So what is the general consensus around here on the Situationists?

So what is the general consensus around here on the Situationists?

Actually worth something to the Socialist struggle or worthless pretentious garbage which was a precursor to Postmodernism and silly "post-left" anarchy

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They had some good stuff

They were basically leftcoms, I don't know why post-left "anarchists" like them.

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Probably because they were about as anti-authoritarian as a leftcom can be before just being a full blown anarchist. They also took influence from anarchist thinkers as well as Marxist, so maybe that's got something to do with it

wut

I'm a big fan of their work.

What's your favorite thing by the Situationists?

Also are there any Neo-Situationist groups worth checking out or are they all cringey

Yeah, but it's not just that communization people like them, explicitly anti-collectivist, anti-socialist "anarchists" like Bob Black or 90s-era Crimethinc like them

That's what I'm trying to say. I think their emphasis on starting revolution with the individual emancipating himself and self-negating their spooked spectacular existence and then going on to create a revolutionary situation out of humorous artistic inversion rather than a focus on traditional direct action is what those guys like so much about the Situationists

However i think that is also a bit of a misreading and/or reduction on their part. Debord, for all his memeing and alcoholism, was certainly for a revolt by workers in the usual Marxist sense

1. You probably won't find a consensus for anything on leftypol

2. Actually worth something.

Debord is the man, but I may just be partial to the French (I'm a burger). His follow-up on Society of the Spectacle is worth a read almost as much as the original work

Read "The Abolition of Work" m8. Even if they don't refer to it by name pretty much all the post-left anarchists are for a communist society. But as part of their concerns with critiquing the Left with all its failures of the 20th century in mind, they also place a stronger emphasis on the role of the individual. They are critical of the tendency in the collectivist Left to reduce the individual to a nonexistent formal idea.

The Situationists were also critical of anarchism - as was Nietzsche - and I think that part of the appeal of them to the post-left anarchists is that they also acknowledge the failures of anarchism in the 20th century and are interested in meeting the critiques that have been levelled against anarchism because of this.

so they ascribe philosophical friction to what is just tankies being traitors as usual

have anybody seen the movie the Society of the Spectacle? is it worth watching?

Not only is it entirely uninteresting and unconvincing to blame everything on tankies being traitors all the time, but it's also a useless argument to make and oversimplifies or ignores the other problems that kekalonia had.

At the end of the day, it's just more of the same bullshit whining about how x ideology is perfect but the conditions for it weren't just right.

It's just quotes from the book with random images in the background. Unless you are some art-cinema hipster you are probably better of just reading the book.

Is McKenzie Wark worth reading or is he just a hack trying to profit from the relative obscurity of the Situationist International?

They did some good stuff, but I feel like the worst parts of the movement are the ones that everyone tries to copy.

Just look at Tumblr, and how they try to phrase their bourgeoisie idpol posturing as revolutionary.

McKenzie Wark was how I got introduced to the Situationists. The Beach Beneath the Street is a difficult but really, really good way to get into their thought. So yeah I recommend him.

Really? I was looking for reviews and found this:
marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviews/2012/504
It's not really favourable of his work.

it's best to think of the situationists as what a pre-internet Holla Forums would be like

I wish Holla Forums was as based as the SI

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FUCK meant to make a new thread of this

the situationists were pretty cool but had their time and place, they're not coming back (at least in the exact form they once took)

They seemed to have propagated the idea that revolution was possible through "detournement" (literally making memes),

because the spectacle is part of the superstructure, and 'therefore we could destroy capitalism by using the spectacles own media against it.'

I think the spectacle is the opiate of the people on steroids,
("buy this for world peace!", "buy this and get big tits!")
and although we buy things because of the spectacle, they still posses the use-value we need/want;

though it IS the spectacle that decides what much of society wants, and this HAS caused a drop in quality in many cases;

this does not cause the exchange value the fluctuate from product to product at a large enough rate so that it is dependant upon the spectacle;

it it still the worker that creates the phone, junkfood, ad-filled movie, porn, makeup, ect;

so despite what some may say the labour theory is still alive and well, at least in my opinion.

Poverty of Student Life should be required reading for Holla Forums tbh, a bit sad how much of the criticism still holds

I have mixed feelings about them. Their theories aren't very clear, for example the "spectacle" as I understand it means to be separated from yourself. But how can a thing be separated from itself? It sounds like a logical contradiction. Also beside councilism they didn't quite explain what their ideal society would look like, or how could we transition to it.

But yeah, détournements are cool as fuck.

I think it means a false reality
that manifests itself in true reality.

We're getting them comr8

Yes they said themselves in '69 that the SI would be superseded. I don't think the mantle has been taken up.

Seriously. I would have had all my student comrades and friends read it.

Basically all power to the councils (soviets), let them take it from there. The worker must emancipate himself, the people must create their own society. Prescriptions are alienating.

ebin