This English translation from the original French is, without a doubt, well-written. The use of language is often compelling. The vocabulary is above average. The play on what many people fear may be going on in their own society is well executed. At times the text address very real issues head on and forthrightly, topics which deserve further exploration.
Written about the French landscape, its subject matter resonates very well for the U.S. As our administration has moved from bank crisis to health crisis, from auto crisis to housing crisis, from debt crisis to who knows what new crisis the boy who cried wolf will profess tomorrow, the words on page 14, "Crisis is a means of governing. In a world that seems to hold together only through the infinite management of its own collapse," sound every bit as relevant for Washington as for Paris.
Similarly, when I read, "For a century and a half, the national school system has been producing a type of state subjectivity that stands out among all others" (p. 37), it can be difficult to remember that the authors are not addressing strictly American issues.
And on the whole, I was pleased to see that the woes of the world were not left to rest at the feet of the Christian church, the standard crutch for blame-laying. Certainly Christianity has had Her struggles with corruption and oppression, but the authors either did not see the church as a factor, or at least not as a relevant factor.
Even so, the final analysis of the book left me not merely skeptical, but gravely disappointed. Whether comparing the Israelites under Pharaoh in the book of Exodus or the plights of New York street gangs, their conclusions that we live in an imperfect world are hardly new. The complaints, as real and valid as they may be, lead them to a very destructive and self-important decision, that to fight back they must destroy. That anarchy will lead to some utopia. That communes will some how rise above the timeless human tendency toward laws, order, and eventual corruption.
Sadly, as many times as the insurrection they espouse has been tried in the annuls of human history, that utopia never rises from the embers like a hallowed phoenix, but instead, rears its ugly heads as a deceptive doppelgänger, leading to the same eventual imperfect system, with imperfect rules and subjugation as any other manmade institution. Their solution, which can only thrive on the very political and financial systems they so vehemently denounce, can only lead to the same end.
Is it a dangerous book? If someone reads it, becomes excited and says, "Yea, let's rebel," without a thought to what comes after, then yes, it is a very dangerous book. The Coming Insurrection artfully guides readers, potentially sympathetic or impressionable readers, to that motivation. It spells out, in no uncertain terms that the world is a mess and needs help.
But for all its guidance toward militant anarchy, the book offers no thought or sagacity as to what comes after an insurrection: the brutality, the turf wars, the power struggles, and then the inevitable rebuilding of society along the same social evolution as has occurred in every century, in every millennia of mankind's habitation of this blue marble we call home. Their argument, ultimately, lacks political reason.
It is worth reading. It is worth understanding just how far "they," the Invisible Committee and those like them may be willing to go to accomplish their ends. But even so, the very idea of a "committee," invisible and hiding in the shadows, handing down directives to their followers is anathematic to the gospel they preach. Even in The Coming Insurrection's attempt to throw off the confines of society, they give birth to the next, setting the cycle in motion once more.
King Solomon said it best, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" (Ecclesiastes 1:2).
If you are so inclined, and want to save a few dollars or keep a few dollars from reaching the invisible authors, you can read the entire text at http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/
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