One Makes War To Win, Not Because

The Real Political Task In A Society Such As Ours Is To Criticize The Workings Of Institutions That Appear To Be Both Neutral And Independent, To Criticize And Attack Them In Such A Manner That The Political Violence That Has Always Exercised Itself Obscurely Through Them Will Be Unmasked, So That One Can Fight Against Them.

I Think I Have In Fact Been Situated In Most Of The Squares On The Political Checkerboard, One After Another And Sometimes Simultaneously: As Anarchist, Leftist, Ostentatious Or Disguised Marxist, Nihilist, Explicit Or Secret Anti-marxist, Technocrat In The Service Of Gaullism, New Liberal And So On.

Prison Continues, On Those Who Are Entrusted To It, A Work Begun Elsewhere, Which The Whole Of Society Pursues On Each Individual Through Innumerable Mechanisms Of Discipline.

During The Years 1945-1965 (i Am Referring To Europe), There Was A Certain Way Of Thinking Correctly, A Certain Style Of Politicaldiscourse, A Certain Ethics Of The Intellectual. One Had To Be On Familiar Terms With Marx, Not Let One's Dreams Stray Too Far From Freud.... These Were Therequirements That Made The Strange Occupation Of Writing And Speaking A Measure Of Truth About Oneself And One's Time Acceptable.

I Believe That Political Power Exercises Itself Through The Mediation Of A Certain Number Of Institutions Which Look As If They Have Nothing In Common With The Political Power, And As If They Are Independent Of It, While They Are Not.