Update (22 Sept 2015):
Since the links I posted in this article originally have changed, I have edited the post.
The Great Flâneur Massacre, oddly enough, is satirical, and portrays an academic conference where the “objects of study” start talking back to the individuals presenting papers.
The scholars who are the enlightened benefactors of the audience do not appreciate being talked back to, as they prefer to represent others, rather than to be represented.
So finally, I will quote you a few endorsements of quotes from my novella; just off the top of my head. And yes: when I say that, I really do mean “off the top of my head.”
That is to say: yes, I did indeed make these endorsements up myself. This is true. But on the other hand:
I was the writer of these endorsements before I wasn’t the writer of them.
I smoked these little mistruths out of their holes.
I did not inhale.
Don’t worry if you accuse me of making these up, I’m used to it. We have to free ourselves from the idea that I’m accountable for these things.
Presumably, as you are capable of understanding these highly profound and erudite scholastic jests, you will have no problem understanding the novella 😉
1.
Jean-Michault, Middle-Class Trotskyite Revolutionary
(Sorry, I appreciate this is a really fanciful idea!)
Everything, absolutely everything you need to know is in Das Kapital.
Well, provided it’s understood and translated correctly, of course.
Endorsement from Trey Parker and Matt Stone:
Ha! Ha! Ha! That’s really funny.
Jean Michault
(Sorry, he’s a wee bit repetitious, which may come as a surprise to not a few of you!)
Truth is whatever the Trots decide; whether it “works” or not is irrelevant!
Endorsement from Nick Griffin:
I’ve got precisely the same problem, mate! I tried making it work, and now I’m completely irrelevant, just like the Trots! Even the SWP won’t have me!
Still, works in reverse too, of course…
Jean-Michault
(Still Flying the Flag for the Dictatorship of the Trottariat!)
President Pot having been unfairly marginalised as some kind of “mass murderer,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Endorsement from Noam Chomsky:
Well, I suspect this guy may have been taken out of context. Let’s not jump to any hasty conclusions.
Jean Michault
(Don’t worry, he’s nearly had his Gorbachev moment!)
MY opinion doesn’t matter. MY merely subjective viewpoint is entirely irrelevant.
Endorsement from Pat Robertson:
Well yes, my dear friends, I do agree. I mean, if I’m ever having doubts about anything, I just consult an authoritative text. And then somehow, by some mysterious process of Divine grace and compassionate meditation and spiritual mediation, that our powers of earthly comprehension just cannot penetrate, I just finally get to know I was right all along.
Jean-Michault
(Last tragic blow of the espresso-hammer!)
STOP DIVIDING THE WORKERS!!!!!!!!!
Endorsement from Karl Marx:
I’m really, really sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I never thought assholes like him would take it this far.
Endorsement from Friedrich Engels:
Please. Please. Please. Please. Just make him stop. ;(((((
2.
Sophia Fichte, Conference Moderator and Grim Supreme Leader of the (Post?) Enlightened Academy
Of course I don’t deny the existence of ‘facts,’ falsely so-called. Neither do I affirm it/them. Satisfied?
Endorsement from John Kerry:
She couldn’t be more right!
And yet, the other side of this dilemma, which is equally undeniable and obvious, and is of equal strategic importance…
Endorsement from Tony Blair:
Yes, brother! Now, there is a flexible, creative, dynamic thinker and actor, um agent, if ever I saw one.
Sophia Fichte
(So, it turns out that people who use their authority to talk down to others actually do indeed have a habit of yammering on!)
The first point about my critical theory and its general emancipatory objective tendency is to just shut the hell up and listen.
Endorsement from Audre Lorde:
In other words, you want to silence the people you are ‘saving.’
***
Yes, I know, these quotations are “fake,” if you want to construct put it that way. But they are real Real enough, in a Parisian kind of way.
It is a pity these figures from real life who have provided endorsement do not actually appear in my novel. But perhaps Jean-Michault and Sophia Fichte will be enough of an education. They certainly educated me… 😛
Still, for a few more lumpenacadematariat intellectual-class heroes, see the next instalment.