Legacy of Dissolution

“Avant-gardes have only one time; and the best thing that can happen to them is to have enlivened their time without outliving it. After them, operations move onto a vaster terrain. Too often have we seen such elite troops, after they have accomplished some valiant exploit, remain on hand to parade with their medals and then turn against the cause they previously supported. Nothing of this sort need be feared from those whose attack has carried them to the point of dissolution… A historical project can hardly expect to preserve an eternal youth, sheltered from every blow… After this splendid dispersal, I realized that I had to quickly conceal myself from a fame that threatened to become far too conspicuous.” – Guy Debord, In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni.

The greatest contribution of the situationists was their dissolution. If anything, it may have come later than it ought to have. Following the brief upheavals in France in 1968 hundreds attempted to gain membership to the SI. Rather than accumulate members and achieve a more infamous notoriety, the SI began destroying itself. This, more than any thesis in Society of the Spectacle, is the greatest contribution of the situationists. Like all great contributions by pro-revolutionaries, it was purely negative and affirmed nothing other than the necessity of negation.

In issue #24 of Green Anarchy Magazine the final period of the Situationist International, with endless splits and finally the end of the group with only two members remaining, was presented as proof of “Stalinist Bureaucracy’ and the dictatorial role of Guy Debord. I think these speak to just the opposite. Bureaucracies and dictators do not dissolve themselves on their own accord! It’s conspicuous but unsurprising that commentaries on this final period are disparaging (in the before-mentioned issue of Green Anarchy, the SI are attacked because “their creative production decreased over time”).

Now an absurd thesis: The rudeness of the situationists was a collective character trait that acted against organization by encouraging breaks and dissolution. None of the three forces acting to recuperate situationist theory – anarchists, academics, and ‘pro-situs’ – understand this. The former two recuperate with conscious or unconscious distortion and appropriation; the latter with trying to carry on something that was already intentionally ended. All three push situ-ideology in an effort to build organization or movement, if not interested only in furthering their career or trumpeting their intellectual superiority.

Finally, I do not want to pose the question of a theory of the SI, but of the theory of the proletariat, which the SI expressed in some way (and were thus attacked by all of their political contemporaries). It should also be said that the situationists did not share my ideas on their theory and practice.

(Note: This text appeared in the first issue of LETTERS)