Quotes from Jacques Attali

Man's tragedy is that when he can do something, in the end he will always do it

Global governance is just a euphemism for global government.

Change is inscribed in noise faster than it transforms society.

Today, music heralds... the establishment of a society of repetition in which nothing will happen anymore.

In the future, a part of this class - individuals particularly sensitive to this question of the future - will realize that their happiness depends on that of others, that the human species can only survive united and pacific. They will cease to belong to the mercantile innovative class, and refuse to put themselves at the service of pirates. They will become what I call transhumans (who will give birth to a new order of abundance).

En 1947, la pile électrique et le transistor, innovations capitales, rendent portables la radio et le tourne-disque. Révolution majeure, car elles permettent au jeunes de danser hors des bals, donc hors de la présence des parents, libérant la sexualité, ouvrant à toutes nouvelles musiques, du jazz au rock, annonçant l'entrée des jeunes dans l'univers de la consommation, du désir, de la révolte.

Sache seulement que si,comme je le crains,le malheur s'abat sur cette ville,si les hommes y perdent le droit,unique au monde,de penser librement,c'est tout l'avenir de l'humanité qui sera menacé.

La grandeur du peuple juif, c'est justement d'apporter aux autres, même si les autres ne veulent pas entendre - c'est tikkun olam même pour ceux qui ne veulent pas entendre. [youtube, watch?v=jlVMft1jtiE]

Il n'y a pas de force politique sans richesse marchande, pas de richesse marchande sans inventions techniques, et donc sans science ni raison

in a society in which power is so abstract that it can no longer be seized, in which the worst threat people feel is solitude and not alienation, conformity to the norm becomes the pleasure of belonging, and the acceptance of powerlessness takes root in the comfort of repetition.

The game of music thus resembles the game of power: monopolize the right to violence; provoke anxiety and then provide a feeling of security; provoke disorder and then propose order; create a problem in order to solve it.

It thus became almost impossible to have one's music heard without first being profitable, in other words, without writing commercial works known to the bourgeoisie. To be successful, a musician first had to attract an audience as an interpreter: representation takes precedence over composition and conditions it. The only authorized composers were successful interpreters of the works of others.

The only thing rare is time.

La forma di egoismo più intelligente è l'altruismo.

Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise.