Returning to Tiqqun: Final Warning to the Imaginary Party Regarding Public Space

Art­icle the first: 

Pub­lic space is inten­ded for the exchange and cir­cu­la­tion of com­mod­it­ies. Like all other com­mod­it­ies, people may move about freely within it.

Art­icle 2: 

Pub­lic space is space that belongs to no one. What belongs to no one belongs to the State. The State grants to com­mod­ity semi­ocracy the occu­pa­tion of said space.

Art­icle 3: 

Offices are made for work­ing in. The beach is made for tan­ning on. Those who desire enter­tain­ment have leis­ure spaces, dis­cotheques and other amuse­ment parks set up for such pur­pose. In lib­rar­ies there are books. In hos­pices there are old folks. In sta­di­ums there are fam­il­ies. Life is made up of detach­able moments. Every moment in its proper place. Everything is in order. No one complains.

Art­icle 3 bis.: 

Dis­order also has its own spe­cial func­tion. It fits back into the Whole, in the place pre-​established for unfore­seen events. For the well-​being of all, cit­izens are invited to enter the pub­lic way dur­ing fest­ivals organ­ized for their atten­tion, at reg­u­lar inter­vals, by ser­vice teams under the charge of the Min­istry of the Interior and the Min­istry of Cul­ture. Our ambi­ance agents are there to serve you. And you could be nice to them, you know, even if you are under their rule; that’s not forbidden.

Art­icle 4: 

Every child is assigned an adult-​in-​charge. That adult is respons­ible before the law for the beha­vior of the child attrib­uted to him or her. Because of their still-​incomplete psycho-​social train­ing, and in the interest of their proper devel­op­ment, chil­dren are not to play in pub­lic space without sur­veil­lance from their assigned adults-​in-​charge. In any case, chil­dren are classed into two groups: hyper­act­ive ones, who receive Ritalin, and hypo-​active ones, who are to be put on Prozac.

Art­icle 5: 

In the interest of pre­serving the land­scape and respect­ing the social envir­on­ment, bod­ies not con­form­ing with the rul­ing aesthetic/​sanitary norms, as pub­lished daily in the national press, will please refrain from cir­cu­lat­ing in pub­lic areas between the hours of nine a.m. and eight thirty p.m. Dur­ing this time period, how­ever, beg­gars will be tol­er­ated dur­ing the hours of greatest afflu­ence, when they will par­ti­cip­ate in the com­mon edi­fic­a­tion of all, by the repuls­ive example they constitute.

Art­icle 6: 

The pur­pose of life is hap­pi­ness. Hap­pi­ness is an object­ive datum meas­ur­able in exact quant­it­ies. These days every­one knows: where there’s trans­par­ency, there’s hap­pi­ness; those who don’t seek to show them­selves off are just try­ing to hide, and everything that tries to hide must be con­sidered sus­pect. Con­sequently, it is the duty of Biopower to inter­vene and help make all the opa­city in our lives dis­ap­pear. Biopower wants you to be happy. And if it must, it will want it in spite of you.

Art­icle 7: 

For everyone’s safety, pub­lic space must be kept entirely under sur­veil­lance. Where con­trol is still imper­fect, the masses are invited to please keep to them­selves all beha­vior con­trary to human dig­nity. All anonym­ous gath­er­ings and all abnor­mal beha­vior should be repor­ted to the nearest Pre­vent­ive Sur­veil­lance Action (PSA) patrol. Denoun­cing agents of the Ima­gin­ary Party in our midst is the duty of all cit­izens; do it for your own good and for the good of all.

Art­icle 8: 

Pub­lic space is neut­ral space, mean­ing that therein, all mani­fest­a­tions of sin­gu­lar exist­ence mean an attack on the integ­rity of oth­ers. All avail­able resources are now to be put to work — urban fur­niture, suit­able decors, Con­tinual Con­trol Mon­it­or­ing (CCM), etc. — to render impossible such demon­stra­tions and the intol­er­able nuis­ance they cause to our fel­low citizens.

Art­icle 9: 

We thank all those who have con­trib­uted by their good beha­vior to mak­ing these prin­ciples go without saying.

Art­icle 10: 

NOTHING IS EVER TO HAPPEN AGAIN.

Repos­ted from Ttiqqunista.

This entry was posted on 30 August 2012 at 6:34 am and is filed under Jurisprudence, Political Philosophy, Radical Politics. Published under Creative Commons (CC) Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License: You are welcome to share and remix this content for non-commercial purposes. Kindly acknowledge and hyperlink the source.