Robespierre and Saint-Just: revolution as wild sea without compass

As told 5

“revolution is like you are on wild sea on a boat and you don't have any maps, any compasses, orientation, you have to improvise”
56:05 The Legacy of the French Revolution w/ Slavoj Zizek on Bastille Day | Jacobin Show2021-07-14 · 1:47:12

“we in the french revolution we are as if on a sheep in a wild storm entering an uncharted territory we don't know where we are going.”
1:59:46 Duel + Duet with Graham Harman2017-03-02 · 2:04:01

“Revolution ist wie ein Schiff auf rauer See ohne Kompass man muss riskante Entscheidungen treffen”
15:41 Slavoj Zizek: Brauchen wir eine globale Umstrukturierung? | Doku HD | ARTE2023 · 55:55

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

contents · one story, 3 jobsuses

open situation ×1 voluntarism ×1 großes Anderes ×1

Its cast and sources

populated by

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just4 Otto von Bismarck2 Sabine Spielrein1 Jayapal Subramaniam1 Todd Wolfson1 Mensheviks1 Joseph Bonaparte1 Achille Mbembe1

alongside works

A Dangerous Method1 Autopoiesis of Architecture1 Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen1 Luca1 Higher Education Labor Summit1 Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood1 Time Energy1 Lucidities1

Told together with

12% Heydrich 1936 letter on Jewish emigration to Palestine 2 shared talks 9% Fukushima and Tokyo evacuation 2 shared talks 8% Stalin joins the applause 2 shared talks

Every retelling 6

56:05 The Legacy of the French Revolution w/ Slavoj Zizek on Bastille Day | Jacobin Show2021-07-14 · 1:47:12

Robespierre and Saint-Just used the metaphor of navigating a wild sea without maps or compasses to describe revolutionary practice, you must improvise rather than execute a history-predetermined plan., illustrating open situation,voluntarism

1:59:46 Duel + Duet with Graham Harman2017-03-02 · 2:04:01

Žižek cites Saint-Just's metaphor for the French Revolution: we are on a ship in a wild storm entering uncharted territory, we don't know where we are going, offered as a model for honest left politics that admits ignorance of the future., illustrating honest communist politics,against teleological Marxism,openness of revolution

15:41 Slavoj Zizek: Brauchen wir eine globale Umstrukturierung? | Doku HD | ARTE2023 · 55:55

His hero Robespierre did not say revolutionaries are tools of historical necessity; he said revolution is like a ship on a rough sea without a compass, one must take risky decisions., illustrating pragmatism against historical necessity,großes Anderes

55:39 Slavoj Zizek - too late to awaken: counting down to doomsday2023-11-01 · 1:36:56

Saint-Just said a revolutionary is not someone who knows historical necessity but like a captain on a boat in a storm without a compass, forced to improvise, Žižek's image for our present undecidable situation., illustrating Hegel as thinker of distrust,the open present

~1:40:00 Courage of Hopelessness2017-03-24 · 2:12:13

The French Revolutionary Saint-Just said a revolutionary is like a ship's captain navigating uncharted waters with no compass, Žižek endorses this as the proper posture of improvisation over confident Marxist historical teleology., illustrating political improvisation,absence of programme,courage of hopelessness

1:02:23 Slavoj Žižek talks Nick Land AI singularity, ethics of psychoanalysis, Compact Magazine, and so on!pub. 2024-03-18 · 1:57:15

Saint-Just’s metaphor of revolutionaries as captains of a ship in a stormy sea without a compass, having to find their way through risk, illustrating the ethics of desire without a guaranteeing Big Other., illustrating ethics of desire,big other