Inability to face up to the real debate. The May ‘68 movement showed that ultimately the great difficulty was at the level of affective relationships; this is parallel to the awareness that there must be an end to roles: revolutionary, counter-revolutionary, with all their gradations. Therefore, the inability to understand this level leads to preserving the role as a form and disregarding its content. This is akin to making an entry in a police file.¹

This powerlessness becomes even more apparent when the subject who poses as a revolutionary is in a deadlocked situation, at an impasse, for example when teaching children. The question is ultimately not what we teach, especially not revolution, but rather the affirmation of  being. Children must be able to feel that there is a human element. We can't stop there; we have to try to make them understand that this humanity is possible despite  the social order and not because of it.

On the other hand, by asserting oneself in one's revolutionary role and by communicating with no one, by taking a position according to this role, one can justify one's own revolutionary character. One cannot communicate because one is other, and otherness is the revolutionary character.

This also allows us to justify making a compromise: working and not supposedly being a victim of it: we distance ourselves, we stand out. In doing so, we do not live:

• due to the absence of contact with the beings of this world with whom we could initiate a "criticism, a questioning" of the dynamics of life;

• due to the absence of an attempt at an "alternative" life, at a different life.

Hence also hypocrisy because by maintaining this role, and the self-justificatory constraints it implies, there is a masking of what is. We save ourselves from self-questioning, which should nonetheless occur, since objectively we lead the same life as everyone else. So why justify ourselves as revolutionary and label the others as reactionaries? Why would similar behaviour be given two different labels? This explains our aggressiveness towards  these others because we do as they do. The only difference, then, will be brought forth by the insult. This is a means to make ourselves distinct at the same time as it translates our panic in the face of the tragic nature of life which imposes compromises on us that make us terribly unwell. The insult is a means to relieve anxiety.

A revolution can only be generous. Yet what kind of generosity does such behaviour reflect!? An attitude like this means that if such people come to power they will in turn become even more despicable executioners because they will have at their disposal an enormous armoury of justifications.

Anxiety stems from the fact that there is a crisis, that the various fundamental frames of reference have vanished (the proletariat as revolutionary subject) and that there is therefore a crisis of militancy. So, there is a vacuum that sucks in anxiety. It is conjured-away [conjurent] by resorting to spectacular attitudes and insults; in so doing, they completely misidentify their adversaries and place themselves amidst the generalised contempt.

Deep down, there is a fear of a life that poses objective difficulties; life as it is still confined in this world, and life as it could unfold outside of this world.

Lack of energy. It takes energy to think outside of racketeering schemes, to confront the void that these latter have produced.

They are therefore the manifestation of capital's de-substantisalisation of men and women.

Leftist behaviour is the pathology of the classic militant, and at the same time it is the best way of reintegrating into the logic of domination all those who have the inclination to oppose the system. All the more so because most of these leftists see things in terms of valorisation: they are against the system because, in the final analysis, they are not recognised for what they are. They want to be recognised for what they are at the lowest possible price (this is linked to the loss of willpower and of the effort needed  to achieve a goal). Most of the time the vision of these people does not rise to the level of a human vision where it is not just a question of work, of remuneration, of available time etc., but of interhuman relations. It’s these that are paramount; everything else follows from this. To have real human relations it is obvious that you need a given type of activity; therefore what is called politics, economy, etc. can only be subordinate, secondary.

They are the expression of a malaise and not of a rebellion. In this second case, one cannot be satisfied with affirming one's "badness", we have to look for the real ins-and-outs of a situation that places us in an intolerable condition. It never stops at human beings, but confronts the dynamics that turn human beings into adversaries or friends.

Translated by Howard Slater.
Original text at http://www.revueinvariance.net/gauchiste.html