Anselm Jappe offers us a fascinating account of Guy Debord and his ideas in his book “Guy Debord”. I would claim this book to be essential for the one who is all gaga about post-WWII French philosophy, up to the climax of the May 1968 riots and beyond.
I must have first read about the Situationist International about two years ago. But it is only recently during an excursion to the bookstore that me, trying to reap the benefits of a storewide discount, purchased the lonely copy of “Guy Debord” by Anselm Jappe (translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith) in the Sociology department for serious reading.
Worth it, even if you were to buy it without the discount. From the Afterword by Anselm Jappe for the English translation,
“If you cannot rid yourself of a bandit,” goes an Italian proverb, “make him into a baron.” Until almost his death, Guy Debord was the object of a conspiracy of silence; these days his work, and the work of the Situationists in general, seem rather to have fallen prey to a conspiracy of chatter that is liable to distort their meaning beyond all recognition. In France, the strong tendency now is to treat Guy Debord as an elegant stylist, the actual content of whose writings is of scant interest. In Great Britain and the United States, by contrast, where in the last decade more has been published on the Situationists than anywhere else, even France, and where the subject was taken up by academic and mainstream commentators sooner than in other countries, the Situationist movement is viewed almost exclusively from the angle of the history of culture.
Practically all current discussions of the Situationists embody an attempt – perhaps not always conscious – to render them innocuous, to normalize them by one means or another. One such means is flatly to present this antipolitical and antiartistic movement as political and artistic, and then concentrate entirely on the SI’s aesthetic and “ludic” concerns.
It is so compelling a passage, that I might think it would suffice to make the perfect review. I might as well have nothing to say than to just quote. Until this book, my understanding of Debord was severly limited. Why, even Foucault was easier to get. 
This was somebody who left, in my opinion then, a trail of cryptic words and flamboyant declarations. It was difficult to begin to understand his terminology; agenda and method. It was like, ramblings of the true legendary hermit-artist who strives only to let go and not worry about being understood.
Dérives; psychogeography; manifestos; “spectacles” – things that sounded greatly surreal, but based upon reality and the world somehow. Like a mega-fiction of the world. Ah well, no essay or article I could find as well to demystify this man and his ideas. The most useful readings only taught one of the methods and practice of the dérive and the détournement. There was really little that could teach me about the why behind the acts. Gradually, I reduced the Situationist International to merely an artistic avant-garde movement. Play for play’s sake.
Hinting at anarchist connotations to Debord was the film “Waking Life”, which became one of my favourite films after I first saw it. This reference to Debord, though, I did not particularly understand either. Here’s the scene, though. I think it’s pretty cool.
The passage by Jappe I quoted makes so much sense to me because of my earlier exposure to Debord. Or at least, it showed how my earlier exposure to Debord didn’t make sense. In fact, reading that as an afterword, and appreciating what it said, signalled to me that I had understood something!
I would not have appreciated the afterword as much if not for the elaboration in the earlier parts of the book, I should qualify. Jappe provides a heavy theoretical basis of Debord’s work in the first part “The Concept of the Spectacle”, providing readers with a Debord-ian interpretation of Marxism and the modern life to show how such became the theory for his later actions and writings. Introducing readers to the spectacle, the cornerstone of Debord’s thought, Jappe is clear with his handling of the subject, unafraid to draw sharp and concise conclusions to aid in the reader’s understanding, without muddling too much with words and overly confuse the reader. This is no 101 guide to Debord, though, if there may ever be one. This book is no light read to me, the formally untrained one in philosophy, taking about 2 months to finish it. However, his writing style does leave one with a sense of awe and satisfaction upon finishing the book.
