"The Political Lie," "Silence and Literature,'' and "What We Have Undertak-

en ... ,'' by Georges Bataille, Editions Gallimard, Paris: 1976. "The Confronted
Community,'' by Jean-Luc Nancy, Jean-Luc Nancy, La Communaute Affrontee,
Editions Galilee.

Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany

2009 State University of New York

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Printed in the United States of America

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State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Editors' Introduction:
Production by Eileen Meehan
Marketing by Michael Campochiaro 1. The Confronted

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The obsessions of Georges Bataille : community and communication I edited by Andrew J. 2.

Mitchell and Jason Kemp Winfree.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-2823-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) 3. The Horror of Li
ISBN 978-1-4384-2824-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) Stuart Kendall
I. Bataille, Georges, 1897-1962. 2. Communities-Philosophy. I. Mitchell, Andrew J., 1970-
11. Winfree, Jason Kemp.
4. Of Goods and Thingl:
B2430.B33954026 2009 Community
194-dc22 2009000584
Chris Gemercl1alt
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
5. Transgression and the
David B. Allison

6. Elements of Experi
Kalliopi ;'\iikolt
Appendices
 APPENDIX ONE

What We Have Undertaken ...

Georges Bataille
Translated by Stuart Kendall

What we have undertaken over the past few months, we have undertaken in
agreement on a point that it was impossible for us to discuss with much preci-
sion. We well knew where we started from, and we also knew that it required
us to turn our backs on those who had already been more than surpassed. But
we did not know where we were going or how we could find out. The only
publication that has served as a sign of our activities responded, incidentally,
in keeping with these conditions: it had the merit of signifying-even in an
apparently brief and absurd way-the departure that we took from what seemed
to have engaged us up to that point. 1 But it envisioned nothing that could
offer satisfaction, however weak, to those who demanded that action have a
precise goal. The only valid response that we were able to oppose to irony-a
valid response, incidentally, to the extent that we kept it to ourselves-is that
action as we understand it cannot have a limited goal.
Today I am no more in search of a more encouraging path than I was
a few months ago. I am on the contrary haunted by the idea that the path
that we are following could be more repulsive, that to advance as we have is
to encounter rigorous demands. When I reflect on the occasionally frightful
and often lacerating demands to which human beings have everywhere been
able to respond with a kind of shattering joy, I am struck to observe how
little it is possible to obtain from us. If we can only serve to testify to the
exhaustion of contemporary existence, it would be better that beings such

"Tlw l'olitiral Lie," "Silence and Liwraturc," and "What W< Haw Undcrtakln ... ," by
(;,."'II'" Jl,1taill1', ID Editions Gallimard, Paris: 111711.
 Appendices Appendices

as ourselves had never lived .... I wish that oneday we could live with a teaching-and, since then, everything in the world has been so profoundly
resolution so explosive that the life of a Trappist would make us laugh. The shaken that it is possible to chew with one's own teeth, to burn in one's
Trappists "exist" without any doubt, Tibetan hermits "exist" ... 2 own bones: to escape from one's clothes in order to exist completely is a
But this is not to want to make things easy any more than it is to nec.ess1ty that belongs to a state of things still more degraded than ours, an
admit a limit to our present attempt to specify the directions in which we extmct state.
find ourselves engaged. Every aspect of modern activity is spread out before our eyes, and
Besides, it is less a question of establishing principles than of defining there is nothing there that creates malaise. The traditional forms of poetry
a state of fact. Amidst the current decomposition, it can only be a question, an.cl mythology are dead. To the extent that this can speak to human will,
effectively, of rediscovering the conditions of affective communal life through this world has become the outskirts of a great city: at least the outskirts
arbitrary decisions or by being elevated by inspiration. We cannot tolerate of great cities with their factories and their formless houses represent the
maintaining a link to a past of any kind. Nothing can contradict the fact only huma? social fabric that can be produced indefinitely. Independently
that each of us, in isolation, has never recognized any external guide other from our disgust for drama, we know that one does not enter into a world
than science. Science is the only authority to which we will submit. This as empty as this with the distant contempt of a sage but with that of a
means, among other things, that we have admitted nothing above us that surgeon, which is to say with the most active, the most caustic in fact of
might drive us to blasphemy or laughter. contemptuous sympathies. The disintegrated human material to which we
The objectivity of science does not cease to exist in us at the moment ~ddress ourselves-in order to subordinate that material to values that escape
when we take a position against rationalism in general. And since our attitude it-can only be cut down by lucid men.
is irrational, since it results directly from impulses that we have not jointly . I. do not even imagine that such a hope could be conceived so pre-
devised, we can refer this attitude and these impulses to a group of facts Cisely if we were not in the position to bring lucidity to its apogee. In the
whose consequences and antecedents are known. The consciousness that eyes of those who cling to what is immediately visible, there is nothing to
follows from an understanding extended from the different possible forms hope for'. He who sees human beings at risk around him, who, in anguish
of affective life is one entirely new element in an elaboration of collective, despite h1mse,lf, keeps a close eye on his private conversations, if, as is natural,
impassioned forms of life, a paradoxical element that offers precisely one he has .the fever. of som~thing more, there remains for him only to accept
exact figure, one particular direction for all of our possible activity. prostration. But 1f there 1s something analogous to icy contempt and scien-
In this way, mythology inserted itself into our understanding from the tific aggression in him, all these vague movements of bones and lips are no
beginning as an arch key to a science of society, perhaps even as a game of more than a mask to tear off, a mask that hides nothing more than inner
enchanting images given as nourishment to our disquiet. Here is a condition combustion. Behind the ashes and the waste, he perceives a motion that is
that should seem irreconcilable with a religious attitude to which only the difficult to detect, but with all the more reason to catch his breath all life
unconscious and naivete would offer a course. But it suffices to oppose this in slow formation, revealing its incandescent marks and its ceaseles~ly bro-
pessimistic thought with a representation of everything about contemporary ken structures bit by bit, more like a mortal wound, a greedy scream, than
life that is different from life during the first years of Buddhism and Chris- everything that the strange lacerations of poetic inspiration have permitted
tianity. Buddhism and Christianity found themselves equal to their times; to us suppose across the night.
they were naturally inspired within the history of thought in their day. "The It is true that I am speaking of a vision that is not yet accessible. But
Gospel according to Saint John is a laughable testimony." It would be sense- I am speaking about it precisely because I understand that the inaccessible
less today because communal exaltation should be recovered, but the secret is n~ture of this reason that human beings exist-this could not be designated
lost in the Gospel and seems to belong to the past, imagining only regressive with greater precision-is the obstacle that should be overcome by us, it is
forms as possible. The religious exigency, whatever acid it can reveal from the fog that should be cleared so that this impious promised land can reveal
one day to the next, does not demand that anyone risk mystics or prophets. itself in the light of day. But the obstacle at stake here is not among those
It is true that Nietzsche, paralyzed by the impoverished forms of life of his that can only be reached and overcome after a long wait: the promised land
day, had necessary recourse to the fiction of Zarathustra in order to express is still inaccessible, but, that it may become so-and this should be said in
himsl'lf rnmpktl'ly. But Nietzsche did not express himsl'lf only in the voice categorical terms-very little is now necessary. The effort that is incumbent
of Zaratlmstra-even though Zarathustra 's burning pa,~ion i~ essential to his upon us in particular is limited, and its short limits are not our choice but
 Appendices Appendices

