Guy Debord, born on this day in 1931, was a French Marxist philosopher and filmmaker. Among his notable achievements are his 1967 work "The Society of the Spectacle" and co-founding the communist Situationist International in 1957.
Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931 and began his career as a writer after dropping out of the University of Paris, where he was studying law. Debord joined the Letterist International, a group of avant-garde French artists and intellectuals, when he was 18.
Debord was first to propose the concept of the "Spectacle", refering to the role of media, culture and advertising in post-World War II consumerist society, and the way it is able to commercially co-opt and repackage counter-cultural ideas and movements.
On the nature of media and the new-found emphasis on appearance, Debord stated "Just as early industrial capitalism moved the focus of existence from being to having, post-industrial culture has moved that focus from having to appearing."
The concept of "Spectacle" became central to the ideas of the Situationist International, which Debord co-founded in 1957. Ideas from the Situationists proved influential on protestors during the May 68 uprising in France, where quotes and slogans from Situationist work would appear on grafitti and posters.
Debord himself would disband the Situationist International in 1972, following internal tensions amongst its members, and would focus on creating experimental film and tabletop war games, publishing "A Game of War" in 1987.
Suffering from depression and alcoholism in his later years, Debord committed suicide at his home in 1994.
Situationist International
The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972. The intellectual foundations of the Situationist International were derived primarily from libertarian Marxism and the avant-garde art movements of the early 20th century, particularly Dada and Surrealism. Overall, situationist theory represented an attempt to synthesize this diverse field of theoretical disciplines into a modern and comprehensive critique of mid-20th century advanced capitalism.
Essential to situationist theory was the concept of the spectacle, a unified critique of advanced capitalism of which a primary concern was the progressively increasing tendency towards the expression and mediation of social relations through objects. The situationists believed that the shift from individual expression through directly lived experiences, or the first-hand fulfillment of authentic desires, to individual expression by proxy through the exchange or consumption of commodities, or passive second-hand alienation, inflicted significant and far-reaching damage to the quality of human life for both individuals and society. Another important concept of situationist theory was the primary means of counteracting the spectacle; the construction of situations, moments of life deliberately constructed for the purpose of reawakening and pursuing authentic desires, experiencing the feeling of life and adventure, and the liberation of everyday life.
The situationists recognized that capitalism had changed since Karl Marx's formative writings, but maintained that his analysis of the capitalist mode of production remained fundamentally correct; they rearticulated and expanded upon several classical Marxist concepts, such as his theory of alienation. In their expanded interpretation of Marxist theory, the situationists asserted that the misery of social alienation and commodity fetishism were no longer limited to the fundamental components of capitalist society, but had now in advanced capitalism spread themselves to every aspect of life and culture.
When the Situationist International was first formed, it had a predominantly artistic focus; emphasis was placed on concepts like unitary urbanism and psychogeography. Gradually, however, that focus shifted more towards revolutionary and political theory. The Situationist International reached the apex of its creative output and influence in 1967 and 1968, with the former marking the publication of the two most significant texts of the situationist movement, The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord and The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem. The expressed writing and political theory of the two aforementioned texts, along with other situationist publications, proved greatly influential in shaping the ideas behind the May 1968 insurrections in France; quotes, phrases, and slogans from situationist texts and publications were ubiquitous on posters and graffiti throughout France during the uprisings.
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Guy Debord: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of a Brilliant Crank :debord-tired:
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Enragés and Situationists in the Occupations Movement :france-cool:
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We are going through a crucial historical crisis in which each year poses more acutely the global problem of rationally mastering the new productive forces and creating a new civilization. Yet the international working-class movement, on which depends the prerequisite overthrow of the economic infrastructure of exploitation, has registered only a few partial local successes. Capitalism has invented new forms of struggle (state intervention in the economy, expansion of the consumer sector, fascist governments) while camouflaging class oppositions through various reformist tactics and exploiting the degenerations of working-class leaderships. In this way it has succeeded in maintaining the old social relations in the great majority of the highly industrialized countries, thereby depriving a socialist society of its indispensable material base. In contrast, the underdeveloped or colonized countries, which over the last decade have engaged in the most direct and massive battles against imperialism, have begun to win some very significant victories. These victories are aggravating the contradictions of the capitalist economy and (particularly in the case of the Chinese revolution) could be a contributing factor toward a renewal of the whole revolutionary movement. Such a renewal cannot limit itself to reforms within the capitalist or anticapitalist countries, but must develop conflicts posing the question of power everywhere.
