To make matters worse, in an unpublished Treatise on Political Economy (1849–55) Proudhon even contemplated a secret band of vigilantes to enforce public opinion. This puritanical elite would ensure that the individual conscience would be taught to identify with the social conscience for the sake of social survival. The vigilantes would be involved in the private execution of the wicked as well as punishing treason and adultery. Proudhon here reached his lowest ebb.
Men like Coppe and Clarkson were far from despairing and for a time after the execution of the king it seemed possible in England that true levelling could lead to a genuine commonwealth of free and equal individuals. In the event, as in so many later revolutions, the military dictator Cromwell crushed the extreme left which had helped to bring him to power.
Reklam
A final discovery: that the objects of these diverse and specific causes are human bodies. The forces that drive our history do not so much operate on our thoughts or social institutions, or even our environment, as on our individual bodies. So, for example, punishment in the 18th century is a matter of violent assaults on the body, branding, dismemberment, execution, whereas in the 19th century it takes the apparently gentler but equally physical form of incarceration, ordered assemblies, and forced labor.
Bétizac was privately informed that he would surely be sentenced to die and that his only hope was to declare himself a heretic. If he did, he would be handed over to the Church and sent for judgment to Avignon, where no one would dare condemn him because of the Pope’s dependence on Berry, the most powerful and zealous of his supporters. Believing what he was told, “because those in peril of their lives are much confused in mind,” Bétizac did as advised. He affirmed his guilt in errors of faith before the Bishop of Béziers, who, according to Church practice with confessed heretics, promptly handed him back to the civil arm for execution. Dragged to the stake in the public square, fastened by collar and chain and piled with faggots, Bétizac was burned and his bones hanged, to the joy of the populace.
The lihgtning girl
Our first few steps into the crowded, dim market lead us right past a signboard. Usually filled with notices of sale, news scraps, memorials, the Red noise has been covered up by a checkered swath of
Sayfa 183
Je me dis : à quoi Thomas a-t-il pensé, quand ça a été le dernier moment ? après avoir passé la corde autour de son cou ? avant de renverser la chaise ? et d'abord, combien de temps cela a-t-il duré ? une poignée de secondes ? puisqu'il ne servait à rien de perdre du temps, la décision avait été prise, il fallait la mettre à exécution, une minute ? mais c'est interminable, une minute, dans ces circonstances, et alors comment l'a-t-il remplie ? avec quelles pensées ?
Reklam
Reklam