Leben und Denken wie die Schweine

Urbanomic/Sequence Press

by Gilles Châtelet

Über die Anstiftung zu Neid und Langeweile in den Marktdemokratien

Vernichtendes Urteil über die vom Markt beherrschte Demokratie und Analyse ihrer Entstehung, lädt das letzte Buch von Gilles Châtelet zur archäologischen Erkundung unserer Gegenwart ein: Ressentiment und Populismus finden ihren gemeinsamen Ausgangspunkt in einer Allianz von Politik, Wirtschaft und Kybernetik, der es gelang, die befreienden Energien des Aufbruchs von 1968 in die Subjektform des Durchschnittsmenschen umzulenken. In einer Gesellschaft der Konkurrenz, so Châtelets Einsicht, schaffen Chaostheorie und Nomadismus – einst Zauberwörter einer neuen Philosophie der Differenz – am Ende nur Langeweile.

Bei seinem Erscheinen 1998 in Frankreich unerwarteter Erfolg und polemisches Vermächtnis zugleich, liegt mit Leben und Denken wie die Schweine nun erstmals ein Buch Châtelets in deutscher Sprache vor. Es bietet Einblick in ein hierzulande viel zu wenig bekanntes Denken, dem es auch in seiner epistemologischen Auseinandersetzung mit Physik und Mathematik immer um Individuation, Befreiung, kurz, um das Leben geht.

Aus dem Französischen von Markus Sedlaczek, mit einem Vorwort von Alain Badiou

Gilles Châtelet, geboren 1944 in Paris, war ein französischer Philosoph und
Mathematiker. Aktiv in der Studierenden und Homosexuellenbewegung, unterrichtete er ab den späten 1970er Jahren an verschiedenen Universitäten, u.a. an der Universität Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis. Am 11. Juni 1999 nahm sich Châtelet in Paris das Leben.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Sociology, Economics, Theory, France

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Gilles Châtelet was a French philosopher and mathemetician.

Reviews

[6655321 · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK, like *this* is a legitimately good and interesting book that is horrifyingly bad in it's localization. That is, cultural references that are decidedly French popular culture are not footnoted for explanation (or are for some reason chapters after the term is introduced) and it really hurts the ability of the reader to enjoy what is a complex and engaging book that is littered with pop culture references. And this is sort of *why* people talk about theory books is being hyper inaccessible, like yes you have to learn the language and the context but you also have to fight against references/examples that are to make something *more* accessible to some(native) readers but when you *translate* something you also have to *localize* it

[Zoë]

"Neoliberal Democracy sucks"

Okay, I agree

"We need to find a new way to connect the individual with the collective"

Okay, I'm listening

"That's all, good luck"

[Deep · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm tempted to argue that this should be the 'Little Red Book' of 21st century radicalism, if nothing else because it fits quite neatly in my front pocket.

Gilles Châtelet's book is a summary of the many threats of contemporary capitalism, yet without almost any classic radical terminology - an invitation to everyone whatever their literary experience. As someone who's not previously read Châtelet, this decision admittedly leave me uncertain of where exactly to place him though maybe that's the point. To Live and Think Like Pigs is more of a vicious attack on the ideologies of the contemporary world than an attempt to thorough critical untangling. The viciousness, this kind of military manual-esque 'ungrounding, and it's size makes this a book for cutting - to be waved it the air and read aloud at the barricades.

Of course To Live and Think Like Pigs is not without flaws. Like many books from the turn of the millennia (and today still) its attempt to formulate an exit-strategy from our state as 'neurocattle' is lacking. Châtelet at times seem to stumble near social democratic nostalgia or the 'post-Leninist' pitfalls of Hardt & Negri. But as said before this book does not need to be read as coherent critical project, but rather something to be torn apart and use as needed.

[The Sporty Bookworm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Euh, alors je n'ai pas compris grand chose. C'est tellement abscons que l'on ne sait plus ce que l'on lit. C'est une série de réflexions et d'articles philosophico-politiques sur la société contemporaine néanmoins vu que je n'ai pas compris grand chose, je ne sais pas trop ce qu'a voulu dire l'auteur. Donc soit je n'ai pas un QI assez élevé, soit j'étais fatigué soit l'auteur devrait faire des efforts de vulgarisation car son texte devient alors contreproductif. Si le public est censé être des types qui ont des QI de 140 et qui ne sont pas fatigués après leur journée de boulot alors ce bouquin est probablement bon, néanmoins, je ne fais alors pas parti du public cible. Bon courage à tous les futurs lecteurs.

[stadtfisch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Habe vieles nicht so ganz würdigen können, weil sowohl die popkulturellen als auch wissenschaftlichen Bezugnahmen sehr spezifisch französisch waren und mir Gilles Châtelet auch vorher kein Begriff war. Ganz ehrlich, ich hab einfach ein Leseexemplar angefragt, weil ich den Titel und Untertitel schneidig fand. Kann man lesen, enthält interessante und nützliche Gedanken und war dann auch durchaus kurzweilig zu lesen nachdem ich mich an den Sprachgebrauch gewöhnt hatte. Allerdings sind 18€ bei 192 Seiten in einem Format kleiner als A5 schon ein stolzer Preis!

