I think that money has been well defined by Marx as a general equivalent. Money is what is equivalent to anything else. This is what causes passion for money to exist. Because that passion for money is as if it were passion for all the things we want, all that we desire. So finally, passion for money is actually the passion for an object of desire that is not really defined. It is something that appears as a vague desire, a desire that is general, a sort of desire for everything.
This necessarily causes violence as that practically undetermined desire, that desire that is at the same time absolute and general, is a desire that enters immediately into a regime of competition.
So money is what organizes the violence of competition.
The language of money is precisely a language that pretends to have no limits. That is the reason why it is an insane language. It is a language that presents a world that has no limits. A world of unlimited desires.
I think that the dominant fictions in the capitalist world are the fictions that in one way or the other are related to the domination of money. They are fictions that are around the question of unlimited desire and competition, both at the same time. We need to change fiction and that is very important. It is very important and I would say that could be the great challenge for contemporary artists, their responsibility. It is the responsibility of contemporary artists to propose new fictions.
This necessarily causes violence as that practically undetermined desire, that desire that is at the same time absolute and general, is a desire that enters immediately into a regime of competition.
So money is what organizes the violence of competition.
The language of money is precisely a language that pretends to have no limits. That is the reason why it is an insane language. It is a language that presents a world that has no limits. A world of unlimited desires.
I think that the dominant fictions in the capitalist world are the fictions that in one way or the other are related to the domination of money. They are fictions that are around the question of unlimited desire and competition, both at the same time. We need to change fiction and that is very important. It is very important and I would say that could be the great challenge for contemporary artists, their responsibility. It is the responsibility of contemporary artists to propose new fictions.
( Alain Badiou )
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