result from the present state of knowledge. Methods of investigation have militia, a secret society or a political party. And if Freud himself was not able
been elaborated that have led to a precise understanding of the affective to practice a general analysis of living forms, this is not to say that he did not
structure of primitive societies. These societies appear to have been con- leave the possibility of crossing that divide open to those who follow him. And
structed mythically and ritually, to the extent that a human being does not not only the analysis of what is, is henceforth open in several senses, but it
exist within them like an isolated brick. The images and the rites of primi- has become possible to envision experience itself, which is to say the attempt
tive and savage communities, heavily charged with affective value, represent to pass from understanding into action. Facing the great formations-those
for us the fabric of these communities. And, to the extent that we move to that unite living beings-that have brutally closed and fixed existence in
a philosophical interpretation of these facts, we will admit that these myths other countries, attempting a religious movement or perhaps more precisely a
and rites compose the being of these communities. The methods that have "church," that in response to the immediate needs of a composition of forces,
lead to these capital representations have not yet discovered their essential will not only unite existence but will also to set it free.
point of application since they have never had as an object anything but Here it is necessary to cleanly and even brutally indicate how these
forms of human existence distant from us: with a few rare exceptions, no possibilities present themselves. I began by speaking of science. Now I am
one has wanted to make contemporary society, the society that we "live," speaking of experience. But it is obvious that the vocabulary here will intro-
the object of a structural analysis. duce a misunderstanding if something was continued from this subordina-
It is possible that a kind of tacit taboo strikes such a temptation (or tion of experience to the science that goes along with it when it does not
"attempt"). However, until recently, difficulties that were not at all religious concern human life. Experience, in the case we are imagining, dominates in
were in fact opposed to it. The existence of the social community was pro- so imperious a way that it would be laughable to compare such a situation
foundly disintegrated, everything that could be designated by the name structural to that of medicine. Medicine imagines effectively only the middle terms,
.fa/Jric presented itself as a holdover from the past, not as a truly living tissue, the organs, the functions, that could be indispensable to life but that do
~till less as a form in formation. But for the last twenty years the communal not constitute the goal or end of that life. Sociology-and more precisely
exi~tence in which we participate has undergone transformations that count
mythological sociology-on the contrary imagines only the goal or end of
among the most rapid that our historical understanding permits us to perceive man, which can only be found beyond him:' Myths are even more than the
across the threads of time. The facts that we can analyze directly-because spaces in which individual existences come together: they are the reason a
they are present-represent an unexpected richness of material for analysis, human being can offer that which is most precious to him, his blood. Here
and this richness is opposed to the exceptional poverty of the first years of an~ here only existence accedes to the totality of being and in this dizzying and
the twentieth century. The fabric that forms the social structure has prolifer- weighty moment everything that is still only a function-science itself-enters
ated before our eyes with a stupefying vigor, and the principles that have a region of silence. Because even if it becomes the only means to which we
been established in decomposing societies have found themselves marked, can appeal to discern in the shadows exactly what it brings us, this means of
in a certain case, as a waste deprived of life. This new fabric is precisely of discernment can only be confused with what is revealed. All that we should
the same nature as that of primitive societies: it is mythic and ritual; it has be able to affirm from the outset is first, that in the case in which we place
shaped itself vigorously around images charged with the strongest affective ourselves science cannot push us to discover in its object the values that it
value; it has formed itself in the vast movements of crowds regulated by a is reduced to observing without being able to ground them rationally; and
ceremony introducing symbols that subjugate them. second, reciprocally, there is no preexisting affective predetermination in us
Incidentally, our chance holds that Freud already introduced a facility for that might be able to soften the cold objectivity of science within us.
the specific interpretation of these facts. The analysis of the affective structure And undoubtedly this final point is essential precisely at the moment
of the army and of the church, as Freud set it out in his Group Psycholo,(!y wherein I should be able to insist on the necessity of moving to a choice.
1111d the Analysis of the Ego, is perhaps one of science's most surprising and
Two radically opposed methods of experience appear in effect possible a priori.
most consequential revelations about the nature of life, for it is not only an Following one, we would proceed to whatever experience is possible, which is
introduction to the comprehension of great forms that unite their members. to say that one would have no other goal than to create a common existence,
Having acquired knowledge of the facts about primitives, the premises of a "church" that could definitively be no more than a party; following the
Frlud's analysis open the way to a general understanding of social structures other, one would set out from some principles revealed by a transcendent
of all kinds, whtthtr it be of a church or a religious order, an army or a authority. There is a way to avoid both of these solutions equally. There is
 Appendices Appendices

