Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

Uncertain Manifesto 3

We have inherited, despite ourselves, the ideologies of the 20 th century. We are like their dazed pensioners, languishing in the denial of their still warm illusions. We want no part of these obsolete beliefs, because we know what a scourge they have been, every single one, without exception—nationalist, communist, fascist. Of this heap of faded dogmas, one modern ideology survives nonetheless. Without invoking past ideologies, it bears their traces, certain manias, habits, or stratagems. But this modern ideology denies that it is an ideology. It strives to appear free of all that constitutes an ideology and it knows how to delude. Using masks and denial, it manages to sow doubt about its very existence. We could wrench it from its shadow and force a confession from it: it would not disappear. Even if it were to admit aloud for all to hear what it consists of, what unspeakable ideas, what ambition, what thirst for hegemony, we would not be any further along. If this ideology does not reveal itself, that ’s because it does not have to. In contrast to Christianity, to communism or fascism, it does not dispense pomp and terror. It does not force us to pray or to remain silent. It has simply insinuated itself everywhere, even into the smallest things. It expresses itself in snippets and murmurs. It never appears as a whole, with one face. We cannot identify it at all or at best only badly. It prevaricates, finesses,

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