Son[i]a #321: César Rendueles

César Rendueles is a philosopher, sociologist, curator, cultural manager, teacher, columnist, essayist, sports fan, and father, among other things. He was in charge of cultural projects at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid for eight years, he has edited classic texts by Karl Marx, Walter Benjamin, Karl Polanyi, Jeremy Bentham, and Antonio, Gramsci, and he currently writes and teaches sociology at Universidad Complutense in Madrid.  In everything he does, his sharp, militant, provocative analysis persists in exposing the seams of the neoliberal system as we watch it unravel before our eyes, with the rapid implementation of the networked society (now with the pandemic) and the eco-social crisis as a timeframe for urgent action, despite the paradoxical processes of individuation and radical fragmentation that are taking place.

When Ràdio Web MACBA chat to César Rendueles, the pages of his new book “Contra la igualdad de oportunidades. Un panflento igualirtarista” (Seix Barral, 2020) still smell of fresh ink. He talks about the myth of universal connectivity and technological dystopia. He touches on necropolitics, necroeconomics, and the importance of social ties in processes of social change. We go into museums, libraries, and schools to address the problems of public projects and the potential of egalitarian socialization and political imagination. We broach life and the market, work and care, health and business, meritocracy and privileges… to shed light on our shared fragility and our collective obligation to think about economics in a different way, accepting that we will never start from scratch.

Photo Courtesy of the artist