a goal that can be determined in advance without the intervention of any Chavy, Rene Chenon, Henri Dubief, Pierre Dugan, Henri Dussat, Imre Kelemen,
rtvdation: this goal is that of finding or recovering the totality (f being. I do and Pierre Klossowski, many of whom had followed Bataille from Boris Souvarine's
Democratic Communist Circle into the short-lived movement Counter-Attack, and
not think it should be necessary or even useful to have any other limitation
now into Acephale. Patrick and Isabelle Waldberg, Jean Rollin, Michel Koch, Taro
intervene, but to this alone such an ambition excludes a great number of Okamoto and others would join Acephale over the next two years, some members
possible experiences. Undoubtedly something of an immense freedom subsists, joining as others left. Andre Masson, Laure, Michel Leiris, and Michel Carrouges
something that has not ceased to preside over the formation of human bonds: were only occasional participants in the group, if they participated at all. At the very
because particular beings are always available for more than composition. least Bataille shared his thoughts about the group with them and invited them to
But in the given circumstances, the search for the totality depends on the participate on several occasions. Masson, Klossowki, Jean Rollin, Jean Wahl, Roger
ensemble of alterations to which the life of man is subjected: precisely at Caillois, and Jules Monnerot contributed to the journal Adphale, which reflected the
that moment. Totality, moreover, always demands what human beings reject thought of the secret society without being a direct adjunct to it. Bataille was the
under the influence of what they call "good sense," which is only a kind only consistent participant in both the journal and the group.
of aging: totality demands that life reunite itself and this is to say confound During these same months, Bataille, Caillois, Ambrosino, Klossowski, Monnerot,
and Pierre Libra (an unknown), founded the College of Sociology, with an initial
itsdf in an orgy with death. The object of experience ought therefore to
lecture in March. The lecture series would not begin in earnest until November. Also
be to pass from a certain fragmented and empty state of life liberated from during these months, Bataille, Rene Allendy, Adrien Borel, Paul Schiff, and Michel
the concern for death to this kind of brutal and suffocating refusal of all Leiris, among others, founded a society for the study of collective psychology.
that is, which undoubtedly takes place in numerous agonies. Bataille was, in short, active on several fronts-indeed in several disciplines-at
Beyond these considerations or similar ones, room should be made for the same moment. His was active in the fields of religion and myth, psychology and
frttdom! Myths-or to speak in a more precise way-the mythic images sociology, and he saw all of this as an extension of his previous political activism. All of
that are available to us do not refuse to speak. I mentioned the Trappists these agendas commingle in this lecture, which was addressed to Acephale alone.
11 fow minutes ago. It is not a question of us becoming Trappists; we have The text here translated was found among Bataille's papers deposited at the
nothing to do with Christian greed. We are free beings: a limitless generosity Bibliotheque Nationale after his death. Published for the first time with an intro-
11nd a Greek, which is to say happy naivete and even peculiar movements duction by Francis Gandon in the N.R.F. 537 (1 October 1982), 163-73, it was
reprinted in OC 11: 559-63. Another version of the text, with minor alternations,
of humor ... the kind of puerile avidity with which we approach the tragic
was found among Pierre Andler's papers and published in Marina Galletti, L'Apprenti
place where our existence offers itself, risks itself, will lack the generosity of
sorcier (Paris: Editions de la Difference, 1999), 36 7-78. Our translation follows the
a new Christian greed. Something the myths destroy amongst themselves, version published in the Oeuvres completes.
distend, and hate. That they resemble the stupid saints of fountains rather than
Christ! And that they can do this, facing a universe emptied of its servile 1. Translator's Note: The publication Bataille references here may be the
function, emptied of God; that they make human life into a festival equal journal Acephale, the first two issues of which had been published by January 193 7,
to so free a game of chance! or it may be the internal "journal" of the group, written by Bataille and circulated
I know that [ have once again said only a part of what is necessary: [ in February 1937 (see Galletti, L'Apprenti sorcier, 336-41). During these same months
bdkve that [ can communicate, truly communicate what I see, and at the Bataille drafted his manifesto piece, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice;' which would be
same time, bear what I experience in the presence of what I see; a lightening, published in the N.R.F. the following year.
a liberation, a need to act and to agitate others, a patient and terribly joyous 2. Translator's Note: In his early twenties, Bataille pursued a religious vocation.
med will necessarily follow for those who understand me. But it is clear to Later, having abandoned his faith, he studied Chinese, planning a trip to Tibet.
3. Translator's Note: The term mytlwlogical sociology will obviously be replaced
me that whatever I do, I can make this need only a little less obscure for
with sacred sociology within a few months. Sacred sociology will be the central concern
others. I would only like to add what I feel profoundly: in everything that of the College of Sociology.
I txpcrience like this, [ fade as far as a very short scream.