[Buck · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short manifesto against the managerial induced ennui, domestic comformism and false humility of the "post-political post-industrial society". It is not a book that should be read with any aim towards any sustained and in-depth application of a critical apparatus, but more as a consciousness-bomb laced with the paragraph after paragraph of Chatelet spouting a venomous repudiation of our false a-political comformism. The book's horizons of change are, however, predictably narrow. Like many French thinkers in his time, a vague call for "affirming dangerous Difference"(as opposed to the domesticized and commercial "Difference" of exoticized commodities) takes the center stage as a trope that has infected French radicalist horizons of Thought within the wave of the Negri/Laclau-Mouffe approaches to "agonistic politics". All in all however, it is a fun read, if you wanna see quick and funny(no less scathing however) denunciations of hyper-individualistic Car culture, advertisement-industry induced assymmetry of the democratic process and its neuropolitics and the false comforts of statistical equillibriums in economics and civil society, look no further.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

in the very introduction of this book published in 1998, Chatelet predicts the rise of the Soyface Bugman as the preeminent cultural force of the future. A person enslaved to trends, a faux radical unwittingly enslaved to the very conservative and market forces he believes himself to be rebelling against, obsessed with the accumulation of dumb toys and social virtue from always being just five minutes ahead of the cause du jour.

While the prescience of this prediction and the observation of what causes it is remarkable, the prose could be quite the turn off for many. More readable than your average Frenchie philosopher, Chatelet still reaches for obscure wordplay nevertheless. I can't say I endorse all of his conclusions, but there is enough in here for anyone who loathes the grotesque monoculture that has descended on developed countries throughout the 21rst Century.

[Alana · Rating 4 out of 5]

peppa pig on a rampage ❤️🥓

[Hagar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really didn't like how this was written; it's too angry for a robust analysis. There are far better books on the critique of 'neoliberalism.' Nothing enlightening for me. (Probably a 2.5, run-of-the-mill)

"Be light, anonymous, precarious like drops of water or soap bubbles: this is true equality, that of the Great Casino of life! If you're not fluid, you will very quickly become losers. You will not be admitted into the Great Global SuperBoom ofthe Great Market.... Be absolutely modern (like Rimbaud), be a nomad, be fluid-or check out, like a viscous loser!

The cybermercantile knows what he's doing, no doubt about it ! Thus the 'energetic youth' is supposed to incar­nate modernity and to set an example for 'losers' and 'rigid conservatives' who show little enthusiasm for this fluidity which, curiously, is invariably decreed from on high by those teflon-coated decision-makers always in fleeting transit from one directorial appointment to another.

Fluidity: here we put our finger on the essence of the stability of market democracies. This fluidity can only be implemented through a social chemistry capable of exerting a permanent pressure that is present everywhere and nowhere, a kind of obstinate policeman intent on following each Robinson-particle like his shadow."

[Violet Aisling · Rating 4 out of 5]

perhaps it’s silly to find myself brought back to this text by twitter ragebait, and yet here i am. the bait in question will probably have disappeared from people’s timelines & memories by the time i finished re-reading this text. but the memory of chatelet’s disdain towards the automobile and the microfascist impulses of “average men on wheels” on page 85 -- leading neatly into the observation that the only solidarity to be found in capitalism’s terminal state is in the collective frustration of the traffic jam on page 87 -- will always live on in my heart.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

The fascinating babble of a moron. The guy can master grammar, but the text itself is a random construction of words. It's also interesting how, after centuries of disgust, the pig becomes a very important part of the French society, the stone on which a Muslim should be tested if they are Laique enough.

[Charlie Kruse · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most lurid, palpable books I've ever read. Châtelet spits acid against the transformations surrounding France at the turn of the 21st century. He basically creates his own language out of French cultural figures and argues against the rise of third way philosophers and economists. A biting critique

[Corvus Corax · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es hätte deutlich besser sein können, hätte der Autor sich entschieden zu schreiben und nicht zu dichten

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a profoundly vital negativity.

[Jordan]

Much too French.

[Gatlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Occasionally insightful. Mostly an idiosyncratic French account of neoliberalism and how it effects people psychologically and materially. Sometimes funny with some good zingers

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book. It is a bomb.

[Maciek · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fierce attack on neoliberal societies. As Châtelet said in an interview somewhere, he intended to piss his readers off. The essay's main instrument is rhetoric, so there's plenty of quotable lines but sadly not that much substance. I'd love to hear more about the misuse of mathematics in contemporary economics. That's something one would expect from a philosopher of mathematics like the author, but I guess it wasn't the main idea for this essay. And it's true, some of the subtle references to French culture make fragments of this book very opaque. Still, a few chapters here are really resonant and worth reading in 2017.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit disjointed and too heavy on metaphors from time to time. To be fair, this was a good read even though the author could have handled his critic on neoliberalism (and capitalism in general for that matter)with a less abstract philosophical approach. I enjoyed the part where he drew parallels between cars and individualism.

