The Situationists: The New Left Avant-Garde
The Situationist International, an artistic and intellectual movement with roots in Marxism and Lettrism, had a tremendous impact on the New Left movements of the 1960s and 70s. The SI’s ideas continue to echo throughout the artistic, intellectual and political circles of postmodernity. Concerned with the materialism of modern society, the commercialization of the art world and the general apathy and malaise that characterized urban life in late capitalism, the Situationist came to champion revolt, or “moments of life”, to destroy the existing parameters of contemporary society. This brief piece aims to examine key Stuationist theories, the physical manifestation of these ideas during historical events like the May 1968, and the criticisms that have been levied against the Situationist International (SI).
Situationist developed upon the theories of reification and commodity fetishism, pioneered by Karl Marx and Georg Lukács, proclaiming “the more you consume the less you live.” Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle extends Karl Marx’s concept of reification, which related solely to commodities, to the whole of society. Workers alienated and exploited by the capitalist mode of production become passive consumers outside of the workplace as well. The Society of the Spectacle argues that modern society has become a mere “spectacle” in which authentic social life as been replaced by social interaction mediated by “images.” Debord claims that “All that was once directly lived has become mere representation” (Debord, 1). Debord and his colleagues sought to recapture life through the subversion of the society of the spectacle. Their intentions were trumpeted openly in their organization’s journal, “If we do not want to participate in the spectacle of the end of the world, we will have to work towards the end of the world of the spectacle.”
In dense Hegelian prose Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle features 221 theses, the likes of which include, “In a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is a moment of the false” (Debord, 9). The style of the work, the use of short declarations, is a deliberate representation of the fragmentation he sees in the modern world. The spectacle in the modern urban environment was described as Debord as, “[A force that] reunites the separate, but reunites them as separate” (Debord, Thesis 29). In other words in modern society people are plucked from all over the world and brought together, through the process of urbanization, a consequence of capitalist development, but we are living separate from each other, collectively. One can consider the relationship between an average apartment dweller and his neighbor. Both parties may exchange pleasantries, but on the whole they might only talk to one another a few times a year. We live together in a psuedo-community, rather than an authentic one; there is no organic community or bonds of solidarity between people living so close to each other, but if forced to someone would be to converse with his neighbor. Topics that would immediately come to mind would be the latest movie out in theaters, the new electronic gadget being marketed on television, etc. Yet in these conversations we can see the sterility of life in the spectacle. We can only communicate through the use of images imposed upon us, so therefore we cannot fundamentally relate to one another as human beings. We are mere spectators to the spectacle, not full participants in our own lives. “[Debord] wrote that the human experience, under Spectacle, could be characterized by the ‘degradation of being into having’” (Harold, 4).
Though Debord’s thought may seem completely different orthodox Marxism, the roots of concept of the spectacle are grounded in the work of Marx. Marx wrote in Das Kapital that “[the producers'] own social action takes the form of the action of objects, which rule the producers instead of being ruled by them.” In other words the relationship between people through production are disguised by the movement of commodities governed by market forces in the sphere of circulation. Debord’s reasoning is a natural evolution of Marx’s thought. Generations of workers in advanced capitalist countries producing while alienated from the products of their labor would invariable lead to a society corrupted by the products of this alienated labor; a society filled with commodities that were never conceptualized by workers, but which were now being advertised to and consumed by producers in their leisure time. The Situationist analysis of the spectacle and the Marxist analysis of class society and the division of labor are inseparable.
The spectacle manifested itself in different forms. In paternalistic capitalist, fascist and bureaucratic “socialist” states, in which a powerful elite controlled much of production and communication, Debord saw the “concentrated spectacle”. This spectacle identifies itself with a powerful leader and relies on physical coercion to maintain control.
If different forms of the same alienation struggle against each other in the guise of irreconcilable antagonisms, this is because they are all based on real contradictions that are repressed. The spectacle exists in a concentrated form and a diffuse form, depending on the requirements of the particular stage of poverty it denies and supports. In both cases it is nothing more than an image of happy harmony surrounded by desolation and horror, at the calm center of misery (Debord, 63).
In advanced bourgeois democracies the spectacle operates more through the seduction of commodity fetishism than through force.
The Situationists sought to create situations to undermine the spectacle and the modern state that was its byproduct. “The Situationists encouraged people to choose authentic and spontaneous action in order to live life as ‘a moral, poetic, erotic, and almost spiritual refusal to cooperate with the demands of consumer culture’” (Harold, 3). The Situationists, jokingly labeled “Groucho Marxists” by some, told people to “free the passions,” “live without dead time” and “don’t change employers, change the employment of life.” During the revolutionary upsurge of the late 1960s, while many of their comrades on the revolutionary left were trying to build vanguard parties for insurrection, Raoul Vaneigem, a key member of the Paris-based Situationist International, wrote: “People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have corpses in their mouths.” In May of 1968 Stuationists inspired students and disgruntled workers rose up in opposition to the status quo. The Situationists praised the talking that exploded all over France as a result of this uprising. Students occupied their schools, workers their workplaces and storms of citizens took over the streets tattooing Paris with Situationist quotes. The explosion of participation in society represented a repudiation of the spectacle. Men and women refused to be onlookers and demanded to be fully engaged in their lives.