Notes

n~naillt dtliwred this ltt'tllrt to rnembtrs of the St'rl't't ~Odl'ty Arc'.phalt

durini-1 tilt' spri111-1 of ll>.l7. Tin- i;:mup t!w11 indudld ( :c-or~l~ Amhrmino, Jan111ts

t.95
 APPENDIX TWO

Silence and Literature

Georges Bataille
Translated by Stuart Kendall

There is a bad joke in comparing Maurice Blanchot to Wells' "invisible man."

First off, the author in question never wanted to reveal the nothingness that
Wells' specter revealed when he unwrapped the bandages that covered him.
Yet, on another level, silence is revealed in the sentences that Blanchot's
novels undo or develop, if you like. Nevertheless, in this distinction 1 find
an exact image. Blanchot's works have a single object, silence, and it is true
that the author lets us hear this silence in almost the same way that Wells
lets us see his invisibility (what the film drawn from this story unveiled so
terribly and so perfectly).
The joke, all told, is interesting for this reason: it is difficult, through
this comparison, to suggest the role that Blanchot gives to literature in his
works; it is more difficult still without it. The author, it is true, explains
himself on this point in his critical writings, but a tangible representation
is not bad. 1 I should offer this corrective without waiting: there was some-
thing troublesome about the Wells image, a kind of unhappy aggressiveness,
a terrified terror, that created-still more than a trap holding us-the stupid
mishap of suffering. Iri Blanchot's novels, there is neither trap nor capture,
and the image of a final silence beneath the words, if it is no less striking
than that of nothingness visible beneath clothes, if it is troubling and if it
even appears contrary to all repose, it is nevertheless neutral, being entirely
incapable of intention; leaving us in the end-perhaps-with only a sense
of distant friendship, distant complicity.
 Appendices Appendices

Friendship? Complicity? This is precisely where the paradox ofBlanchot I have shut myself up in a room, alone, there is no one in the
lies. I fear that to most of his readers, his name suggests a world of anguish house, almost no one outside, but this solitude has itself begun
or of the reflection that anguish encloses. I should recognize, effectively, that to s~eak, a?~ I must in turn speak about this speaking solitude,
the author's manner of expressing himself nourishes such a feeling. In fact, not in dens10n, but because a greater solitude hovers above it
a literature like this is made to disappoint in every way. It imposes itself and above tha.t solitude, another still greater, and each, taking th;
with a mastery that literature rarely attains, but it is to be feared that once spoken word in order to smother it and silence it, instead echoes
this mastery has been recognized the reader complains of not seeing it, the it to infinity, and infinity becomes its echo. 2 '

