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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who is Elisabeth Judas-Forster?
(a) Andre Masson's lover.
(b) A critic of Bataille's.
(c) Bataille's girlfriend.
(d) Nietzsche's sister.

2. Why is classical utility theory inadequate, in Bataille's opinion?
(a) Utility theory is not compatible with the Marxist imperative of class revolution.
(b) Utility theory disregards values like honor and virtue.
(c) Utility theory mystifies economics with talk of revolution.
(d) Utility theory relies on principles like honor and duty.

3. What does Bataille say the theory of conspicuous consumption is used for?
(a) Keeping the poor weak.
(b) Melting different cultures together in America.
(c) Preserving segregation between rich and poor.
(d) Giving the poor opportunities.

4. What does Bataille say Nietzsche questions?
(a) How an ideal can be discovered in the past.
(b) How a people's spirit can be expressed.
(c) How a people's technology can be fulfilled.
(d) How an ideology can be invented.

5. How did Bataille relate to Andre Masson's drawings?
(a) He saw himself as the entire cosmos.
(b) He saw himself as the self in flight.
(c) He saw himself as the sick man.
(d) He saw himself as the lines and the paper themselves.

6. What does Bataille define as a way to humiliate, defy, or obligate a poorer person as a show of destruction of wealth?
(a) Potlatch.
(b) Public Assistance.
(c) Welfare.
(d) Government subsidies.

7. What kinds of expenditure does artistic production require?
(a) Patron or market expenditure.
(b) Religious or secular expenditure.
(c) Public or patron expenditure.
(d) Real or symbolic expenditure.

8. What does Bataille say about the knife whose handle and blade are changed indefinitely?
(a) It is a capitalist knife, with its value in its use alone.
(b) It is no longer the same knife.
(c) It partakes of the eternal form of knife-ness.
(d) It is a modern knife, with replaceable parts.

9. What feeling does Bataille say grows in response to revolutionaries?
(a) Faith.
(b) Distrust.
(c) Messianism.
(d) Disillusionment.

10. How did fascists see Nietzsche?
(a) As a traitor.
(b) As a martyr.
(c) As a prosecutor.
(d) As a primary ancestor.

11. What does Baumler call revolution?
(a) Renewal of the past.
(b) Rebellion against modernity.
(c) Awareness of the future.
(d) Social engineering.

12. What was the purpose of the Popular Front, in Bataille's account?
(a) To oppose immigrants in France.
(b) To overthrow the Vichy government.
(c) To oppose Hitler.
(d) To oppose fascism in France.

13. What is classical utility theory inadequate to define, in Bataille's opinion?
(a) What is useful to man.
(b) What is aesthetically valuable.
(c) The value of religious belief.
(d) The value of tranquility.

14. What does Bataille say is the only religion for fascists?
(a) Race.
(b) Christianity.
(c) Power.
(d) Technology.

15. Under what conditions can a state be democratic, in Bataille's opinion?
(a) When heterogeneity happens spontaneously.
(b) When homogeneity can be broken up peacefully.
(c) When heterogeneity can be controlled with force.
(d) When homogeneity happens spontaneously.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does fascism originate?

2. What does Bataille's 'me in the void' realize in "Sacrifices"?

3. When does an obelisk cease to be meaningful?

4. What does Bataille use as evidence of his position on dialectics?

5. What tone did Andre Masson establish in his drawings?

(see the answer keys)

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