Content and Reception
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The text displayed an advanced understanding of Situationist concepts and tactics. It provoked the students of the university by confronting them with their subservience to the ideological conditions imposed upon them by the state, family and the university system. The pamphlet alleged that the students fled from this reality to take refuge in miserabilism and bohemianism. It also criticised radical student collectives including the Provos (Netherlands), Committee of One Hundred (United Kingdom) and those of Berkeley, California (United States) for fighting specific issues such as nuclear arms, racism and censorship rather than the system at large, praising only Spies for Peace.
The title of the pamphlet induced fury in the Parisian cafés in the Spring of 1967. The pamphlet was described by a local newspaper shortly after its release as "the first concrete manifestation of a revolt aiming quite openly at the destruction of society". Critic Greil Marcus characterised the pamphlet as a polemic in his history of 20th century avant-garde art movements Lipstick Traces (1990).
Read more about this topic: On The Poverty Of Student Life
Famous quotes containing the words content and/or reception:
“To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body—both go together, they can’t be separated.”
—Jean-Luc Godard (b. 1930)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)