better to absolutely fail to see what the author wants to say. This impression
is not justified. But it is inevitable. The problem .of silence could not be posed with more precision: the
I should on the contrary insist on the fact that Maurice Blanchot's problem of sile~ce is a question of speaking, silence being the last thing that
"recits" do not share in the almost de rigueur depression of our times. Not language can silence, and which language cannot nonetheless take as its
only is When the Time Comes a happy book, but there is no other book that object without a kind of crime.
offers such a description of happiness. If such a book still invites confusion, First off, a crime against language, in regard to which the writer who
it is because the author's mode of expression introduces into literature a kind chooses silence as an object stands as in incest before the law is also a crime
of perfect reversibility, in a way similar to that of the movement of a horse ~gains~ silence itself. I do not know of a better way for a wri~er to enter the
on screen, if one suddenly reverses the film. This is what my first image inextn~able pathways of scandal, a better way for a writer to rise up against
attlmpted to indicate in a less precise way: pulling back the bandages reveals the weight that regulates the conduct and judgment of all men. And how can
thl' void. For the author, nothing is comparable to silence. He is profoundly one conceive of a possibility of escape? The inevitable trickery is at the same
01hsorhed in silence, effortlessly, without misfortune: effort and misfortune moment the impossibility of trickery, since the demand to which we must
only begin at the moment when he begins to speak. respond is our own. Of course, each of us remains free to speak, but since
How can one bring too much silent attention to the author, saying one cannot enter into this kingdom where one would know what language
(that which, in a kind of brusque and monstrous tearing, draws from language does not rev.cal, that ab~u~ which Maurice Blanchot has spoken in his books,
~omething other than language, that which language brings to an end): through a kind of prodig10us and frightening effort, wherein failure is only
offered at. ~he limits of one_'s forces, which is in the end tolerable only on
My only strong point was my silence. Such a great silence seems one condition: ceaseless deliverance to the judgment that loss betrays.
incredible to me when I think about it, not a virtue, because it . To speak o~ the o?e w~o speaks of silence, I can only play the game
in no way occurred to me to talk, but precisely that the silence in my turn. with inc~easing difficulty. But this is not without compensation.
never said to itself: be careful, there is something here for which I have ret~i~ed a latitude .... What I say is perhaps provisional, and it is at
you owe me an explanation, the fact that neither my memory, least permissible for me to simplify. If I should speak of When the Time Comes
nor my daily life, nor my work, nor my actions, nor my spoken I. can still say of. this ap~arition, not being or at least not right now bein~
words, nor the words which come from my fingertips ever alluded l~nked to the desire for silence, that unrolling the bandages has revealed what
directly or indirectly to the thing which my whole person was si~e~ce .undoubtedly ~nd alone reveals: that it has the feeling of happiness (in
physically engrossed in. I cannot understand this reserve, and I distinct10n from the image ofWells' man, and despite the fact that it did not
who am now speaking bitterly towards those silent days, those on t~e contrary: arise from a less frightening moment). Of happiness and of
silent years, as towards an inaccessible, unreal country, closed off nothing; of happiness exactly what no premeditation can attain, and what the
from everyone, and most of all from myself, yet where I have premeditatio~ of its duration would instantly change into nothing.
lived during a large part of my life, without exertion, without . One might suspect me of dulling what rigor alone ... Effectively, hap-
piness seems to fade ...
lksire, by a mystery which astonishes me now.
I have lost silence, and the regret I feel over that is immea- But I would like to show less vaguely that if this happiness, arisen
surabk. I cannot descrihc the pain that invades a man once he fro1:1 the extended desert of silence, followed from a story conforming to the
has begun to splak. It is a motionless pain that is itself pledged to ordinary rules of language, it would remain unknown to us. I should be able
1m1temss; bl'ClllSl' of it, tht 1111brcatl1tabk is thl dlment I hrcathc. to summarize the story as it proceeds, or so it seems to me. A man comes

19..9
 Appendices Appendices

looking for a woman, Judith, after a certain period. He says of her, "[T]here one would have expressed if it had not first been part of the silence that
was ckarly such an accumulation of events between us, excessive things, has no end).
tormtnts, incredible thoughts and also such a depth of happy forgetfulness
that it was not at all hard for her not to be surprised by me." 3 But she lives At that instant, there was no day, no night, no possibility, no
with Claudia at the time; Claudia is "the same age ... and her friend since expectation, no uneasiness, no repose, but nevertheless a man
childhood, but backs her up more like an older sister with a strong charac- standing wrapped in the silence of this speech: there was no day
ter."~ Claudia inserts herself between Judith and the narrator. Claudia is not and yet it is day, so that this woman sitting down there against the
beattn but in some way drowned by the narrator's absence of premeditation; wall, her body half inclined, her head bent toward her knees was
he finds Judith freely. Sometimes and as if by chance, the recit follows the no closer to me than I was near her, and the fact that she, wa~
easy course of a convincing reality, arising nevertheless from the half-sleep there did not mean that she was there, nor I, but the conflagra-
of rtality. "The fire had probably gone out. I recalled that fire with a feeling tion of this speech: now it is happening, something is happening,
of sympathy-it had allowed itself to be lit so easily a short time before, and the end is beginning. 7
during a snowfall. The flakes had been followed by powder, and the powder Forgetfulness has not passed over things, but I must say
by an attractive, radiant outdoors, something too manifest, an insistent appear- this: that in the brightness where they glitter, in this brightness
ance, almost an apparition-why that? Was the day trying to show itsel?" 5 But that doesn't destroy their limits, but unites the unlimited with a
between the images that follow one another, there remains a kind of void, constant and joyful "I see you," they shine in the intimacy of
cnlttd by the absence in the recit of any tissue tightly linking one group of a new beginning in which nothing else has a place; and as for
t'Vt'nts to another, essentially lacking the concerns and the intentions of the me, through them I have the immobility and inconstancy of a
L'hilrat'ters who are only given to us to the extent that the present instant reflection, an image wandering among images and drawn along
pON~t'~~es them. If these intentions are delimited in the meantime, it is as if with them in the monotony of a movement that appears to have
ne~ilted, rendered in the lightness of the moment. no conclusion just as it had no beginning. Perhaps, when I get
up, I have faith in the beginning: who would rise if he didn't
Each of them had her own household duties. "I'll do this." ''I'll know the day was beginning? But, even though I am still capable
do that." These duties were just as important as the large projects of taking many steps, which is why doors slam, windows open
of the future, they were solemn decisions that referred to another and, the light coming in once again, all things are also in their
world. "I'll go buy some wood!" ''I'll go to the laundry!" ''I'll places, unalterable, joyful, definitely present, with a presence that
speak to the concierge!" All this flew over their two cups, in the is firm and even so definite and so constant that I know they
morning, like eternal vows. "The vacuum cleaner!" "The leak!" are indelible, immobile in the glittering eternity of their images.
"The blocked up garbage chute!" And the conclusion, the dismal But, seeing them there, where they are, slightly distanced from
end of every venture: "Madame Moffat will get rid of all that." themselves within their presence, and transformed, by this imper-
The doors slammed, banged. The chilly air, ferreting about, ran ceptible withdrawal, into the happy beauty of a reflection, even
behind them wherever they went, busy, idle, with no other role though I am still capable of taking many steps, I too can do no
but to wrap their comings and goings in a fringe of cloth. 6 more than come and go in the tranquil immobility of my own
image, bound to the floating festival of an instant that no longer
But nothing ever meshes with a hope for the future any less disinterested passes. It may seem astonishing that I should descend so far from
than these "deep snowy masses," this snow "becoming once again a gloomy myself, into a place one could, I think, call the abyss, and that I
dtpth," this "so somber (infinitely if uselessly white)" time. Never in these should only have surrendered me to the joyful space of a festival,
succtssive moments do the past and the future escape from what is uncertain, the eternal glitter of an image, and I would be surprised by this
usdtss, and stifling about the present. Nothing however is more eventful, too, if I had not felt the burden of this indefatigable lightness, the
dazzling, or gay. But in the end that which puts thought to sleep is, in this infinite weight of a sky in which what one sees remains there
1m1tlkd world from which an animal's cry occasionally escapes, the imagt where the boundaries sprawl out and the distance shines nigh;
of happiness that only sik111:e would know how to suppn:ss (and which no and day with the radiance of a beautiful surface. 8
 Appendices

