
From Fifth Estate
#415, Summer 2024
by Bill Brown
Why did I translate Raoul Vaneigem’s La Résistance au christianisme: Les Héresies des origines au xviiie siècle, originally published in 1993 by Editions Fayard, into English?
This is a fair question because, after all, the book is more than 600 pages long, not counting the bibliography and the index, and it’s about a fairly esoteric subject: the so-called heresies that were identified (sometimes even fabricated), publicly denounced and ruthlessly persecuted by the Christian Church over the course of nearly 2,000 years.
My answer starts with the fact that Vaneigem, born on March 21, 1934, in Lessines, Belgium, and still very much alive today, was an important member of the Situationist International (the SI). Founded in Italy in 1957 by several small groups of European painters, architects, poets and filmmakers, the SI was unique in that its members believed in the possibility of global social revolution at a time when virtually no one else did.
In the early 1960s, the organization evolved from a Surrealist-inspired avant-garde arts movement into a hardcore political grouping that was primarily concerned with updating Marxist and anarchist theories and practices for the modern era. By 1967, the SI had developed a new critique of modern capitalism (“the society of the spectacle”) and reinvented the theory of proletarian revolution (“the revolution of everyday life”).
The situs propagated their ideas and methods through a journal called Internationale situationniste, several books, and a number of scandalous provocations. The group was deeply involved in the protests, riots, and occupations that nearly toppled the French government in May—June 1968.
In the 1970s, after the organization had dissolved itself, the SI continued to have a profound influence on revolutionary politics and culture in the U.S., France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
In England, the undiminished power and attractiveness of situationist critique was revealed in a new context when it was adopted, simplified and sharpened by the clothes, lyrics and packaging designs of the Sex Pistols. Other classic punk bands influenced by the SI include Gang of Four, the Clash, and the Mekons. More recent adherents to situationist critique include the punk bands Pussy Riot and the Stone Temple Pilots, the editors of Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, Adbusters and the organizers of Occupy Wall Street.
Raoul Vaneigem was one of the most important members of the SI, which he joined in 1961 and stayed with until 1970, when he resigned. During that time, he wrote several key situationist texts, including Traité de savoir-vivre à l’usage des jeunes générations, first published in 1967 and most often translated into English as The Revolution of Everyday Life.
After his resignation, Vaneigem was overshadowed by the SI’s co-founder and last remaining member, Guy Debord, who was an outspoken critic of his ex-comrade’s lack of involvement in the organization post-1967, his eventual resignation and the works he published thereafter. As a result, comparatively few of Vaneigem’s nearly 50 books and more than 20 prefaces, afterwords and articles have been translated into English.
To date, there has been only one major study in English of his life and work: Alastair Hemmings’ The Radical Subject: An Intellectual Biography of Raoul Vaneigem (1934-Present).
Vaneigem’s post-SI work has covered a wide variety of subjects, including the Zapatistas, the Yellow Vests, and the Oaxaca Commune. But there is one subject to which he has returned several times and with great intensity: religion, particularly the Christian religion and the heresies against which it fought. Perhaps this should be phrased the other way around: he has focused on heresies and their resistance to the imposition of Christianity upon the masses and at the point of a sword. Vaneigem has written nearly half a dozen books on this one subject, the longest and most important of which is La Résistance au christianisme. When I began the translation in 2006, none were available in English.
Vaneigem does not have a particularly good understanding of contemporary American society. In his epilogue to my translation, which was specifically written for it, he refers to Calvinism and the Protestant work ethic rather than to white Christian nationalism and the drive toward a theocracy in this country. But his book is very relevant to the religious cult that has arisen around ex-President Trump and his millenarian rhetoric about retribution.
Without help from such a source as Vaneigem, it is difficult to understand the extent and intensity of the zealous support (even adoration) for Trump by people who are in fact victimized by his vicious, fascist policies and actions.
There are other translators who have brought Vaneigem into English, but they are few in number. There’s the ex-situationist Donald Nicholson-Smith, who has translated The Revolution of Everyday Life and several other works into English, and the team of Randall Cherry and Ian Patterson, who collaborated on the translation of Le Mouvement du libre-esprit (The Movement of the Free Spirit), to which La Résistance au christianisme is a kind of sequel and supplement. But when I first got interested in La Résistance, it seemed clear that no one else was going to take it on, and so I decided to translate it myself. I had my work cut out for me.
