Purple Magazine
— S/S 2016 issue 25

Anti-Column

what should be done? text by MICHEL BUTEL   Tragedy always tests our intelligence, our memory, our morale. It throws us into a stupor. It drives us to think, act, and speak, while making the lives of its victims a disaster. What should have been done in the West from 1936 to 1944? Then again, maybe these aren’t even the right dates to start with. What should have been done in the West from the summer of 1914 to the terrible days we now live in? What should we do now? The real, vertiginous enigma: What could we have done? What can we do? Three answers, the same three for a century now, each confined to its own sphere, its own logic, its own language. First, the Individual — you, me, the solitary and isolated person, burdened with so many pointless names: citizen, human being, witness, member of the faceless…

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