In such a language whose abundance is a kind of dizzying fall, mastered

nevertheless, how can one not see that the meaning is to reveal what is
already a nothingness, the instant alone being the dazzling burst, that which,
in the world of duration (and of intentions), is only the void without which
this inner state would be less intense.
APPENDIX THREE
Notes

This review of Maurice Blanchot's Au moment voulu was originally published

in Critique 57 (February 1952): 99-104; reprinted in OC 12: 173-78. The Political Lie
1. Maurice Blanchot, Faux pas (Paris: Gallimard, 1943); Faux Pas, trans. Char-
lotte Mandell (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001); Lautreamont et Sade (Paris:
Editions de Minuit, 1949); Lautreamont and Sade, trans. Stuart Kendall and Michelle
Kendall (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004); La Part du feu (Paris: Gallimard, Georges Bataille
I 1)49); The Work of Fire, trans. Charlotte Mandell (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1995). Translated by Stuart Kendall
2. Maurice Blanchot, L'Arret de mort (Paris: Gallimard, 1948), 64-65. Death
81'11tc11tc', trans. Lydia Davis (Barrytown, NY: Station Hill, 1978), 32-33.
3. Maurice Blanchot, Au moment voulu (Paris: Gallimard, 1951), 8. When the
'f'llllC' Cc11ms, trans. Lydia Davis (Barrytown, NY: Station Hill, 1985), 1. In our day lies and the indignation that they provoke have assumed an
4. Ibid., 25/9. important role in the political scene. Action delays the drawing of weapons
5. Ibid., 81/34-35. as little as possible: one hopes to convince before using force and finds an
6. Ibid., 73/31. advantage in distortion, sometimes silencing the truth.
7. Ibid., 145-46/64.
No one is surprised that it should be this way. But, they tell us, the cause
8. Ibid., 158-60/70-71.
of freedom and justice cannot adjust to lies. Lies can be a natural weapon
in the oppression of the weak, in the abuse of power. Would someone lie
if they were not seeking to force us to do something? Undoubtedly it is
easy to object that lies easily occasion social constraint, that one does not
lie to slaves, that the history of politics is that of an advance in the art of
lying. (Has Christianity not proven the inviolability of a world wherein every
participant sees, naked and uncompensated, the brutality of institutions? Has
it not decidedly engaged the progress of mores along the path of a neces-
sary dissimulation?) But the debate about lies has its place in the world of
intelligence, between those who make a profession of speaking and maintain
their raison d'etre in their use of language. The political lie can be necessary
in another way: it ruins not only free speech but free discussion where the
"intellectual" moves and encloses him or herself. Hence the insistence on
protesting against the political realism of communist rulers.
I do not want it to be understood that I think the edifice to which
I am now contributing is vain .... But the question of the lie is posed in a
debate that exceeds legitimate preoccupations linked to the exercise of thought.
 Appendices Appendices

