wandering of humanity

The Wandering of Humanity (1973) by Jacques Camatte via 31 pg kindle version from anarchist library [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/jacques-camatte-the-wandering-of-humanity]

notes/quotes:

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Original Black & Red Introduction

..The author of these essays, Jacques Camatte, worked with Amadeo Bordiga and the group of Marxist theoreticians who were known as the Italian communist left. After the events which took place in France in May of 1968, Camatte, together with his comrades on Invariance, began a critical analysis of the activities of the Italian communist left, the work of Bordiga as well as the work of Marx. The title of the journal originally referred to “the invariance of the theory of the proletariat,” the theory of the League of Communists and the First International. By 1973 critics said of this journal that “nothing varies more than Invariance.” Camatte and his comrades, pursuing the critical analysis they had begun, were led to conclude that “what is invariant is the aspiration to rediscover the lost human community, and this cannot take place through a reestablishment of the past, but only through new creation.” Their theoretical quest led them to a complete rejection of the theory of revolutionary parties and organizations, the theory of revolutionary consciousness, the theory of the progressive development of productive forces. “The French May movement showed that what is needed is a new mode of living, a new life.” (The above quotations are from the last article in Invariance No. 3, 1973.)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Camatte]: Jacques Maurice Camatte (1935 – 19 April 2025) was a French writer and theorist. Originally a figure in the Bordigist current of the communist left, Camatte broke with Marxism in the early 1970s. He developed a critical theory of “domestication” in which he posited that capital has achieved “real domination” over society, structuring it in its own image and domesticating humanity. His later work is associated with primitivism, as he argued for the abolition of technology and the state and the restoration of a pre-capitalist human community, which he referred to using Karl Marx’s concept of the Gemeinwesen (“communal being”). His work, particularly his journal Invariance, was influential in the development of anarcho-primitivism in the English-speaking world, notably through his influence on Fredy Perlman.

(…) The essays in the present work were translated from French by Fredy Perlman with assistance from Camatte; the illustrations were selected and prepared by Allan Foster; Lorraine Perlman and Judy Campbell participated in the photography, printing and binding. (…)

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I. Repressive Consciousness — Communism

[note to self: some good words.. but .. i just read wolfi et al.. so not taking so many notes]

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The revolt of human beings threatened in the immediacy of their daily lives goes beyond demystification. The problem is to create other lives. This problem lies simultaneously outside the ancient discourse of the workers’ movement and its old practice, and outside the critique which considers this movement a simple ideology (and considers the human being an ideological precipitate).

hari rat park law et al

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Mystification does not only affect capitalist society but also affects the theory of capitalism. Marxist theory elevated to the rank of proletarian consciousness is a new form of consciousness: repressive consciousness. We will describe some of its characteristics, leaving aside the problem of determining whether or not all forms of consciousness throughout history are repressive.

to me.. nothing (no ‘consciousness’ ness et al) to date are from legit free people.. ie: black science of people/whales law.. et al

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From the middle of the 19th century, with the justification provided by Marxist theory (the theory of the proletariat), all humanity set out to wander: to develop productive forces.

to me.. not legit wandering ness if developing/productiving/forcing.. et al

*Human beings are dominated by their past being, while they contemplate it. It is a process which continually starts over again. Capital penetrates thought, consciousness, and thus destroys human beings such as they have been produced by centuries of class society. **Their loss of substance is the loss of their former being, which capital has pumped out of them. Since this process is almost over, capital is now turning from its attack against the past dimension of humanity to an attack against its future dimension: ***it must now conquer imagination. The human being is thus despoiled and tends to be reduced to the biological dimension. The phenomenon reaches the roots. In other words, ****the development of productive forces appears to have been necessary for the destruction of old schemas, modes of thought, archaic representations which limited human beings (this destruction is now being analyzed by philosophers like Foucault).

*rather.. whales are.. and why we need a global detox leap

**but actually deeper.. ie: missing pieces (almaas holes law) since forever..

***imagination compromised/lost too.. since forever..

****rather.. perpetuates it.. perpetuates not us ness..

nothing to date has gotten to root of problem

legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do.. otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness..  perpetuating survival triage.. for (blank)’s sake..

