Tomorrow it was May: but it's hard to believe it, we agree at we sit hungover at Stoke station. We're heading our separate ways: W. to the south, and I to the north. In separate directions! Ah, how will we ever form our political collective? How our new Party, always in search of members? There is no workers' movement, Tronti says, W. tells me. There is no workers' party, and therefore no politics. No politics! Then what is to be done?
Only thought, not practice is possible now, W. reads out from his notebook. Tronti says we can no longer think politics, but only the crisis of politics. Theoretical despair, that's what Tronti calls it. Political despair. Philosophical despair.
We are men of defeat, we agree, sitting on the bench on the platform. Should we hang ourselves now? Should we go out in search of strong rope and two stools? Ah, it seemed so simple last night in the pub! We felt so hopeful! And today, beneath the overcast sky?
What remains to us is only to chart our despair, to fathom it. What remains is only to understand our confinement. That's why Tronti commends us to read Kierkegaard, W. says. That's why he sends us to the philosopher of despair.
Lars Iyer's Blog 