aimed to cause a fall in prices and
then speculate afterwards on the rise which would follow the denial
of the alarming rumors. These were the same people who always ended
their optimistic speeches by phrases such as: Our people have too
much good sense.
[Writers] [Birdhouse]
End<{{{
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