Guy Debord, born on 28 December in 1931, was a Marxist philosopher and filmmaker who co-founded the Situationist International and authored "The Society of the Spectacle" (1967).
Guy Debord 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", referring 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 protesters during the May 68 uprising in France, where quotes and slogans from Situationist work would appear on graffiti 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.
"The more powerful the class, the more it claims not to exist."
- Guy Debord
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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Finally watching Andor. How did Disney let this get made?
Bait and switch, the execs were given a dogshit script where characters soyface at baby versions of older characters the entire time.
Why wouldn't they? You're watching Andor, you're not seizing the mouse.
IT'S SOOOO GOOD! It also just keeps getting better as it goes. Where are you in it? Cause I'm happy to talk about it all over again and have some multiple rewatch deep takes on certain things (as a leftist who is amazed thst libs wrote this, it's Star Wars and also disney, not lore garbage)
There's a scene where a kid throws a rock and the storm troopers turn around and murder everyone.
I thought it was a little on the nose when it came out but the people I was watching it with had no idea what I was talking about.
Recuperation doesn’t threaten power probably
They let it get pretty explicitly called for revolutiony. It is a big surprise for a Disney franchise. Also it slaps so fucking hard
Definitely the best TV i've seen in a considerably long time
I assume these things only get allowed to be made because they don't bring up capitalism and pretend corporatism =/= fascism, and the government just turned evil to be evil because umm the force and not because it's the most profitable.
Baddies are just using slave labour because they're Eeeeeevil not because every corporation would willingly do that if they were allowed to. Fighting back against evil is
especially when you're only killing eeeevil brainwashed soldiers and not attacking sacred property or trying to actually reform society.
Basically it doesn't encourage thinking about why things happened and how it's a cycle that will always repeat, and more just "we gotta murder the bad fascists so our Great Person Mon Montha can lead us toward a brighter world", ignoring that the republic openly allowed slavery and the jedi to kidnap/indoctrinate children to be super soldiers, and the republic is still beholden to the galactic credit, and any period of peace would only be temporary while the galactic proletariat suffers under the boot of the corporations. Also sentient robots are still slaves, that's mad fucked up.