The shattering of modern culture is the result, on the plane of ideological struggle, of the chaotic crisis of these antagonisms. The new desires that are taking shape are presented in distorted form: present-day resources could enable them to be fulfilled, but the anachronistic economic structure is incapable of developing these resources to such ends. Ruling-class ideology has meanwhile lost all coherence because of the depreciation of its successive conceptions of the world (a depreciation which leads the ruling class to historical indecision and uncertainty); because of the coexistence of a range of mutually contradictory reactionary ideologies (such as Christianity and social-democracy); and because of the mixing into contemporary Western culture of a number of only recently appreciated features of several foreign civilizations. The main goal of ruling-class ideology is therefore to maintain this confusion.
We must call attention, among the workers parties or the extremist tendencies within those parties, to the need to undertake an effective ideological action in order to combat the emotional influence of advanced capitalist methods of propaganda. On every occasion, by every hyper-political means, we must publicize desirable alternatives to the spectacle of the capitalist way of life, so as to destroy the bourgeois idea of happiness. At the same time, taking into account the existence, within the various ruling classes, of elements that have always tended (out of boredom and thirst for novelty) toward things that lead to the disappearance of their societies, we should incite the persons who control some of the vast resources that we lack to provide us with the means to carry out our experiments, out of the same motives of potential profit as they do with scientific research.
-Guy Debord :debord-tired: Report on the Construction of Situations (1957)
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I hate when I see videos of people confronting cops on a stop and the captions are 'they know their rights'.
Your constitutional rights don't mean anything, they can and will kill you or ruin your life for whatever fucking reason. No law or lawyer will be able to protect you. They could get filmed killing your 3 year old child and quite possibly the worst thing that could happen to them is they lose their job. A cop could cum on your face for a 3 months paid vacation. A judge could hear a cop violently molest a person and they would sentence them to probation. It took the entire planet protesting and rioting for Derek Chauvin to get sentenced to 15 years in prison after being filmed on camera literally murdering a person.
No, you don't know your fucking rights, your rights are to be subjugated and treated like shit by this evil country. All these people filming themselves shit talking cops on camera as if they're impenetrable, dude just shut the fuck up and hope they're not having a bad day.
Had to take my toddler to the ER as her breathing is really rapid and has had a fever today. Only one parent allowed in at a time, so I’m sitting in the car like a chud vlogger. If this is covid, a big “thanks” to Joe Biden
Edit: heading home, it’s not covid, flu or rsv! :gaddafi-happy: still has a fever, but docs are hapy with how her heart/lungs sound. they gave her ibuprofen so I expect to now be bankrupt
Man, you can feel the spread of omicron just through the mood of this site, I've noticed a shift since the start of December. At least it's nice to know that we're not alone, so many people love pretending that everything is fine
The in laws have arrived and are saying 5.5 million people dying of covid is no big deal. ‘It’s only .007% of the global population!’
Uh that’s almost the size of the Holocaust.
And do they realize that even 1% of the global population dying of a communicable illness in a 2 year span would completely collapse society as people try to avoid dying?
And these people are Catholics who supposedly think life is sacred and people must choose life etc.
:agony-shivering: holy fuck get these psychos away from me
I’m so fucking angry right now
Do be appreciating how liberals are manufacturing consent that covid is a personal responsibility issue and totally absolving the government of all responsibility because their boy is in the office. We're like a couple weeks away from blue check PMCs on twitter spouting "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" to un-vaccinated people dying from covid. Blue MAGA, Red MAGA, your only choice in this hell country.
You know what's fucked up? My dad is leaving the house to my half brother and sister, when they've never lived here and have never dropped a cent into this house. Seriously, my dad is leaving me nothing when he dies. He fucking hates me and controls me and yet I'm supposed to be this grateful and loving son. No one stands up to my dad besides me, and right now I can't because I don't want to be kicked out. His family adores him, my side of the family tolerates him, meanwhile I'm blamed for mom's death. No one knows how awful my dad treated her and I fear that even if people did find out, they'd take my dad's side anyway.
Conservatives: it's just the flu, we shouldnt have any restrictions
Liberals: it's just the flu*, we shouldn't have any restrictions
*As long as you're vaccinated. If you get sick and you're unvaccinated, that's Your Choice
Liberal wet dream: landmines are placed in random places throughout the country, but they're all incredibly well documented. There's nothing to worry about if you're well informed and alert, but a ton of people will recieve Darwin Awards and pay the price for their stupidity
apparently the US had over half a million new covid cases yesterday
pretty sure that shatters the previous record by a couple hundred thousand
It's a real mind fuck when my dad who made my mom's life absolutely miserable in the last 6 months of it and withheld money from her talks about how he's sad that he treated her bad, because "it was for her own good". My mom wasn't a child, she didn't need to be taught a lesson, she was an adult and you were her husband, you failed her in never acting like one and supporting her. Sure I didn't have a job but I took care of mom. Where were you? Why am I blamed for mom's death?
'FOR CULINARY USE ONLY. DO NOT INHALE' :big-cool: sure thing :whip-it-canister:
Radio Havana Cuba is coming through particularly clear on the shortwave radio tonight :fidel-cool:
