Surrealpolitik

Surrealpolitik: Arcanum 17

Author: Andre Breton

Los Angeles: Green Integer (2004, first published in 1944)

Quick Summary

Written in Canada towards the end of WWII.

Quotes

There are 7 quotes currently associated with this book.

Is it true, or rather will it be certain tomorrow that this error is particularly, exclusively German? (page 27)
Tags: [Surrealism, Fascism]
The great enemy of mankind is opacity. This opacity is outside him and above all within him, where conventional ideas and all sorts of dubious defenses maintain it. (page 58)
Tags: [Surrealism, Everyday Life, Literary/Poetic, Gaslighting]
How long will we have to wait for a brand new laboratory where established ideas, no matter which, beginning with the most elementary ones, the ones most hastily exonerated, will be accepted only for purposes of study, contingent on an examination from top to bottom and by definition free from all preconceptions? (page 61)
Tags: [Surrealism, Everyday Life, Simulacra/Illusion, Disinformation, Literary/Poetic, Gaslighting, Paranoia]
If the demands of humanity are to have a chance to partially triumph in the practical sphere, they must take pains with specifics, and for this reason get science in their camp. (page 68)
Tags: [Surrealism, Rationality]
Rebellion is its own justification, completely independent of the chance it has to modify the state of affairs that gives rise to it. It's a spark in the wind, but a spark in search of a powder keg. (page 120)
Tags: [Surrealism, Activism, Surrealism & Politics, Revolution]
Everything that allowed the genius of a people to assert itself bent more and more under the pressure of hostile forces, more or less disguised. Whatever could have been added to its assets -- the fundamental code of this people as, like it or not, it arose from its institutions -- was left in the shadows out of fear that the concept of liberty, which doesn't take well to resting, might become more demanding. (page 125)
Tags: [Surrealism, Activism, Everyday Life, Literary/Poetic, Gaslighting, Paranoia]
May the recent events have taught France and the world that liberty can only subsist in a dynamic state, that it becomes denatured and negates itself at the moment when one makes of it a museum piece...Humanity's aspirations for liberty must always be given the power to recreate themselves endlessly; that's why it must be thought of not as a state but as a living force bringing about continual progress...Liberty is not, like liberation, a struggle against sickness, it is health. (page 126,128)
Tags: [Surrealism, Activism, Surrealism & Politics, Everyday Life, Fascism, Culture, Literary/Poetic]