From lundimatin #513 (23/03/2026)
The network society connects everything it can. As a result, it tends to exclude class struggles. A number of us oppose this – in practical terms.[1]
2- Relays and Grumeaux
In the network society, homes are junctions, hubs – no longer dwellings, havens. They are criss-crossed on all sides by information network lines and are essentially sources of data, rather than retreats from the world sheltered from digital society. Moreover, they force residents to define their boundaries every day. They even compel them to tour their own fragments to reconstruct a reality that is desperately absent, to become tourists in their own homes in order to feel as though they are living there. From this point on, residents consciously conform to the norms of connectivity.
How can one live in this physical and psychological situation? How can one live in a world where there is no longer a home – inhabiting the ruins? The “philosophers of life” have claimed to have the answer. For them, it was a matter of avoiding two errors: 1- seeking to separate oneself from the networked society in order to inhabit “nature”, or even reconnect with it, even though nature exists only as an effective illusion that destroys environments; 2- practising a detached form of Marxism, adopting a viewpoint that is too general to free oneself from the deterritorialised location, employing abstract reasoning that leads one to imagine the system will collapse simply through a refusal to be counted. From this starting point, rather than thinking of society as a mould into which individuals are cast, they proposed focusing on the fabric of the environment, gradually reconsidering our relationships with what constitutes the world. And rather than imagining starting all over again from scratch, they invited us to build and maintain a new kind of bond (to replace the bonds of ordinary connection – smart metre bonds).
Thus, according to them, provided we erase within ourselves every trace of a conquering psyche, another world should be able to awaken, populated by beings endowed with inner life, and who are no longer interchangeable. It would then be possible to practise the “diplomacy of interdependencies”, to show “appropriate consideration” towards the living beings around us, as Baptiste Morizot puts it, rather than launching a head-on rebellion against Power (that of Enedis and its meters, for example). To inhabit would thus amount to coexisting with other living beings – a territory, moreover, being not merely a space but a behavioural whole (allowing for the suspension of activity, it ensures survival). And to rediscover the home, one would, for example, need to seek to “inhabit like a bird”, as Vinciane Despret puts it, before waging the political struggle by “following the forest”.
The problem is that the “philosophers of the living” have clearly lacked effectiveness, despite their claim to concreteness.[2] Perhaps because they did not speak enough of the kind of connections we experience daily, because these specialists in connection forgot the lives of the existing connectors, to the point of ultimately becoming indifferent to the living beings that we truly are, in this society of connection; perhaps because they tended to repress, like the Relays.
Instead of a philosophy of the living, we therefore propose to consider concrete connections: to look our meters in the face in order to confront the Unconscious of our society (where the Indexes are like Superegos). And we propose to take into account the life of our resistant consciences, that hindered connection from self to self which implies a certain incongruity with the surrounding society. In short: we propose starting a fresh from the situation we find ourselves in and, to rediscover the meaning of home, returning to a philosophy of existence.[3]
Thus we wish to fully consider the void in the connection between things. And above all the feeling that accompanies our solitude: anxiety – isolation breeds anxiety. What is this anxiety? It is the experience of a body in the process of leaving its living state. Anyone who pays even a little attention to their existence feels the presence within them of this reality to come – a reality that intensifies from time to time.
This anxiety is certainly a difficult experience – anxiety breeds isolation. But it carries a lesson: it reveals that there is something dead within the society of connection. Better still: it teaches us that society is dead. It makes us feel that there is no longer any shared experience that comes first, and that connections are made on the basis of secondary objects. Consequently, in this dead society, devices of connection are not merely tools serving the lives of those who inhabit it: they are the trackers of our dematerialised existences.
For the past ten years, this grim truth has certainly been obscured, not least by the relentless condemnation of “communitarianism”. Consequently, the Relays are far from feeling the effects of this decline: on the contrary, they embrace public denial by clicking their way through the world (a process itself based on the recognition and reaffirmation of reassuring prejudices). They have, moreover, developed a strange ability to link together the act of retreating into screens (as a family, supposedly cutting themselves off from the public sphere) and digital tracking (by subscribing to all the necessary checkpoints of the networked society).
To breathe new life into the social experience, we therefore believe it is necessary to oppose this existential attitude. How can this be done? Since the connecting-Relays are defined by their opposites (the isolated-isolators), the task here is to refuse to allow ourselves to be assigned, by them, to this position of isolation. It is a matter of shedding our skin.
