Notational

I don’t think that people on the Right are deluded, they’re no more stupid than anyone else, but their method is to oppose movement. It’s the same as the opposition to Bergson in philosophy, it’s all the same thing. Embracing movement, or blocking it: politically, two completely different methods of negotiation. For the Left, this means a new way of talking. It’s not so much a matter of winning arguments as of being open about things. Being open is setting out the ‘facts,’ not only of a situation but of a problem. Making visible things that would otherwise remain hidden. On the Caledonian problem we’re told that from a certain point onward the territory was regarded as a settler colony, so the Kanaks became a minority in their own territory. When did this start? How did it develop? Who was responsible? The Right refuses these questions. If they’re valid questions, then by establishing the facts we state a problem that the Right wants to hide. Because once the problem has been set out, we can no longer get away from it, and the Right itself has to talk in a different way. So the job of the Left, whether in or out of power, is to uncover the sort of problem that the Right wants at all costs to hide.