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If there exists one unique great imperial power which is always convinced that its most brutal interests coincide with the Good; if it is true that every year the USA spends more on their military budget than Russia, China, France, England and Germany put together; and if that Nation-State, devoted to military excess, has no public idol other than wealth, no allies other than servants, and no view of other peoples apart from an indifferent, commercial and cynical one; then the basic freedom of States, peoples and individuals consists in doing everything and thinking everything in order to escape, as much as possible, from the commandments, interventions and interference of that imperial power.

Alain Badiou#6

PoliticsFreedomGeopoliticsPowerResistance

About this quote

What does it mean?
Badiou suggests that when one nation dominates militarily and cynically, the best response for others is to resist its influence.
In plain terms
If one powerful country acts badly, the rest should try to stay free from its control.
What can you take from it?
Resist the control of dominant powers.

Where it applies

  • international relations
  • policy making
  • activism

Putting it to work

  • build independence
  • critique foreign policy

Questions to consider

  • What does freedom mean now?
  • How do we resist power?

Another view

Isolation might hurt cooperation on global issues.

More from Alain Badiou

  1. It must be said that today, at the end of its semantic evolution, the word 'terrorist' is an intrinsically propagandistic term. It has no neutral readability. …

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  2. In my view, only those who have had the courage to work through Lacan's anti-philosophy without faltering deserve to be called 'contemporary philosophers'.

    Permalink to quote #7
  3. The cinema is a place of intrinsic indiscernibility between art and non-art.

    Permalink to quote #4

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