It should be noted that, for 15 years before I signed a publishing contract with Eris Books, my translation of Resistance to Christianity was available for free on my website (notbored.org). The manuscript was also copied and pasted to several anarchist websites, including the Anarchist Library, by administrators who believed that their readers would also be interested in its contents and relevance to contemporary society.
As a result, I received dozens of emails from attentive and enthusiastic people who had questions, comments, and/or corrections, and so I was able to improve the manuscript as well as be reassured that there was an audience for it. Though I have done so before, I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for the help I have received along the way.
Bill Brown has been involved in the situationist milieu for nearly 40 years. He has translated numerous situationist texts and reprinted others that were no longer available. He lives and works in New York City.
See Raoul Vaneigem in the FE Archive.
Comments
"...and the works he
anon (not verified) Wed, 09/18/2024 - 12:15
"...and the works he published thereafter. "
No doubt!
Bill Brown's statement attests to the significance and relevance of the Situationists -- up to the bit about the Sex Pistols, at least -- but it doesn't much of an argument for the relevance of Vaneigem in particular.
Not having read this weighty tome yet I can't say any thing about it one way or the other. Maybe you can use it as a weapon against bosses and landlords by cudgeling them with it. But Vaneigem's stuff has tended to find an audience in the U.S. precisely because of its extremely self-involved, hippie-oid qualities. Consumer society beat putative revolutionary politics on the hedonism front a long, long time ago.
Also, saying he's been a fan of the S.I. for 40 years says absolutely nothing about whether he has at any time in a 40-year long period - forty years! - made any effort to turn these pleasant sentiments into a material force in the world. Uniformly with the vicarious living fans of the S.I., absence of evidence is always indeed evidence of absence!
Imagine talking this boring,
Turd Twisted (not verified) Thu, 09/19/2024 - 20:01
In reply to "...and the works he by anon (not verified)
Imagine talking this boring, reductive, dismissive crap on the internet.
Cyber Corpses constantly in the scornful negative because you get nothing done playing Anarchist inside of Capitalism. Even your anarchism is _allowed_ within civilizations gates because you're no threat. If you were - you'd be toast already. You can't even organize 5 friends to do shit. Sit in the Peanut Gallery of the Online Muppet Show, kiddo.
Anarchism as Consumerism
Everyone who has a life should avoid talking to card carrying anarchists. You're just poison distributors who can't function with other people because you're constantly being a puritanical cop about the "Perfect Position."
evidence?!
anon (not verified) Thu, 09/26/2024 - 14:31
In reply to "...and the works he by anon (not verified)
Special Agent Shithead complains about "absence of evidence." Get a fucking warrant FBI.
Why do fiery and exhilarating
anon (not verified) Wed, 09/18/2024 - 23:26
Why do fiery and exhilarating revolutionaries like the S.I. exclusively attract feckless and passive duds to them? In predominantly English language regions of the world this appears to be the case.
Other, better question...
anon (not verified) Thu, 09/19/2024 - 08:11
In reply to Why do fiery and exhilarating by anon (not verified)
Other, better question... what is the activity of reading usually coming down to? Are people dancing in the streets or doing mass sabotage while reading books?
No the time and space of books is for detached thought and at best conversation, that are done (maybe too often) while sitting on your ass. It is a necessary activity, just a rather passive one.
That's not much of a response
anon (not verified) Thu, 09/19/2024 - 09:29
In reply to Other, better question... by anon (not verified)
That's not much of a response. Your inertia and disengagement should be bottled as a sleeping aid.
What is wrong with sleeping,
anon (not verified) Thu, 09/19/2024 - 11:48
In reply to That's not much of a response by anon (not verified)
What is wrong with sleeping, sleeping aids and even some inertia? Yes, books are good sleeping aids for me. If it won't sleep it's not my revolution, like Emma said (...or something). Just some crazy guys on meth or MDMA doing sleep deprivation parties.
