10.9.07

A Religion of the Senses and a Resistance to the Present

From the opening of section 4.3 of Hardt and Negri's Empire, 2000.
(Downloadable 1.3M version: http://www.infoshop.org/texts/empire.pdf)

The great masses need a material religion of the senses [eine sinnliche Religion]. Not only the great masses but also the philosopher needs it. Monotheism of reason and the heart, polytheism of the imagination and art, this is what we need . . . [W]e must have a new mythology, but this mythology must be at the service of ideas. It must be a mythology of reason.
- Das altesteSystemprogrammdes deutschenIdealismus,
by Hegel, Holderlin, or Schelling

We do not lack communication, on the contrary we have too much of it. We lack creation. We lack resistance to the present.
- Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari