ANELECTA by Stewart Home, Sabotage Editions, London 1996

The best parts of this rare and out-of-print pamphlet were recycled in Confusion Incorporated. The introduction follows:

INTRODUCTION

There is no average or real truth to be discerned among the different fronts of prejudice. Each is a truth in so far as it satisfies the writer. T. E. Hulme.

The human mind has its ages like the body. Herder.

Conservative minds are simultaneously surprised, impressed and horrified by the results of dialectical thinking. If it is a cliche to state that 'the child is the father of the man,' then it is equally banal to observe that the impressions we now have of what we once were, are the product of what we appear to have become. In this sense, the child is NOT the father of the man. The writing collected here should be understood in a similar fashion. Although these literary gleanings can be read from a position of 'innocence', their 'author' will derive far greater pleasure from watching their effect among those who insist on viewing 'him' as an organising principle around which they can structure their responses to these texts.

It has been explained elsewhere that 'I' am very selective in what 'I' choose to (re)present to the reading 'public'. It should go without saying that there is much in the various issues of Smile magazine that 'I' have chosen not to republish. It is equally 'true' to state that while 'I' am happy to draw attention to my piece on Amadeo Bordiga in issue 82 of the Edinburgh Review, there are certain works 'I' prefer to forget. Yet others, such as my Young Ling Master parody published in The Monthly Bulletin sometime in the mid-eighties, 'I' have lost and 'I' don't consider the work merits the trouble of tracking down a copy in somebody else's collection of 'underground' 'ephemera'.

In any case, many of these pieces may just as well have been written by somebody else. This certainly holds true for books such as The Assault On Culture: Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War and Pure Mania. Likewise, 'I' am not particularly fond of Slow Death, although 'I' am looking forward to receiving the second part of the advance for that book upon its publication in three months time - this is also a text that has 'important' work to perform. Among my novels, 'I' remain fond of Defiant Pose, although my particular penchant is for shorter pronouncements. Although Cranked Up Really High: Genre Theory & Punk Rock is a more obviously post-Hegelian work, I prefer to point those who wish to misread me at their leisure in the direction of both Neoism, Plagiarism & Praxis and my Neoist Manifestos.

Stewart Home, London, January 1996

PS. This is not a suicide note. For full details see Art Killing Shocks Cult Underground in the 'Guy Debord Supplement' to Here & Now 16/17 (Leeds 1995).

Companion introduction from Fasting On Spam

Generic piece about publications of this type

Bibliography