Sleep is reactionary. Sleep
anon (not verified) Sat, 09/21/2024 - 07:34
In reply to What is wrong with sleeping, by anon (not verified)
Sleep is reactionary. Sleep in death, live now
These comments are making me
anon (not verified) Sat, 09/21/2024 - 11:41
In reply to Sleep is reactionary. Sleep by anon (not verified)
These comments are making me sleepy, so please un-die me.
Hear my track...
sleepytime gor… (not verified) Thu, 10/24/2024 - 18:39
In reply to These comments are making me by anon (not verified)
Sleep is Wrong! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jECnmHVVWqU
Using books as sleeping aid
anon (not verified) Fri, 10/25/2024 - 00:36
In reply to What is wrong with sleeping, by anon (not verified)
Using books as sleeping aid is an act so perverse even I am embarrassed thinking about it. I love books too much to use them for something so basic.
The best thing about this
Turd Twisted (not verified) Thu, 09/19/2024 - 20:05
The best thing about this book is these religious weirdos did more than every anarchist did looking at this website and they're malding that their only "actions" are scolding other anarchists constantly.
Exit Anarchy. It's just the authoritarian left claiming they're not.
20:01
anon (not verified) Thu, 09/19/2024 - 21:16
20:01
My, how simply fascinating. Is an English language translation of your invective available?
21:12
anon (not verified) Thu, 09/19/2024 - 22:43
21:12
I like them French fried taters
Of course, this can't lead to
anon (not verified) Thu, 09/19/2024 - 23:25
Of course, this can't lead to any substantive discussion of how to take what might still be useful in the S.I. -- from Debord, Vienet, Reisel -- and use it as a point of departure in contemporary collective action, among those of us who must sell our labor power for wages and have nothing to lose but our pains.
Fans of the S.I. are passive spectators. Or, to make it more impressive for them by putting it in French, voyeurs.
"But his book is very
lizard (not verified) Fri, 09/20/2024 - 01:59
"But his book is very relevant to the religious cult that has arisen around ex-President Trump and his millenarian rhetoric about retribution."
millenerian rethoric is common between all utopic political movements, including fascism, marxism and leftist anarchism. Those heresies were their ancestors, and while they were against mainstream christianity, they carried with them the deep features of christianity: teleologic belief and revolutionary utopia.
It's definitely interesting
1LitTrashPanda Fri, 09/20/2024 - 03:30
It's definitely interesting to see how Anarchists and Communists (Post World-War) era tend to believe that philosophers like Marx and Kropotkin may have been correct but couldn't account even remotely for the kind of technology, advancement, and covert authoritarianism we'd face in the world after World War 2. I also very, very much sadistically enjoy the idea of using Christianity *against* groups like theocrats and politicians.
03:30
anon (not verified) Fri, 09/20/2024 - 11:15
03:30
Yeah, Kropotkin and Marx should have been capable of time travel. I hereby nominate you to be the token intellectual in the math department at Crimethinc.
People on this site read
f (not verified) Sun, 09/22/2024 - 18:41
People on this site read books?
I don't believe that, personally.
A better book about the same
anon (not verified) Sat, 10/26/2024 - 06:14
In reply to People on this site read by f (not verified)
A better book about the same topic is --- In Pursuit of the Millenium--- by Prof. Cohn.
Give it a read.
I feel deeply offended by
anon (not verified) Sat, 10/26/2024 - 10:40
In reply to People on this site read by f (not verified)
I feel deeply offended by this for some reason.
“ Without help from such a
anon (not verified) Fri, 10/25/2024 - 18:23
“ Without help from such a source as Vaneigem, it is difficult to understand the extent and intensity of the zealous support (even adoration) for Trump by people who are in fact victimized by his vicious, fascist policies and actions.”
Yeesh, what am I reading? Also: what is this fucking book actually about???
Stone Temple Pilots????
anon (not verified) Fri, 10/25/2024 - 18:24
In reply to “ Without help from such a by anon (not verified)
Stone Temple Pilots????
Leftists are shocked that
anon (not verified) Fri, 10/25/2024 - 23:47
In reply to “ Without help from such a by anon (not verified)
Leftists are shocked that proles are reactionary and that Kanye West is a Nazi ig, I dunno.
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