The 10 Things All Great Manifestos Need

Fleeting and permanent, serious and ridiculous, sincere and ironic, always undermining their own authority, manifestos are unstable texts in the extreme.

In 1909 the Futurists refused reverence and predicted, even begged for their overthrow by the next generation: “Younger and stronger men will throw us in the wastebasket like useless manuscripts,” they cried. “We want it to happen!” Like all good manifestos, they built in their own obsolescence, clearing the way for the next vision of the future.

Manifestos are repositories of a kind of magic and madness that does not exist in any other genre.

In its highest form, the manifesto acts as a magic spell incanted by the visionary artist. It is a performative speech/act that attempts to bring a new reality into existence.

Any manifesto worth reading demands the impossible.

1. Manifestos usually include a list of numbered tenets.

The format has been de rigeur since at least as far back as The Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789). It conveys a sense of urgency and straight talk. This is also why manifestos feel so contemporary: their close resemblance to click-bait top 10 lists.

The longer a manifesto is, the exponentially crazier and duller it seems to get. If a manifesto is a type of advertisement, then ask yourself: Who would write a 35,000-word advertisement? The Unabomber, for one.

Manifestos are fiction dressed as fact.