boredom is always counter-revolutionary

At the London Zine Symposium this weekend, I felt there was an unfortunate absence of a certain type of publication. There were quite enough artzines, full of very nice illustrations or photographs, although they rarely seem to buck the trend towards cutesy/grotesque line drawings and Vice Magazine style photography. Lots of these art zines seem to be the training ground for future advertising and marketing creatives: the object amounts to little more than a fetish item, more concerned with style than substance. Then there are the personal zines (perzines), which usually make the point that the mundane and banal can be revelatory, but are sometimes offputting considering their vanity status. The other main category of zine, I would say, is the radical-anarchist type, which tries to convince the reader that baking or riding a bike is a radical activity (don’t get me wrong, I enjoy both baked goods and bicycles) but does little more than transfer domestic-quotidian wisdom, which I appreciate is important but is hardly grounds for radical social challenge.

This perhaps sounds more combative than I mean it to: I did enjoy the zine fest, and appreciate the efforts of any zine-producer. However, there is a gap in the (anti)market that I would like to fill. So, I present Aphorism, which I have outlined below. This will attempt to combine my own interests in gnomic critical theory, the significance of slogans and Herzog-esque moments of ecstatic truth, with the fragmentary form of the zine. I imagine it to be similar to Larry Law’s Spectacular Times series. I’d really appreciate it if anyone would let me know either their favourite Adorno quote/aphorism, or whether they would like to be involved in producing an illustration of an individual aphorism.

‘The melancholy science from which I make this offering to my friend relates to a region that from time immemorial was regarded as the true field of philosophy, but which, since the latter’s conversion into method, has lapsed into intellectual neglect, sententious whimsy and finally oblivion: the teaching of the good life.’

With this promise to return philosophy to its human roots Theodor Adorno begins Minima Moralia, a collection of brief explorations of the philosophical implications of quotidian events and observations, all dedicated to his friend and collaborator Max Horkheimer. Aphorism emerges from a combination of this emphasis on philosophy’s human relevance, to recognise and realise its radical and illuminatory potential, alongside another of Adorno’s observations, that in late capitalism, truth is made to recede into ever smaller fragments. Each issue of Aphorism shall focus on an individual writer or philosopher, to present and illustrate a series of his or her remarks as aphorisms.

This is not to do philosophy an injustice by removing its necessary complexities of thought and concept, but to remind ourselves that philosophy is there to help us. Nor is this the bland and recuperative philosophy-as-therapy of Alain de Botton, or the mass-market factory-line ‘Introductions to…’ or ‘Famous quotations of…’ of highstreet bookselling. Aphorism shall simply present with clarity the sharing of advice and knowledge that is the oft-forgotten essence of philosophy, that theory of ‘the good life’.

Fittingly, the first issue will be based around Adorno’s writing. Adorno was a particularly aphoristic philosopher, so the problem lies in choosing the statements that can stand alone and decontextualised, whilst also attempting to represent as great a range as possible of Adorno’s concerns. Nothing will ever replace a concentrated reading of Adorno’s work; Aphorism offers itself as something like the graffiti slogans that appeared all over the walls of Paris in May ’68, as a direct and radical reminder of the real-life implications of the philosophical project.