The French Communist Party and followers of “orthodox Marxism” denounced student radicalism as both petit-bourgeois and anarchistic. Yet for many of the students had sophisticated intellectual reasoning behind their actions. A great embodiment of situationist ethos that exemplifies much of the analysis of the movement is the Parisian graffiti from the revolutionary month of May 1968 that read, “Sous les pavés, la plage!” Translated into English it means roughly, “Beneath the pavement–the beach!” The Situationists believed that the spectacle of modern society could be replaced by authentic social life. Situations, insurrections and revolutions, could shatter the spectacle, breaking the pavement of modern society and exposing the natural human relations underneath it. As French workers and students in May 1968 ripped up the cobblestones of Paris’ streets to smash the windows of businesses and did battle with police, they were not engaging in anarchistic rioting, but rather creating a situation to free themselves from the spectacle. The SI themselves organized committees in support of the workplace occupations that occurred throughout France. They sought the development of French Soviets and the molding of a new participatory society around these democratic institutions.
Ironically, images of student revolt and anti-capitalist revolutionaries, like the Argentine Che Guevara, have become capitalist commodities in recent years. This development was predicted by the situationist theory of recuperation. According to the theory of recuperation, radical ideas and images are commodified and made mainstream. “To survive, the spectacle must have social control. It can recuperate a potentially threatening situation by shifting ground, creating dazzling alternatives–or by embracing the threat, making it safe and then selling it back to us” (Law, 16). One could look at how Woody Guthrie’s politically-charged “This Land Is Your Land” had controversial verses removed and was transformed into a jingoist parody of its original self to see an example of recuperation. The Situationists countered this mainstreaming with their own radical version of recuperation. This practice was called detournement. Images produced by the spectacle were subverted so they became anti-establishment, radical objects. Exhibits featuring vandalized art were examples of detournement in action.
Criticisms of the political actives of the Situationists and their modern disciples have come mainly from the Right, but attacks on their tactics have also come from the Left. While other members of the Left were organizing workers into unions, building political parties and preparing to wrestle for state power, the Situationists were attempting to revolutionize “everyday life.” This is not to say that the Situationists did not desire to replace the apparatus of the spectacle with a de-alienated, participatory state, but their efforts were focused more on sabotaging the current system than on building a revolutionary party to forge a new one.
Criticisms of the Situationists and other ultra-leftists continue to this day. In contemporary Greece, site of some of the largest student unrest seen in Europe since the 1960s, Marxists decry the actions of anarchist, Situationist-inspired students. They acknowledge that the students are justified in their opposition to bourgeois society, but believe that rioting will only turn ordinary workers towards the Right, towards “law and order,” hindering the electoral and organizing efforts of the Left in the electoral realm and slowing down progress towards a more humane order. In order to create a participatory society these Marxists see discipline and organization as a necessity, whereas the ultra-leftists see their day-to-day acts of defiance as emancipatory in their own right.
The Situationist critique of late capitalist society is so scathing that it seems to leave room for terrorism and other acts of violence against it. What is to say that bomb-throwing is not a situation-creating that has the capacity to disrupt the spectacle? Criticisms have also been leveled at the inaccessibility of much of the Situationist work. If their attempt was to expose modern society and rally the masses to shatter the spectacle then perhaps they should have wrote in a style that could be deciphered by more than Parisian intellectuals and idealistic university students. Debord’s insights might have been better explained in more conventional forms. Dicta like “This instability is the spectacle’s natural condition, but it is completely contrary to its natural inclination” mean little to those not already indoctrinated (Debord, 71).
The Situationists were forerunners of the postmodernist movement. Their intellectual contributions continue to have a great impact on art, cinema and radical political thought. Though their critics question whether or not they betrayed the legacy of Marxism by focusing on control in the sphere of circulation rather than exploitation in the sphere of production, far more positive things can be said about the legacy of these Western European intellectuals than can be said of those that claimed to manifest Marxist goals through the use of state machinery in Eastern Europe.
Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Donald Nicholson-Smith, trans. Cambridge: Zone Books, 1995.
Harold, Christine. OurSpace. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
Law, Larry. The Spectacle: A Skeleton Key. Spectacular Times, 2001.
Marx, Karl. Das Kapital, Vol. 1. <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/>
Vaneigem, Raoul. The Revolution of Everyday Life. Donald Nicholson-Smith, trans. New York: Rebel Press, 2001.
Interesting post, Bhaskar! But I think it’s usually spelled ‘Situationist.’ According to the French Wikipedia it’s situationniste en français.
I changed it. To be honest, I think the Situationists are seriously overrated.
Interesting post. I agree with many of your points. I can relate a lot to this because the SI was my primary building block as a high school student turned leftist.To address the points a little more creatively I would consider looking more specifically at artistic moments, re-presentations, and influences that the SI had on the world. Maybe using fragmented lines to pedagogically engage with the SI and the Derridian methodology. Great post though!
This was actually a draft of a short-prompt for a western philosophy class I was taking, which would explain the trite prose.