Rave culture functioned as a requiem for the industrial economy

Evidence

Drugs and dancing looked more inviting, coupled with increasingly exuberant promises of consumption. “There was an ad that read: Money, sex, drugs—choose money,” Ernaux recounts. Rave music sounded a requiem for the industrial economy, its funeral rites observed at clubs and outdoor festivals. “Everything is permitted but nothing is possible” was French philosopher Michel Clouscard’s prospectus for the 1990s, while his contemporary Cornelius Castoriadis saw a “society adrift” amidst “a rising tide of insignificance.” — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 68

Categorization

• CANDY: ‘Everything is permitted but nothing is possible’ is a crisp epigram for the 1990s postpolitical mood.