A Total Revolutionary Project

The Essex postgraduates never succumbed to left-wing melancholy, W. says. They never thought that history was at an end, or that there could be no alternative to capitalism. Some of them, it is true, advocated a kind of hyper-capitalism, a turbo-capitalism, which would accelerate capitalism to its end. Some of them held out for a capitalism-gone-beserk, a deranged capitalism, that would destroy half the world as it destroyed itself. But the Essex postgraduates never lost faith in the utter transformation of the world, W. says. They never supposed that politics could be anything other than all-enveloping. They never thought politics could mean anything but a total revolutionary project ...

Politics was the horizon of all philosophical thought: the Essex postgraduates were sure of that, W. says. All philosophical roads were also political roads: of that, they were certain. Their most intense thoughts were political thoughts, W. says. Their most intense friendships were political friendships. Everything is political: the Essex postgraduates knew that, W. says. Life is politics: that's what the Essex postgraduates understood.