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We have to stop wandering and destroy the repressive consciousness which inhibits the emergence of communism. To do this we have to stop perceiving communism as a prolongation of the capitalist mode of production, and stop thinking it is enough to suppress exchange value and make use value triumphant. This dichotomy no longer signifies anything. Use value is tied to value even if it revolves around the principle of utility instead of productivity; related to the direct domination of human beings, it is inseparable from private property.

Communism is not a new mode of production; it is the affirmation of a new community. It is a question of being, of life, if only because there is a fundamental displacement: from generated activity to the living being who produced it. Until now men and women have been alienated by this production. They will not gain mastery over production, but will create new relations among themselves which will determine an entirely different activity.

again.. legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..

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Nor is communism a new society. Society grows out of the subjugation of some ethnic groups by others, or out of the formation of classes. Society is the network of social relations which quickly become despotic intermediaries. Man in society is man enslaved by society.

The domination of one group over another, the society of classes, originates in the sedentarization of the human being. .. Sedentary lives compounded by corporeal inactivity are the root cause of almost all the somatic and psychological illnesses of present-day human beings. An active and unfixed life will cure all these problems without medicine or psychiatry.

not deep enough.. need depth of missing pieces.. otherwise khan filling the gaps law et al

The passage to communism implies a transformation of technique. Technology is not a neutral thing; it is determined by the mode of production.

if still in sea world.. oooof

there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake..

ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition

otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness..  perpetuating survival triage.. for (blank)’s sake..

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We are all slaves of capital. *Liberation begins with the refusal to perceive oneself in terms of the categories of capital, namely as proletarian, as member of the new middle class, as capitalist, etc. Thus we also stop perceiving the other — in his movement toward liberation — in terms of those same categories.. master and slave. This goal cannot be realized by the establishment of communities which, always isolated, are never an obstacle to capital, can easily be surrounded by capital, and are no more than deviations in relation to its norm (deviations which make that norm visible for what it is). Nor can the goal be reached by the cultivation of one’s individual being, in which one would finally find the real human being. In reality these approaches should be connected. Perceiving oneself as a human being unshackled by any attributes already removes the dog collar imposed by class society. The desire for community is absolutely necessary. The reaffirmation of individuality (especially in its temporal aspect) is a rejection of domestication. But this is inadequate even as a first element of rebellion; the human being is an individuality and a Gemeinwesen. The reduction of the human being to his present inexpressive state could take place only because of the removal of Gemeinwesen, of the possibility for each individual to absorb the universal, to embrace the entirety of human relations within the entirety of time. The varied religions, philosophies and theories are mere substitutes for this essential component of human being. Since communism is the death of sameness, of repetition, human beings will emerge in all their diversity; Gemeinwesen will be affirmed by each. This implies that as of now we reject the despotism of a religion, a philosophy, a theory.

*again.. rather.. legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

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In this vast movement, it is futile to want to present oneself as the repository of truth. First of all truth, like value, needs a measure, a standard, a general equivalent, a norm, hence a State. Secondly, truth is never more than one truth. The historical inflation of this concept parallels the ever more thorough destruction of human beings. Nothing less can be proposed than another life where the gestures, the words, the imaginations and all the feelings of human beings will no longer be chained, where senses and brain will unite — only this union can eliminate all the fixations of madness. It is obvious that all this can only be conquered by the destruction of the capitalist mode of production. It is all of humanity perceived through time that is hostile to capital. Human beings will have to undergo a profound revolutionization to be able to oppose capital; the actions of this movement are accompanied by the production of revolutionaries.

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*Communist revolution is complete revolution. Biological, sexual, social, economic revolutions are no more than partial attributes; the predominance of one is a mutilation of revolution, which can only be by being all.

**This act of understanding which is taking place not only intellectually but also sensually (the rebellion is to a large extent bodily rebellion) can only be reached by rejecting the wandering and the repressive consciousness.

still * if **

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II. Decline of the Capitalist Mode of Production or Decline of Humanity?

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But another argument is embedded in the preceding one: the capitalist mode of production is revolutionary and makes possible the passage to another, superior social form where human beings will no longer be dominated by the sphere of necessity (the sphere of the production of material life) and where alienation will cease to exist.

1st/most: need global detox to grok legit needs.. not to supply/perpetuate whale ‘needs’

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