ignorance | fleurmach

“(1) A major corporation is like a construction set. It can be used to put together the whole world. (2) Because of the growing division of labour, many people no longer recognize the role they play in producing mass destruction. (3) That which is manufactured in the end is the product of the workers, students, and engineers.”

“When we show you pictures of napalm victims, you’ll shut your eyes. You’ll close your eyes to the pictures. Then you’ll close them to the memory. And then you’ll close your eyes to the facts.” These words are spoken at the beginning of an agitprop film that can be viewed as a unique and remarkable development. Farocki refrains from making any sort of emotional appeal. His point of departure is the following: “When napalm is burning, it is too late to extinguish it. You have to fight napalm where it is produced: in the factories.”

Harun Farocki, rest in peace.

Sometime ideas, like men, jump up and say ‘hello’. They introduce themselves, these ideas, with words. Are they words? These ideas speak so strangely. All that we see in this world is based on someone’s ideas. Some ideas are destructive, some are constructive. Some ideas can arrive in the form of a dream. I can say it again: some ideas arrive in the form of a dream…

… There is a sadness in this world, for we are ignorant of many things. Yes, we are ignorant of many beautiful things — things like the truth. So sadness, in our ignorance, is very real. The tears are real. What is this thing called a tear? There are even tiny ducts — tear ducts — to produce these tears should the sadness occur. Then the day when the sadness comes — then we ask: “Will this sadness which makes me cry — will this sadness that makes me cry my heart out — will it ever end?” The answer, of course, is yes. One day the sadness will end.

— David Lynch’s Log Lady, in Twin Peaks