"Dadaism and surrealism ... represented the intoxication of total license, the intoxication in which the mind wallows when it has made a clean sweep of value and surrendered to the immediate. The good is the pole towards which the human spirit is necessarily oriented, not only in action but in every effort, including the effort of pure intelligence. The surrealists have set up non-oriented thought as a model; they have chosen the total absence of value as their supreme value. Men have always been intoxicated by license, which is why, throughout history, towns have been sacked. But there has not always been a literary equivalent for the sacking of towns. Surrealism is such an equivalent."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
Simone Weil, “The responsibility of writers,” On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God, R. Rees, trans. (1968), p. 167
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dada
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Dada
Dada was an art movement involving visual arts, literature (poetry, art manifestos, art theory), theater, and graphic design. Dada concentrated its anti-war politic through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works. The art movement began in neutral ZĂĽrich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1920.
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