Our Wound Is Not So Recent is the text of a short speech presented in Paris as a result of the terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015. It speaks from the left, attempting to explain the unexplainable to the totally baffled. The fulcrum is capitalism, and the wildly swinging endpoints are the nihilism we see around us. There are a lot of big ideas crammed into this little book.

For Badiou:
-Capitalists stopped being French a long time ago. The concept France has no real meaning any more. It has been replaced by the state.
-The fundamental function of a state is to discipline the middle classes.
-Today, states are ultimately just the local managers of this vast global structure.

At the core of Baidou’s thesis is that capitalism has out and rejected about two billion people. They don’t consume and they don’t produce, so they’re worthless non-entities. These two billion might be attracted into aspirational groups, but underneath they aspire to western riches. Not being allowed in, they may lash out. Badiou says there is a huge nomad class wandering the planet, looking to put down roots. We see them fleeing the Middle East, but closer examination shows they are from everywhere.

Badiou says what is missing is government structure totally disconnected from the interiority of capitalism. It is this lack of independence that invites the possibility of fascism, fanatical religion and banditry.

What is most important is that that speech could be given in Paris just ten days after the terrorist attacks. It probably could not be given in the United States at all.

David Wineberg ( )