The second part, “The Practice of Theory” shows how the Situationist broke away from the Letterist International and its growth beyond – its acts and agendas of non-work which showed truly just how avant-garde their thought was at that point in time. It was not political, for they were not just simply Marxist. They were beyond that into a sort of Hegelian Marxism, as Debord would suggest. Indeed, by interpreting Debord and the SI in that light, many things became less cryptic and more logical, it was not just another artistic movement as well. Jappe goes on to show how exactly the SI steered its ship according to the course of Hegelian Marxism and its like e.g. Lukács – its specific observations and conclusi0ns on the world. It was not a haphazard, random mass of individuals; but it was not quite an organized, united front, but it was something that made sense without using our languages of discourse.
The third and final part of the book, “Theory Past and Present” generally discusses the impact of Debord upon the contemporary world, and vice versa for the reader to gain a fuller understanding of the late Debord, until his suicide. It confirms certain earlier hypotheses of Debord, and reinforces what Jappe set out to do as mentioned in the blurb – “Anselm Jappe rejects recent attempts to set Debord up as a “postmodern” icon, arguing that he was a social theorist in the Hegelian-Marxist tradition – not a precursor of Jean Baudrillard but a heir of the young George Lukács of History and Class Consciousness (1923).”, as well showcase Debord’s take on the pre-war Surrealists, which refuted attempts to argue that he was another son of surrealism.
More quotes from the Afterword:
…Debord’s theory is in essence a continuation of the work of Marx and Hegel and that its importance inheres for the most part precisely in this fact… Debord’s work itself effectively demonstrates – though none of the academic or subcultural accounts acknowledge this – that Hegelian-Marxist concepts are still the most useful for understanding the world, particularly the self-destructive character of a society driven by the commodity. Only now, in fact – globalization having finally realized the notorious “totality” – is Hegelian-Marxist theory really coming into its own; and it is no doubt for this very reason that our accredited intellectuals have for quite some time, and with rare unanimity, been declaring that nothing could be as out of date and irrelevant as the concepts of Hegel. Hegel is the greatest absentee of the day, surpassing even Marx in this regard, for even Marxism is acceptable to a degree, so long as it is guaranteed Hegel-free…
…The “derealization” so often evoked by postmodern thinkers had a distinctly “real” basis in the purely speculative boom of the nineteen-eighties, financed by debt and refueled by a great mass of capital no longer susceptible of productive investment. The euphoric climate of the times was a big bubble of false pretenses. In a word, the boom and the euphoria were both simulated. At the same time, derealization was very much yearned for, and even more so once the euphoria evaporated along with the prospect of indefinitely prolonging the artificial life of a financial system devoid of any basis in production. .. The portion of truth contained in postmodern theory resides in its description of virtualization, in the fact that it took those processes seriously… But in the end, thought it [postmodernism] raises real questions, its answers come from nowhere and go nowhere.
…Debord was no nihilist: nothing could be falser than the picture sometimes painted of a dour character mulling hateful and destructive deeds night and day, showering anyone unlucky enough to come in range with insults, denunciations, expulsions and anathemata, and finally crowning this dismal existence with an act of suicide. The truth is that Debord loved many things, among them of course life in the Paris he knew in the nineteen-fifties; in later years he contrived to find people and places to savor, particularly in such quartiers populaires as still existed. Never having been taken in by the spectacle’s false promises of life, he seems to have found some real happiness. For the ostentatious despair that flirts with self-destruction and is so much admired in art galleries and halls of learning Debord had nothing but scorn: as early as 1955 he evoked the “overrated corpse” of Artaud – a barb that can still outrage petty Parisian snobberies forty years later. In his own words, “I have no thought of complaining about anything, and certainly not about the way I have managed to live.”
Kudos for Nicholson-Smith for his translation of the work. I think it’s a damn good read. I hope I haven’t quoted too much for this post, but I really think the original does itself the most justice. Do zoom in the text for a more ergonomic reading experience.
Man, I think it’s chic to be accquainted with, and actually somewhat understand modern French philosophy, non?
Tags: afterword, bandit, climax, conspiracy of silence, donald nicholson, excursion, french philosophy, gaga, guy debord, history of culture, italian proverb, last decade, mainstream commentators, reading worth, riots, scant interest, situationist international, situationist movement, situationists, sociology department
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