Zounds! Raoul Vaneigem’s Negative Tradition

In his essay Robert Bird traces a web of citations that link Zounds’ post-punk song “Subvert” to Raoul Vaneigem’s Revolution of Everyday Life and, even further, back to Vasilii Rozanov’s Apocalypse of Our Times, written in the wake of (and in opposition to) the Russian revolutions of 1917. This history of texts and media not only illustrates the concept of revolutionary tradition but also highlights its negativity, by which the author means its potentially nihilistic sanction of violence.