““The indifference of trees to the historical moment. The indifference of dreams to interpretation. The indifference of the people to its own triumph. The indiffer ence of the body to the revolution. The dazzling metaphysical spectacle of the sameness of faces the morning after the revolution. Their features haven't changed. You expect a violent illumination and yet it's just like sleeping with your sister. It doesn't change your life. There is an equal violence in taking the defence of the victims of violence, for commiseration is obscene. Physical violence does not wound its victim in his sovereignty. Pity or solidarity strike him precisely there, in his pride, in what is inhuman in man, what is cruel and haughty in him towards himself. Cruelty has as its target man capable of being more than he is; pity has as its target man guilty of being just as he is. If solidarity merely means sharing a wretched fate, as it does most of the time these days, then it is itself nothing but a form of abjection.””
