10 Quotes & Sayings By Raoul Vaneigem

Raoul Vaneigem was born in Paris on 8 November 1926. He is the son of Jacques Vaneigem, a philosopher who co-founded Situationism together with Guy Debord, and Renée Chantal, an actress. Raoul's mother came from a military family, his father was the son of a sergeant of Belgian origin. He grew up in Brussels and spent several years in Toulon before returning to Brussels at the age of twelve Read more

During these years, he attended Belgian secondary school where he started writing poetry. He then began his studies at the University of Brussels, where he became interested in Camus' philosophy and existentialism. During World War II he was arrested by the German authorities, but was released after showing them proof of his Jewish origin.

He continued his studies at the University of Louvain, where he completed his thesis on Camus' philosophy under the supervision of Louis Althusser. After graduating in 1947, Vaneigem relocated to Paris where he worked as an editor for various journals on philosophy and art until 1950. In this period, he also published several articles on poetry and aesthetics—his first important work—and started writing poems again (he had given up poetry during World War II).

On this subject, Vaneigem wrote: "Without my first poem I would not have written my first novel." This first novel (published under the pseudonym Raoul Stael) is very different from what followed: it is written in free verse on the theme of death and was inspired by Camus' The Stranger which Vaneigem read for the first time during his stay in prison. In 1952 Vaneigem accepted a job as curator at the Société du Louvre Museum in charge of modern art exhibitions. In 1958 he released a second book under his own name: Le Joujou du diable (The Devil's Toy) which is based on a story by Dostoevsky's The Devils.

It is a collection of poems that has been described as "a turning point" in Vaneigem's career because it made him into a poet again after more than ten years as an author only. In addition to this work, he also published two other books during this period: Aspects de l'esthétique du désir (Aesthetic Aspects of Desire), around 1957, and L'Harmattan du diable (The Devil's Harmattan),

1
The millions of human beings who were shot, tortured, starved, treated like animals and made the object of a conspiracy of ridicule, can sleep in peace in their communal graves, for at least the struggle in which they died has enabled their descendants, isolated in their air-conditioned apartments, to believe, on the strength of their daily dose of television, that they are happy and free. The Communards went down, fighting to the last, so that you too could qualify for a Caribbean cruise. Raoul Vaneigem
2
To talk of a modern work of art enduring is sillier than talking of the eternal values of Standard Oil. Raoul Vaneigem
3
Down with a world in which the guarantee that we will not die of starvation has been purchased with the guarantee that we will die of boredom. Raoul Vaneigem
4
My creativity, no matter how poor, is for me a far better guide than all the knowledge with which my head has been crammed. In the night of Power, its glimmer keeps the enemy forces at bay. Raoul Vaneigem
5
No more Guernicas, no more Auschwitzes, no more Hiroshimas, no more Setifs. Hooray! But what about the impossibility of living, what about this stifling mediocrity and this absence of passion? What about the jealous fury in which the rankling of never being ourselves drives us to imagine that other people are happy? What about this feeling of never really being inside your own skin? Raoul Vaneigem
6
We can escape the commonplace only by manipulating it, controlling it, thrusting it into our dreams or surrendering it to the free play of our subjectivity. Raoul Vaneigem
7
In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king. A democratic monarchy: equality before consumption, fraternity in consumption, and freedom through consumption. Raoul Vaneigem
8
Purchasing power is a license to purchase power. Raoul Vaneigem
9
The same people who are murdered slowly in the mechanized slaughterhouses of work are also arguing, singing, drinking, dancing, making love, holding the streets, picking up weapons and inventing a new poetry. Raoul Vaneigem