Today a conflict opposes the communist world to the capitalist world. This that their lies are effective. Action is struggle and, to the extent that there is
conflict is not in a violent phase, and until the new order it will unfold in struggle, the diverse .forms of violence are unlimited, nor is there any limit,
the form of a moral debate: it is even, undoubtedly, the sharpest debate in beyo~d efficacy, to hes. Every other way of seeing things is idealist and as
the moral history of humanity, because in the end it poses ultimate questions such Is the tru~ leper of the soul: it is the incapacity of seeing right, the
without refuge (the questions are no longer posed to an abstract humanity, weakness that diverts the eyes for fear of being unable to endure.
whose life is already assured: man must struggle for life and death). Having O~e c~nno~ insist too strongly on this: to act is to struggle reasonably.
laboriously raised ourselves to the height of moral interrogation, we would Strat~gy is the rational rule of combat: it opposes the naive practices of savage
certainly understand finding it unpleasant to encounter an individual who warriors, who wanted to display their bravery first; it is the art of obtaining
is oppressed, crushed, shaken with anger, who lacks the leisure necessary for a supplementary efficacy through a game of force, using or provoking errors
reflection, who has come to us for an accounting, we who without the aid on th~ part. o~ one's adversary. Transposed into the ideological struggle, the
of his sweat would have to sweat in his place. The encounter with com- strategIC prmc1~le demands that one reject the truth, but this is likely to
rmmism, which is not only a system of ideas but generally the irruption of conquer the resistance of those who hesitate or to overcome the lassitude of
real force in the system of ideas, could have been accommodated by thought supporters. Of course, it is not certain that the lie does not return in kind.
as a possibility. Most adherents to the movement who are foreign to human !he lie. is bad if the listener is wearied. An ideological expression does not
reflection have another reaction, but this is not to hold them in contempt mtend isolated results; it intends to create a lasting link between those who
but, on the contrary, to invite them to reflect more profoundly, to forget the speak an? t~eir. listeners. In particular, if one intends to fight oppression and
concerns that are their own and that leave most men indifferent. to establish JUStlce, the efficacy of the lie is limited. But again it is a question
Could they not say to themselves, these men, if it disturbs the laws ef t;fficacy: the moral question cannot be posed.
that found the life proper to the intellectual world, that it is incumbent We will undou.bte~ly see in this position a manner of lessening a
upon their thought, first, to seek reasons, rather than to respond to passion debate that some mamtam at the height of nai've sentimentalism. But it is
with passion, and to respond to a force that they believe is blind with an n?t doubtful that despite appearances, horror of the lies aroused by commu-
indignation that they believe is not? mst propaganda has a. brief meaning. The "intellectuals" cannot bear the fact
Here I cannot examine the question of knowing if the communists that s~eech, which is .their goal, should be treated as a means in propaganda.
are liars, or to what extent they are. But supposing that they are, and that Here It must b~ said p.recisely that the use of speech toward the goals of
their lies exceed the "authorized" margin (and this debatable opinion at least propaganda-of 1deolog1Cal strategy-places the foundation of the intellectual
appears to be reasonable), I wonder if it is not light, contradictory, and, for edifice in question. If the dominant authority is efficacy, the conditions that
the vigor of intelligence, deleterious to expressly stop our reflection about permit the r~lative autonomy of thought are no longer present. Therein lies
communism at the question of lies. the most serious problem; one would not know how to negate the role of
"The lie, it is said, is the leper of the soul" (Marc Bloch, quoted by autonomous thought in the developm~nt of man; one would also not know
Roger Stephane in his questionnaire about communism). I believe I am as how to ~issoci~te a~to.nomy from this development, often purchased by
moved as anyone else is by a love of the truth; and I do not really know cruel. sacrifices: 1? prmople, man identifies his destiny with that of his spirit.
what we owe to Marc Bloch's memoir. But this affirmation made in general ~ut if the. question of communism has the importance that I give it, does
is unreasonable, because if it is the case, all action is leprous. I should say: It not belittle it by limiting it to the particular problem of the intellectual
I am not really interested in action; the supreme value that is attributed to world?. The c?m.munist question is elsewhere; it is intimate in other ways,
it seems very debatable to me (to the extent that after the fact one can and this puts m its place an external preoccupation that holds it to the naive
say that an action is in a sense a necessity, of the same order as a bitter vituperation of lies. I think, on the other hand, that a formal protestation
n.'llll'dy or the payment of a debt). But I cannot compare a man of action against principles that are fatal to thought paralyzes no less profoundly the
to a leper. For the man of action, lies are evidently no less necessary than m?ve.ment of thought that will not perform a rigorous application of these
spl'l'ch. And moreover, if he refuses to lie, I could only look at him with prmc1ples themselves.
an astonishment nuanced by irritation: asking myself if he had been carried The thought that naively asks reality (in the hands of political power)
away by hysteria or hy his unconscious. Thml' who .1p1c1k of action .~prak of to respect the laws that direct it-without which it would not exist-is
not lying. But those who act, and know how to ;irt, lit' to the extent that comparable to the proper mother who cracks her stubborn kid's head in
 Appendices Appendices

order to resolve his problems. Undoubtedly, the human spirit is in atrophy if extent as the others, we must first accept being things. It is only when human-
immediately restrained to efficacy. Thought cannot be subordinated: that of ity as a whole will have ceased being oppressed, when no commodity-man
men of action who live in necessity is never anything but embryonic (that remains anywhere to be sold that we can ourselves escape reduction. Only
of Marx is a tribute, if not to Hegel, to his own developments, preliminary there, at the level of the available thing, at the level of debased humanity,
to his Theses on Feuerbach). But inaction, ineffectiveness, if you will, is no must we contribute in the field to an immense labor of liberation.
less inevitably harmful to liberty. In the end, would propriety and logorrhea We must ev:en envision troublesome refinements. The development
be any less foreign to thought than constraint? of science is by nature intended to permit a marked reduction of human
1

