EXCERPT Too nautical for intellectuals, who know only the land; too theoretical for seafarers, who swear by life alone, this book will hold little appeal for the great majority. It will not be to the liking of those who, clinging complacently to their individuality as consumers as if to some great treasure, make it a point of honour to read only as spectators, to entertain or inform themselves, to fuel their dreams and reflections, but without ever taking the risk of being subjectively challenged in any way, and who therefore, when they read, do so only from a safe distance, far enough away not to be touched or affected by what they read, and to be able to refuse any consequences in advance. It will probably receive even less of a warm welcome from those of the spiritualist persuasion, watchdogs of the established order today as they were yesterday,i who prescribe that one act as a man of thought and think as a man of action so as to avoid being one or the other, let alone both. They are the most worldly of all, since they combine a hatred of radicality (this constitutes their fundamental worldliness) with membership in fashionable society, and as readers they will be strategically the most virulent, that is to say, tactically the most indifferent, unless some unlikely turn of circumstance forces them to condescend. Generally speaking, this book will find favour neither among those who are anchored in reality and imbued with pragmatism, and who accept only those parts of theory that lead speculatively back to what they do and how that makes them who they are, nor among their counterparts for whom practice is worthy of consideration only once it has been passed through the sieve of a theory that is valued all the more the fewer consequences it has. The two of them find common ground in their shared hatred of all subjectivation…