[michal k-c · Rating 2 out of 5]

two stars is too harsh but for every useful insight here there’s five pages of some of the most volatile and angry theory-gibberish i’ve ever read. I get it, you were friends with Deleuze!

[Mariam Rawwas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Molotov cocktail against Mitterrandism... Châtelet offers a scathing critique of the mathematical models that undergird our belief in democracy and the free market, namely Hobbesian atomism (a definitive break with Althusserian aleatory materialism here) and contemporary statistical modelling, and charges chaos theory ("fluidity") and Wienerian cybernetics of a certain complicity with these models. Also subjected to a polemics: the automobile (à la Adorno, Ross), and the "sinister equation negros = chicanos = Jazz = marijuana" - in fact, all of French social culture and its rigorous class divisions and elitism from the late '70s through the '80s. Even Attali is charged with "anarcho-mercantilism," a charge I cannot adjudicate upon, as I am yet to read Attali, though this makes me more interested in delving into Noise. Without proffering a particular solution, it seems as though Châtelet prefers a certain "humanism" to an inhuman structuralism, providing us with this (psychoanalytic) flip on Marx: "to each according to [their] singularity!".

[Ezra Schulman · Rating 4 out of 5]

"One cannot emphasise enough just how crucial was
the mass domestication of the car, ensuring the transition
from what might be called 'traditional solidarities' to the
unprecedented unleashing of modern individualism. What
does it matter if the car kills, pollutes and often makes people
into total jerks, its proliferation destroying every urban space
worthy of the name, when what is at stake is to ensure
the domestication of gigantic human masses, the forging
of thousands of psychologies of average men on wheels,
'highway mentalities', aping day and night the fluidities
and competition of the Great Market, etching it into
the landscape . .. ? "

[Slow Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let us regain our songs, our hearty appetites, and become a pulp-humanity from which all felshes unfold. To each according to his singularity!

The last 80 pages or so are incredible ...probably the best polemic I've read (sorry Nietzsche). Offers a compass for cyber-political navigation. The barrage of French pop culture references at the start subsides eventually, and by the end there's a brilliant synthesis of Guattarian, Keynesian, and Battailian philosophy. If you're enamoured with Deleuze's Postscript, or a fan of Badiou's political writings, this cannot be missed.

[Ezequiel]

Matemático y militante gay, Châtelet publicó en 1998, un año antes de suicidarse, este libro, amargo y rabioso, irónico y panfletario, sobre el "Nuevo Orden Mundial". Leído desde 2025, un libro presciente (y presente: podría haber sido escrito hoy), que apunta contra toda la hipocresía, toda la irracionalidad y la estupidez (y la maldad) de la forma de hegemonía mundial que se viene gestando desde la segunda mitad de los años 70 del siglo XX (en esa época arranca el libro, casi como una crónica).

[Kristaps · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book worth rereading. Of course, it is basically an unorganized pamphlet written by a very sad and/or angry person (and it is not as foreboding as it's reputation says), but it contains some very good thoughts on "how to not be a fascist", which, translated from French-Marxsist language means simply "how to not be a cretin", or a pig, if you will.

PS Just a note - I really thought the book would contain more pigs and piggishness a la Animal Farm. Felt let down that pigs were mentioned only once or twice.

[Aaron Wenger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Between the hyper-local references to French culture, and the hyper-academic references to economics, I had trouble wringing anything of value out of this book. If you're looking for a poetic polemic against how neoliberalism has turned us into pigs, might be fun. If you're looking for a theoretical work that seeks to clearly answer the question "how does neoliberalism incite envy and boredom?" you'll come away exhausted. Life is too short to squint and scratch your head at stuff like this.

[Dália Da Silva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Um conhecimento, ainda que sumário, de países como a Alemanha, a Inglaterra ou a França, mostra no entanto que os períodos mais brilhantes da sua história resultam sempre de uma capacidade para acomodar espaços que estivessem ao abrigo das pressões da procura social imediata, das hierarquias estabelecidas, e portanto aptos a acolherem novos talentos sem distinção de classe; aptos em suma, a abrigar uma aristocracia cultural que não seja cooptada pelo nascimento ou pelo dinheiro.

[Nomina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this, very angry writer - clearly liked Deleuze (they were friends apparently) a lot of reaction to conceptions of chaos that stifled it's reach as a concept into an image of (false) affirmation. would recommend! altho a lot of the references go over my head in some chapters - nevertheless an engaging read

[Damien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un peu obscur, et la colère de l'auteur peut mettre certains lecteurs mal à l'aise. Cependant, un peu d'énervement est parfois du meilleur effet: un défouloir philosophique.

[Jack Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chatelet's prose is somewhat goofy, but he makes interesting points.