July 30th 2023
Lenin
I rediscovered the Lesesaal of the Literaturhaus after more than one hundred years. I left it behind me at the end of my exile and the beginning of my triumph. On those tables, looking on the outside, I sat when I was still myself, or my well renowned character. Someone who wanted to propagate the nihilism of pure materialism and, on the basis of that, establish his own absolute power with the help of the proletarians. If any man from the middle class, one chosen by a sorting hat, from my own era, would find himself in the present time, he would describe most of the people as Lumpenproletariat. The t-shirts and the tattoos being predominant according to the current fashion, were at his time reserved to the most disgraced part of the population.I would have hardly selected such thugs for my very own army. I looked indeed for the aristocrats among the working class, those few who were able to write and read. Thus who could at least read my pamphlets and publications pretending to understand them. To truly understand my writing, it is necessary a much more refined level of thinking, a critical one. Indeed most of the contemporary American students from the Ivy League Universities profess themselves to be my followers. It is only possible because their intellectual independence and their ability to critically examine a text are not much more evolved than those of the carpenters and blacksmiths I was relying on. The number of individuals who are brave enough to challenge the ideas conveyed by a book is really limited. Perhaps because, thanks to the Christian Churches that I so vehemently fought, when we think about a book, we are spurred to recollect the respect owed to the Bible.
The art dealer
Another good investment right now is a certain Ly, quite a young artist living in Japan. She is actually not such a teenager. Despite so many legends, there is currently no internationally renowned artist born after 1989. Pace Gallery claims to have a promising 27 year old in her portfolio, but it would be risky to invest on her name. It can be a clever marketing campaign doomed to fail in a few years. Perhaps it is the effect of the cold war, a conflict between two strong paradigms able to generate some creative character in those who lived it personally. One of the two paradigms was well grounded only apparently., we are able to state such a perspective because it suddenly crumbled down. Although not openly, since marxism is still well appreciated by a good component of the ruling class. Perhaps because of its clear distinction between wealthy privileged people and miserable poor. I was born proletarian, according to the socialist framework. If I had lived under a communist regime, I could have been praised for that. The party would have also expected me to act as a good working class member who attends public parades against fascist, happy to live in the assigned apartment, a smallish one, and to follow the thoughts of the red elites. I could have not claimed, proudly, to come from the Oxbridge corral, even if West Anglia is not part of Cambridge University, and my wish to get rich thanks to the art market would have been shunned as a bad influence of mercantilist culture. Luckily the U.K. has not fallen too long under Labour. Coming back to Ly, her prediction is so linear and effective. Her communication is as strong as Reagan capitalism. Still, I have got no money to invest unless I cannot sell something of my own.
The consultant
In the end a project landed on my desk. It was not what I was expecting, or that any other consultant had ever expected, but I need to keep it as soon as nothing better comes out. The way it was communicated to me already sounded quite strange, because it resulted in a big headache. Like those experienced while people suddenly begin to speak in Swiss German, or any other dialect of a known language, and the audience believes to understand one word every three, or a little bit more. The request was similarly confusing because it was not expressed in the business language, but in the informal and politically correct expressions of a young startup. It was per se a wonder, because I did not imagine that such a small group of enthusiastic youth could have ever afforded to hire a consultancy like mine. I underestimated the huge amount of money pouring into the coffer of the city hall, apparently the main sponsors of the initiative. They also added explicitly that no white cis-man, that means no white man with a clear sexual orientation, should be in the lead of the project. Thus I have not been selected for my skills, but only for being a woman. It is just a piety that I really can’t force my feelings, or I could start to go around the office wearing a rainbow foulard around my neck. On eBay I should also fine some green party stickers to be applied to my ebike. I am realising how so many words have acquired the prefix i- or e-, mostly quite uselessly.
