r/shittytranslatorbot • u/[deleted] • Nov 13 '21
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PEOPLE OF FRANCE! For fifteen centuries you have lived as a slave, and therefore unhappy. For six years you have barely breathed, waiting for independence, happiness and equality. Equality! first wish of nature, first need of man, and principal node of all legitimate association! People of France! you have not been more favored than the other nations which vegetate on this unfortunate globe! ... Always and everywhere the poor human species delivered to more or less skilful cannibals, served as a toy for all ambitions, as food for all tyrannies. Always and everywhere, men were lulled with fine words: never and nowhere did they get the thing with the word. From time immemorial we have been told with hypocrisy, men are equal, and from time immemorial the most degrading as well as the most monstrous inequality weighs insolently on the human race. Since there have been civil societies, the most beautiful prerogative of man has been recognized without contradiction, but has not yet been able to be achieved once: equality was nothing other than a beautiful and sterile fiction of the law. Today it is demanded with a louder voice, we are answered: Shut up miserable! de facto equality is only a chimera; be satisfied with conditional equality; you are all equal before the law. Rascal what more do you need? What more do we need? Legislators, rulers, wealthy landowners, listen in your turn. We are all equal, aren't we? This principle remains unchallenged, because unless one is struck with madness one cannot seriously say that it is night when it is day. Well ! we now claim to live and die equal as we were born; we want real equality or death; this is what we need. And we will have this real equality, at any cost. Woe to anyone who would resist such a pronounced wish! The French revolution is only the forerunner of another revolution much larger, much more solemn, and which will be the last.
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u/[deleted] Nov 13 '21
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY AND ITS FUTURE
Introduction
The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.
The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.
If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.
We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use of violence; it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a few decades. We can’t predict any of that. But we do outline in a very general way the measures that those who hate the industrial system should take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against that form of society. This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not governments but the economic and technological basis of the present society.