Last laugh

For a long time the falling of the Berlin Wall was associated, in my mind, firstly with 'Don't put your finger on that button' on the B-side to New Order's 'Fine Time' and a vague sense of boredom. In tutorials the likes of us were mocked for sticking to the idea that humans were more important than profit and, all around, the triumphalism gathered its noise and the crowing became part of the ambient background to the awful nineties.

If only I'd read this then, " 1. The event of the 'fall of socialist regimes' was not an event. These regimes had in fact been dead for a long time.
2. In no way did this death signify the failure of communism. Communism had already often failed and it will fail again. But it is also continually victorious. It is the only available Idea in the history of human beings.
3. The failure should not be attributed either to the despotic character of socialist states or to their economic shortcomings. It is the withering away of politics which made these constructions untenable for their own leaders. And in all this, people played practically no part.
4. The political crisis that these collapses bear witness to is a crisis in the West just as much as in the East. It is a general crisis."
Alain Badiou Of an Obscure Disaster.
Instead we just felt it - obscurely. Thanks to 'Infinite Thought' for posting this.