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Cornelius Castoriadis
8 quotes
“Either history is really governed by laws, and in that case a truly human-activity is impossible, except perhaps in a technical sense; or human beings really make their own history, and then the task of theory will not be directed to discovering 'laws', but to the elucidation of the conditions with in which human activity unfolds.”
Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From an interview conducted on 23 March 1983 for the May-August issue of the French journal Lutter ("Marx today: the tragicomical paradox "). It was translated by Franco Schiavoni for the January 1984 issue of the Austr…
“A century after the Communist Manifesto was written and thirty years after the Russian Revolution, the revolutionary movement, which has witnessed great victories and suffered profound defeats, seems somehow to have disappeared. Like a river approaching the sea, it has broken up into rivulets, run into swamps and marshes, and finally dried up on the sands.”
Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Despite their noisy pretensions, all of them, the "Fourth International," anarchists, and "ultraleftists," are but historical memories, minute scabs on the wounds of the working class, destined to be shed as the new skin readies itself in the depths of its tissues.”
Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Reification, the essential tendency of capitalism, can never be wholly realized. If it were, if the system were actually able to change individuals into things moved only by economic “forces,” it would collapse not in the long run, but immediately. The struggle of people against reification is, just as much as the tendency towards reification, the condition for the functioning of capitalism. Capitalism can function only by continually drawing upon the genuinely human activity of those subject to it, while at the same time trying to level and dehumanize them as much as possible.”
Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wo Ich bin, soll Es auftauchen.”
Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no proper meaning … every expression is essentially tropic.”
Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cornelius Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Cambridge, Mass. 1987) p. 348 ().
“Rousseau already said this: the English believe that they are free because they elect representatives every five years, but they are free only one day every five years: the day of the election. And even that isn’t true. The election is rigged, not because the ballot boxes are being stuffed, but because the options are determined in advance. No one asked the people what they wanted to vote on. They are told, “vote for or against the Maastricht Treaty,” for example. But who made the Maastricht Treaty? It wasn’t us. There is Aristotle’s wonderful phrase responding to the question, “Who is the citizen?”: “The citizen is someone who is able to govern and to be governed.” Are there forty million citizens in France at the moment? Why wouldn’t they be able to govern? Because all political life aims precisely at making them forget how to govern. It aims at convincing them that there are experts to whom matters must be entrusted. There is thus a political counter-education. Whereas people should accustom themselves to exercising all sorts of responsibilities and taking initiatives, they accustom themselves to following the options that others present to them or voting for those options. And since people are far from being stupid, the result is that they believe in it less and less, and they become cynical, in a kind of political apathy.”
Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only one force can arise today to challenge the continuing decay and increasing barbarism of all regimes based upon exploitation: that of the producing class, the socialist proletariat. Constantly increasing in numbers through the industrialization of the world economy, ever more concentrated in the process of production, trained through misery and oppression to revolt against the ruling classes having had the chance to experience the results of its own "leadership," the working class, despite an increasing number of difficulties and obstacles, has ripened for revolution. The obstacles confronting it are not insurmountable. The whole history of the past century is there to prove that the proletariat represents, for the first time in human history, not only a class in revolt against exploitation but a class positively capable of overthrowing the exploiters and of organizing a free an d humane society. Its victory, and the fate of humanity, are in its hands.”
Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source