But leave thought to the side: thought is always developed in very bad nature to a thing. The "political lie" is itself the first work of a science that
conditions; its greatest danger would be to offer it what it would choose. One will generally make man into a field of experiments to which science will
can say nothing that would put communism or its methods in an awkward respond rationally. Pedagogy and biology, for their parts, are susceptible to
position if one refuses to get to the bottom of them. If one envisions the suppress with an increasing perfection man's resistance to the activities of the
methods of communism, they are quickly revealed to be effective. It may be state. It is thus of a decisive importance that the state itself not surpass in
that they betray an initial intention: that is something else. But if one denounces any ':ay the principles of the thing, that it holds sovereign only the name,
this betrayal, one is thereby charged with responding effectively. It does not that It should be subordinated without reserve to the individuals that it
suffice to say: current communism is far from real communism .... One can say subordinates, being itself only an instrument and a soulless object.
nothing of the kind without action-with consecrating one's entire life to effective At that moment, man will be free!
action. The loss, on this level, would have the value of a negative demonstra- And we can no longer speak of it.
tion. Marxism is not a pure theory: it is the enactment of possibilities given But it is in this way that it becomes a pure object in the limitless
by history. But no one is held to be Marxist (even in the U.S.S.R., where functioning of operations, that the question of humanity is posed with a
<>ne can silence oneself or lie). No one is held to speak of true communism. sufficient rigor. From that moment, man's repudiation of human community
I do not think it is necessary to envision the always debatable consequences takes on another meaning; it is no longer the careless repudiation that the
of a doctrine here. I am only trying to clearly define the inevitable problem strong make of the weak nor the puerile flight of conscience. The individual
that Marxism and the U.S.S.R. pose to humanity today. distances himself without seeing the one who effaces him (who in return is
It cannot be doubted that there has been oppression in the world ready t~ efface him). The man of objective society should on the contrary
and that we are only partially enslaved. To the extent that we are oppressed gras~ his own h~manity in the consciousness of his reduction to a thing
and enslaved, we are no longer human beings but rather things. We cannot and m the consnousness of the limits of that reduction.
lucidly accept being things. To the extent that we feel reduced to things we Naturally it is unfortunate in a sense that everything has taken place
an.~ engaged in the destruction of those who reduce us in this manner. at night, that communism cannot offer assurance, and that it seems at first
We cannot escape reduction individually, other than in what is still to stray radically from the goal that it is in its essence to pursue. It is not
a doubtful way. In fact, for this we must integrate ourselves into a world natural to eliminate errors, misunderstandings, or wars. It is true that they
wherein human beings are basically treated like commodities. At least through only apparently depend on man. It is certainly sad that the result can be
complicity, we must make our neighbors commodities. To truly escape we hoped for only at the end of the conflagration-at the point when it is
must continually destroy the effect of our integration, pushing us beyond certain that we will not escape the horror, but it is doubtful that the result
things, violently affirming our individuality. But we will cease to be things will elude us.
only in the affirmation that separates us from humanity in general. Our This would not know how to exempt us from perceiving in the
individuality aggressively acknowledged (against the others) is not treated as a reproached reductions of communism more than a derangement of intel-
commodity; the simple humanity in us is never recognized for what it truly lectual tranquility: the troublesome radical position, arousing the fundamental
is-c11tircly oilier than a thing. We only affirm the repudiation of the human problem to the ultimate degree. Man cannot be taken for a thing. And it is
rn111munity. We are traitors insidiously. for this reason that he is a communist. (But it must be added: communism
But if we refuse individual flight, and if we affirm the human commu- ~a~ only i~itially complete, generalize the reduction of man to a thing, and
nity-if we accept not bling things whik at till' same time and to the same It is for this reason that man must fight communism to the death.)

207
 Appendices

Claude Aveline, Jean Cassou, Andre Chamson, Georges Friedmann, Louis

Martin-Chauffier, Vercors, L'heure du choix (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1947).

From the fact that they are not members of the communist party
but simply sympathizers, the authors of the studies gathered in
this collection discuss certain political positions. They specify
that in their eyes the U.S.S.R. is an example not a model. French
communism might pursue independent ways and recognize limits
to the necessities of propaganda. One must account for the fun-
damental political facts of the present period: to know it is vain
henceforth to envision the possibilities of an enterprise beyond
a war. Whatever the obstacles on one side, some foreigners on David B. Allisoa
the other, whatever these essays owe political realism, it would be
vain, it would not conform with political realism itself, to forget
that these positions are held by most members of the French
communist party.

Roger Stephane, ed. Questions du communisme, a special issue of Confluences

vol. 8 new series, n 18-20 (1947). Including responses from R. Aron, Edward S.
J. Beaufret, J. Benda, R. Caillois, M. Collinet, J.T. Desnati, J. Domarchi,
I. Dorgot,J. Kanapa, H. Lefebvre, S. de Madariaga,J.-J. Marchand, G. Martinet,
R. Maublanc, E. Mounier, A. Patri, P. Pia, G. Picon, D. Rousset, A. de Soras, department at S
S. Spender, R. Tavernier, Tran-Due Thao, R. Vaillard, and Vercors. been elected p
His books incl
The rare communists who responded to this inquiry did so not
without humor. Roger Stephane's questionnaire cites Malraux
and Sartre effectively, and naturally speaks of lies and of liberty;
it engages the discussion in the direction of individualism and
morality which underscores the disorder resulting from contra- Marc Froment
dictions between the immediate actions of communism and its publications retl
distant goals. authored books
a Heidegger (G
Tombeau de Trakl
Notes

This article originally appeared in Critique 25 Qune 1948): 561-66; reprinted

in OC 11: 332-38.

208