And from this perspective, we in turn believe it is wise to avoid two errors. The first mistake would be to sound the call to revolt with a barrage of electric metaphors: claiming to “put up resistance” or “short-circuit” the network, to “ground” ourselves to disperse the electrical surge or overvoltage of the very the earth, or even to “fuse”, to prevent the continuity of the network from being maintained, so that it can no longer function normally. We must not limit ourselves to playing with words. So no, there is no declaration of revolution.
The second mistake would be to simply denounce the Relays; to remind them that a smart phone records everything, even when switched off, and relays the information to its calculating Master; to accuse them of having caved in, placing those in isolation in a delicate and lonely situation by parroting the rhetoric of Power (“it’s mandatory”). Especially as this serves a selfish agenda: giving oneself time to enjoy life, taking selfies and posting them on social media until one blends into it (when war comes knocking, one can even film it). Such statements would have no effect. So we refuse to give in to the resentment of the know-it-all, to that sad knowledge. All the more so because criticising the Relays would be to act like the system: to instil guilt, to deepen isolation and paranoia, to separate before reconnecting. It would risk adopting a discourse that oscillates between resentful description and nuanced resistance.
On the other hand, it is out of the question to say that we must stop judging others on the grounds that we are all equally caught up in the system. And it is out of the question, in relation to the first mistake, to abandon all rebellion. To think that since we cannot know where to grasp the whole, it is impossible to change anything; to think that to change the slightest thing, we would have to change everything. Avoiding these errors means, on the contrary, seeking to transform ourselves into an autonomous, complete and credible alternative; an alternative that breathes new life into the home and no longer appears as a mere conduit for connection.
In this regard, we believe the right attitude is that of a Grumeau. Whilst it is easy to let oneself melt into the whole by subscribing to the prevailing ideology, or by turning things over in one’s mind until everything becomes compatible,[4] a Grumeau, in fact, coagulates. They have no smart phone, no smart meter, no social media, no smart camera, no sleep tracker… They even go out of their way to bypass the bots to manage to speak to humans, and what’s more, outside the usual exchanges.
Where Power would have everything flowing and interconnected, a Grumeau thickens his presence. Where the prevailing instability inclines everyone to change their avatar quickly and often, provided they remain connected, a Grumeau slows things down by thickening (when it comes to digital matters, they also know that any obstacle to spontaneity is a good thing). And where everything that is connected can be brutally disconnected, a Grumeau remains firmly anchored in their milieu – they belong to it. Where connection fuels a vast process of fragmentation (as there is a division of labour), a Grumeau isolates without separating – they reconnect through the body.
Moreover, whilst the Relays are quick to dismiss those who hinder (those without whom, supposedly, everything would run smoothly in the best of all possible worlds), a Grumeau is more empathetic, and knows that sometimes, despite themselves, they are a conduit. They therefore suspend within themselves that which might impose itself on others; they relieve others of what they might impose on them simply by allowing themselves to be constituted as a Relay – as an atom of Power in the society of connection. Conversely, a Grumeau spots in others the ways in which they seek to subjugate them (for example, by appearing very at ease). Thus, they practise a certain form of local, convivial – moral – anarchism.
We believe that a Grumeau’s existential attitude is already having tangible effects, unlike the empty shells of the so-called “useless life” or “indescribable experiences” – which are nothing more than word games, played, moreover, using the opponent’s own vocabulary. Their attitude is all the more effective in that it provokes neither scandal nor disgust (a Grumeau is never more than a lost soul), whilst exasperating the Relays and their coolness.
And whilst we have no desire to make them the figurehead of a revolutionary programme, we retain the hope that something of the Grumeau will rise up towards the sources of Power. Instead of pretending to make a hole in a connection that, to function normally, must be continuous, we thus plan to build momentum, to create a mass, a bulk. The aim will be to exceed the 5% threshold – the figure representing the number of households not equipped with a smart meter, the margin of error set for the statistics, the threshold for reimbursement of printing and poster costs…
The current electoral climate certainly favours the emergence of Grumeaux. Some local councils have been won by friendly lists, and these lists will have to deal with the connection society – the very entity that needs the local level to connect as precisely as possible. They will have to withstand unjust existential accusations (such as wishing for people’s deaths), but will be able to fight precisely on the level of existential issues (whereas liberalism claims to concern itself solely with collective and material organisation – the rest being a matter for the private sphere). We therefore invite them to become Grumeaux – Grumeaux amidst the ruins. To freely join the Grumalist Existential Party.
