France PWNS Debord
Mar 19 2009 21:02
Guy-Ernest Debord would be spinning in his grave – had he not been cremated following his suicide in 1994. The arch-rebel who prided himself on fully deserving society's "universal hatred" has now officially been recognised as a "national treasure" in his homeland.
The French government has duly stepped in to prevent Yale University from acquiring his personal archives, which contain almost everything he ever produced from the 1950s onwards: films, notes, drafts, unpublished works and corrected proofs, as well as his entire library, typewriter and spectacles. The crowning jewel is, of course, the manuscript of The Society of the Spectacle, Debord's devastating pre-emptive strike on virtual reality. The small wooden table on which his magnum opus was composed is also thrown in.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/mar/18/guy-debord-situationist-international
Mar 20 2009 01:26
#2
I don't think any of us were befuddled as to the meaning of "recuperation." We were befuddled as to the meaning of that particular Debord quote, which borders on nonsense.
Mar 20 2009 01:33
#3
mikus wrote:
I don't think any of us were befuddled as to the meaning of "recuperation." We were befuddled as to the meaning of that particular Debord quote, which borders on nonsense.
sorry mikus, but that's just weird. That's probably one of the most jargon-free Debord quotes I ever read. Anyway, that's besides the point.
If Debord can be recuperated, there really shouldn't be any surprise at the fact that the number of overpriced and overhyped lectures on the "philosophy of communism, from Plato to the present" is increasing (or appears to be increasing).
Mar 20 2009 17:55
#4
Vlad336 wrote:
sorry mikus, but that's just weird. That's probably one of the most jargon-free Debord quotes I ever read. Anyway, that's besides the point.
If Debord can be recuperated, there really shouldn't be any surprise at the fact that the number of overpriced and overhyped lectures on the "philosophy of communism, from Plato to the present" is increasing (or appears to be increasing).
Perhaps you think it is enough to decipher the general intent of Debord's words, but when I made that mocking comment I was thinking specifically about his choice of words. Saying that words have a "true" or a "false" "activity" (as distinct from a word's "meaning") is bizarre, for example. There is nothing "true" about the Marxian use of "communism," for example, and the word itself is not an active agent. Debord says that when words are recuperated "the only activity that words describe is the activity the recuperated words describe." The "words" and the "recuperated words" are one in the same, so his use of these terms makes little sense. But I am glad that this is all beside the point. Mikus is right, however: nobody was "befuddled" by the word "recuperate."
"If Debord can be recuperated . . ." Even the mighty Debord? Maybe you didn't mean it that way. It'd be unfair to assume so. But I think it is common among the sort of sectarians that Debord nurtured to imagine that they might stay pure. Debord made some interesting comments on this (even if they apply to himself):
Debord wrote:
About recuperation, I think as you do, that it is also -- and perhaps principally from the historical point of view -- an effect of the crisis of society, of the weakness of the ideas held by power. In this sense, governments recuperate as much and sometimes more than the moderate or pseudo-extremist opposition, and it is a sign of the misfortune of all. I have often combated, among certain comrades, a slightly purist-moralist tendency to only see a disastrous loss of critical truth when a new theme is reprised and falsified in the current social spectacle, without seeing that this is also the necessary road for what can succeed in shaking a society. This simple discontent effectively expresses a kind of resentment among the owners. When one truly expresses a critique, one knows how to use it -- and it is in this that one can so easily distinguish the recuperators! -- and thus one has no need of abstractly playing [the part of] the owners. Such a conclusion does not prevent one from recognizing the social positions and the objective and subjective goals of the recuperators (governmental or careerist). (Debord to Guy Leccia 7 December 1976)
A book bound in sandpaper can still be put under glass, after all.
Mar 20 2009 19:49
#5
dave c wrote:
Mikus is right, however: nobody was "befuddled" by the word "recuperate."
poor choice of words on my part then. Sorry bout that.
Debord wrote:
I have often combated, among certain comrades, a slightly purist-moralist tendency to only see a disastrous loss of critical truth when a new theme is reprised and falsified in the current social spectacle, without seeing that this is also the necessary road for what can succeed in shaking a society
I completely agree with him here, and I wasn't decrying the loss of the pure Debord by any means. But one of the ideas that I got from the commies thread was that in times of a perceived rise in radical agitation, there will be a tendency to recuperate more and faster. Debord's works are out there and anyone can read them; he is not some poorly defined "communist specter" a la Zizek. So if the former can be recuperated as the emblem of French liberte (which is not the case right now, despite this move by the French gov., but give it time), how much easier is it for communist ideas to be drowned in a puddle of professorial piss (advertised as "dialogue)? Much easier I would say, and this is why when we talk of recuperation and the Zizek lecture (and others like it) there is no need to go into speculation on whether or not there is a conspiracy or if academics are the tools of the state. Debord was obviously not the tool of the state, and this recent move by the French gov. is certainly not a conspiracy of any kind. Of course none of this means a "disastrous loss of critical truth" in Debord or in communism, as the former clearly points out. Anyway, I'm rambling, so I'll stop here.
I hope the people who were befuddled by the meaning of recuperation in the "commies pack 'em in thread" are reading this.
Debord is officially the new Voltaire.