Finally, we would like to remind them that they have an important role to play in countering the Nationalist stench. As these are on the surface, as these are surface-level fascisms, the aim will be to bring depth to local relations to discourage people from hating as far as possible. Better still: it is already a matter of waging a new class struggle – bearing in mind that whilst Grumeaux may sometimes be crushed, the Relays can burn out in a flash.
[1] Relais et Grumeaux follows on from Isolés et Relais: https://lundi.am/Manifeste-du-parti-grumaliste [translation: Autonomies, 16/03/2026]. It also echoes the Neufs thèses contre la domination du techno-capital et la neutralisation de la critique sociale [Nine Theses Against the Domination of Techno-Capital and the Neutralisation of Social Criticism], published on the same day: https://lundi.am/Neuf-theses-contre-la-domination-du-techno-capital-et-la-neutralisation-de-la. In this text, Nicolas Bonanni and Fabrice Lamarck propose moving beyond techno-critical agitation towards genuine action capable of transforming the world. For them, this involves adopting a socio-historical perspective rather than one of the ideological forms of critique, and above all sharing a sentiment, a disposition towards curiosity and encounter, which cannot be neutralised by capital and technology. For our part, we certainly share the same adversaries and the same intention. But we find it somewhat difficult to accept the succession of expert analyses of technology and declarations of lack of expertise, declarations of alienation in the very act of speaking and calls for free speech and dialogue. We would also prefer the critical act itself to be initiated by the sentiment evoked. We therefore attempt to start from the very beginning with the way we experience the situation to which the networked society assigns us.
[2] They differ, in fact, from Hegel, the philosopher of life, and even from the vitalist Bergson, because of the idealistic and abstract tendencies of the latter.
[3] With all due respect to Morizot, who believes that “existentialism is the objective ally of extractivism” insofar as it envisions a silent world, and which condemns us to exile.
[4] Two ingredients that do not mix well together will do so once combined with a third ingredient, or when mixed vigorously by hand.
*The original title of the article – “Manifeste du parti grumaliste” – or, more specifically, the word “grumaliste”, is not easy to translate. To the best of our knowledge, it suggests a supporter or adept of passive resistance, a Bartleby like character who prefers not to participate in the relationships of power of a “connected society”, while “Grumeau” and “Grumeaux” refers to such a person in the singular and plural, respectively.
Manifeste du parti grumaliste (continued)*
From lundimatin #513 (23/03/2026)
The network society connects everything it can. As a result, it tends to exclude class struggles. A number of us oppose this – in practical terms.[1]
2- Relays and Grumeaux
In the network society, homes are junctions, hubs – no longer dwellings, havens. They are criss-crossed on all sides by information network lines and are essentially sources of data, rather than retreats from the world sheltered from digital society. Moreover, they force residents to define their boundaries every day. They even compel them to tour their own fragments to reconstruct a reality that is desperately absent, to become tourists in their own homes in order to feel as though they are living there. From this point on, residents consciously conform to the norms of connectivity.
How can one live in this physical and psychological situation? How can one live in a world where there is no longer a home – inhabiting the ruins? The “philosophers of life” have claimed to have the answer. For them, it was a matter of avoiding two errors: 1- seeking to separate oneself from the networked society in order to inhabit “nature”, or even reconnect with it, even though nature exists only as an effective illusion that destroys environments; 2- practising a detached form of Marxism, adopting a viewpoint that is too general to free oneself from the deterritorialised location, employing abstract reasoning that leads one to imagine the system will collapse simply through a refusal to be counted. From this starting point, rather than thinking of society as a mould into which individuals are cast, they proposed focusing on the fabric of the environment, gradually reconsidering our relationships with what constitutes the world. And rather than imagining starting all over again from scratch, they invited us to build and maintain a new kind of bond (to replace the bonds of ordinary connection – smart metre bonds).
Thus, according to them, provided we erase within ourselves every trace of a conquering psyche, another world should be able to awaken, populated by beings endowed with inner life, and who are no longer interchangeable. It would then be possible to practise the “diplomacy of interdependencies”, to show “appropriate consideration” towards the living beings around us, as Baptiste Morizot puts it, rather than launching a head-on rebellion against Power (that of Enedis and its meters, for example). To inhabit would thus amount to coexisting with other living beings – a territory, moreover, being not merely a space but a behavioural whole (allowing for the suspension of activity, it ensures survival). And to rediscover the home, one would, for example, need to seek to “inhabit like a bird”, as Vinciane Despret puts it, before waging the political struggle by “following the forest”.
The problem is that the “philosophers of the living” have clearly lacked effectiveness, despite their claim to concreteness.[2] Perhaps because they did not speak enough of the kind of connections we experience daily, because these specialists in connection forgot the lives of the existing connectors, to the point of ultimately becoming indifferent to the living beings that we truly are, in this society of connection; perhaps because they tended to repress, like the Relays.
Instead of a philosophy of the living, we therefore propose to consider concrete connections: to look our meters in the face in order to confront the Unconscious of our society (where the Indexes are like Superegos). And we propose to take into account the life of our resistant consciences, that hindered connection from self to self which implies a certain incongruity with the surrounding society. In short: we propose starting a fresh from the situation we find ourselves in and, to rediscover the meaning of home, returning to a philosophy of existence.[3]
Thus we wish to fully consider the void in the connection between things. And above all the feeling that accompanies our solitude: anxiety – isolation breeds anxiety. What is this anxiety? It is the experience of a body in the process of leaving its living state. Anyone who pays even a little attention to their existence feels the presence within them of this reality to come – a reality that intensifies from time to time.
This anxiety is certainly a difficult experience – anxiety breeds isolation. But it carries a lesson: it reveals that there is something dead within the society of connection. Better still: it teaches us that society is dead. It makes us feel that there is no longer any shared experience that comes first, and that connections are made on the basis of secondary objects. Consequently, in this dead society, devices of connection are not merely tools serving the lives of those who inhabit it: they are the trackers of our dematerialised existences.
For the past ten years, this grim truth has certainly been obscured, not least by the relentless condemnation of “communitarianism”. Consequently, the Relays are far from feeling the effects of this decline: on the contrary, they embrace public denial by clicking their way through the world (a process itself based on the recognition and reaffirmation of reassuring prejudices). They have, moreover, developed a strange ability to link together the act of retreating into screens (as a family, supposedly cutting themselves off from the public sphere) and digital tracking (by subscribing to all the necessary checkpoints of the networked society).
To breathe new life into the social experience, we therefore believe it is necessary to oppose this existential attitude. How can this be done? Since the connecting-Relays are defined by their opposites (the isolated-isolators), the task here is to refuse to allow ourselves to be assigned, by them, to this position of isolation. It is a matter of shedding our skin.
And from this perspective, we in turn believe it is wise to avoid two errors. The first mistake would be to sound the call to revolt with a barrage of electric metaphors: claiming to “put up resistance” or “short-circuit” the network, to “ground” ourselves to disperse the electrical surge or overvoltage of the very the earth, or even to “fuse”, to prevent the continuity of the network from being maintained, so that it can no longer function normally. We must not limit ourselves to playing with words. So no, there is no declaration of revolution.
The second mistake would be to simply denounce the Relays; to remind them that a smart phone records everything, even when switched off, and relays the information to its calculating Master; to accuse them of having caved in, placing those in isolation in a delicate and lonely situation by parroting the rhetoric of Power (“it’s mandatory”). Especially as this serves a selfish agenda: giving oneself time to enjoy life, taking selfies and posting them on social media until one blends into it (when war comes knocking, one can even film it). Such statements would have no effect. So we refuse to give in to the resentment of the know-it-all, to that sad knowledge. All the more so because criticising the Relays would be to act like the system: to instil guilt, to deepen isolation and paranoia, to separate before reconnecting. It would risk adopting a discourse that oscillates between resentful description and nuanced resistance.
On the other hand, it is out of the question to say that we must stop judging others on the grounds that we are all equally caught up in the system. And it is out of the question, in relation to the first mistake, to abandon all rebellion. To think that since we cannot know where to grasp the whole, it is impossible to change anything; to think that to change the slightest thing, we would have to change everything. Avoiding these errors means, on the contrary, seeking to transform ourselves into an autonomous, complete and credible alternative; an alternative that breathes new life into the home and no longer appears as a mere conduit for connection.
In this regard, we believe the right attitude is that of a Grumeau. Whilst it is easy to let oneself melt into the whole by subscribing to the prevailing ideology, or by turning things over in one’s mind until everything becomes compatible,[4] a Grumeau, in fact, coagulates. They have no smart phone, no smart meter, no social media, no smart camera, no sleep tracker… They even go out of their way to bypass the bots to manage to speak to humans, and what’s more, outside the usual exchanges.
Where Power would have everything flowing and interconnected, a Grumeau thickens his presence. Where the prevailing instability inclines everyone to change their avatar quickly and often, provided they remain connected, a Grumeau slows things down by thickening (when it comes to digital matters, they also know that any obstacle to spontaneity is a good thing). And where everything that is connected can be brutally disconnected, a Grumeau remains firmly anchored in their milieu – they belong to it. Where connection fuels a vast process of fragmentation (as there is a division of labour), a Grumeau isolates without separating – they reconnect through the body.
Moreover, whilst the Relays are quick to dismiss those who hinder (those without whom, supposedly, everything would run smoothly in the best of all possible worlds), a Grumeau is more empathetic, and knows that sometimes, despite themselves, they are a conduit. They therefore suspend within themselves that which might impose itself on others; they relieve others of what they might impose on them simply by allowing themselves to be constituted as a Relay – as an atom of Power in the society of connection. Conversely, a Grumeau spots in others the ways in which they seek to subjugate them (for example, by appearing very at ease). Thus, they practise a certain form of local, convivial – moral – anarchism.
We believe that a Grumeau’s existential attitude is already having tangible effects, unlike the empty shells of the so-called “useless life” or “indescribable experiences” – which are nothing more than word games, played, moreover, using the opponent’s own vocabulary. Their attitude is all the more effective in that it provokes neither scandal nor disgust (a Grumeau is never more than a lost soul), whilst exasperating the Relays and their coolness.
And whilst we have no desire to make them the figurehead of a revolutionary programme, we retain the hope that something of the Grumeau will rise up towards the sources of Power. Instead of pretending to make a hole in a connection that, to function normally, must be continuous, we thus plan to build momentum, to create a mass, a bulk. The aim will be to exceed the 5% threshold – the figure representing the number of households not equipped with a smart meter, the margin of error set for the statistics, the threshold for reimbursement of printing and poster costs…
The current electoral climate certainly favours the emergence of Grumeaux. Some local councils have been won by friendly lists, and these lists will have to deal with the connection society – the very entity that needs the local level to connect as precisely as possible. They will have to withstand unjust existential accusations (such as wishing for people’s deaths), but will be able to fight precisely on the level of existential issues (whereas liberalism claims to concern itself solely with collective and material organisation – the rest being a matter for the private sphere). We therefore invite them to become Grumeaux – Grumeaux amidst the ruins. To freely join the Grumalist Existential Party.
Finally, we would like to remind them that they have an important role to play in countering the Nationalist stench. As these are on the surface, as these are surface-level fascisms, the aim will be to bring depth to local relations to discourage people from hating as far as possible. Better still: it is already a matter of waging a new class struggle – bearing in mind that whilst Grumeaux may sometimes be crushed, the Relays can burn out in a flash.
[1] Relais et Grumeaux follows on from Isolés et Relais: https://lundi.am/Manifeste-du-parti-grumaliste [translation: Autonomies, 16/03/2026]. It also echoes the Neufs thèses contre la domination du techno-capital et la neutralisation de la critique sociale [Nine Theses Against the Domination of Techno-Capital and the Neutralisation of Social Criticism], published on the same day: https://lundi.am/Neuf-theses-contre-la-domination-du-techno-capital-et-la-neutralisation-de-la. In this text, Nicolas Bonanni and Fabrice Lamarck propose moving beyond techno-critical agitation towards genuine action capable of transforming the world. For them, this involves adopting a socio-historical perspective rather than one of the ideological forms of critique, and above all sharing a sentiment, a disposition towards curiosity and encounter, which cannot be neutralised by capital and technology. For our part, we certainly share the same adversaries and the same intention. But we find it somewhat difficult to accept the succession of expert analyses of technology and declarations of lack of expertise, declarations of alienation in the very act of speaking and calls for free speech and dialogue. We would also prefer the critical act itself to be initiated by the sentiment evoked. We therefore attempt to start from the very beginning with the way we experience the situation to which the networked society assigns us.
[2] They differ, in fact, from Hegel, the philosopher of life, and even from the vitalist Bergson, because of the idealistic and abstract tendencies of the latter.
[3] With all due respect to Morizot, who believes that “existentialism is the objective ally of extractivism” insofar as it envisions a silent world, and which condemns us to exile.
[4] Two ingredients that do not mix well together will do so once combined with a third ingredient, or when mixed vigorously by hand.
*The original title of the article – “Manifeste du parti grumaliste” – or, more specifically, the word “grumaliste”, is not easy to translate. To the best of our knowledge, it suggests a supporter or adept of passive resistance, a Bartleby like character who prefers not to participate in the relationships of power of a “connected society”, while “Grumeau” and “Grumeaux” refers to such a person in the singular and plural, respectively.