Re: AUT: Anarchism & th Situationists

[blissett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Fabian Tompsett)]

>Hi People.
>Leutha Blissett wrote:
>
>> As the Situationists were not anarchists, who can anarchists criticisng
>> situationists be an example of anarchists criticising themselves.
>
>Some ignorant Situationists did not know Leutha Blissett decision
>that they are not anarchists and stubbornly call themselves
>>anarchists-situationists.

Whilst these so-called situationists are undoubtedly ignorant, it is not
their ignorance of the activities of the  Luther Blissett project which are
at issue here, but their ignorance of the theory and practice of the
Situationist Internationale. Whilst they may display a donkey-like
stubbornness in calling themselves"anarchist-situationist", their ignorance
is more akin to that of another farm yard animal: the pig.

The SI took the trouble to publish <<The Veritable Split in the
International>> in 1972, in which they described the pro-situ, which
appears to be the ideal epithet for these so-called
"anarchist-situationists".

Rather than getting cross with me, why noy check out
www.panix.com/~notbored/thesis-on-the-SI.html and get cross with debord and
Sanguinetti!

It is also worth looking at <<On the decomposition of our enemies>> but I
don't know if that's on a web site. It deals with the relations between the
SI and the Italian Anarchist Federation.

>> In fact
>> what anarchists do is to criticise each other rather than themselves.
>
>Self criticism is a nobel method of the Stalinist era.
>It is a nice generalisation... but wrong. I know at least two anarchists that
>analyzed previous mistakes they were part of.

Good, I hope others follow their example.

>> How helpful is it to denounce someone as an idiot or a liar when it is
>> clear you do not understand what is being said. i.e. you complain about
>> being called a leninist when no-one has called you such.
>
>US people insinuate things about others and then hide behind lot of
>words to say they are innocent. The question "is it true that your brother
>is a whore" is not only a question about information.

But why see the question "Does your anarchist brother act like a leninist?"
in such a fashion. When ex-situationists Bruce Elwell and Robert Chasse
describe Murray Bookchin as an "anarcho-bolshevik theoritician", I think it
is pernicious to ascribe this to some sneaky form of insinuation particular
to "US people" (See their text <<A Field Study in the Dwindling Force of
Cognition, where it is Least Expected: a Critique of the Situationist
International as a Revolutionary Organization>>, 1970). Their <<Field
Study>> gives a useful insight to the fiasco of the SI's attempt to set up
a US branch.

Do you likewise reduce Fredy Perlman's comparison of the SI to the second,
third and fourth Internationals as simply hiding behind a lot of words (see
his letter to roger Gregoire and Linda Lanphear repoduced in <<Having
Little, Being Much>>? Perhaps it would be better to consider that his
comments on the SI during its period of great purges in the light of what
was happening rather than trying to prop up a myth which was falling apart
already thirty years ago?

>
>> What Rowan
>> suggested was that anarchists can be just as leninist as the leninists.
>
>To simple minded people it is just as saying that anarchists are not much
>different from the leninist.

Yes. Also there are ways in which Situationists are like leninists:

"Debord and Sanguinetti conclude thesis 22 of <<Thèses sur l'internationale
Situationniste set son temps with the extraordinary claim that situationist
theory - i.e. the theory of the proletariat,as ststaed in thesis 3 of the
same text - even if it is often misunderstood and deformed, 'will know how
to return in all its authenticity each time historically its hour is come
beginning with today even. We have left behind the epoch where we could be
falsified or effaced without appeal because from now on our theory
benefits, for better or for worse from the collaboration of the masses.'
According to Sanguinetti and Debord, the SI's 'historical success' lies in
persuading the masses to collaborate in the elucidation of proletarian
theory, i.e. inpersuading the proletariat to collaborate with itself!
Examining the text more closely, it becomes apparent that the 'theory of
the proletariat' was not formulated by the class itself, but, in the end,
the class was allowed to co-elaborate this theory. 'Co' means 'together
with' . . . With whom? Who was co-starring in this articulation of class
theory if not the SI?

In short, this is the old idealist fallacy of Holy Spirit descending into
inconscious matter of 'consciousness being brought in from outside'. There,
standing against the light is the decrepit figure of the 'separate
intellectual' who 'goes towards the people'. Drawing on the legacy of
Russian populism, Bajunin and Lenin had previously made an identical
error."
        Guy Debord is Really Dead by luther Blissett, 1995


>> Surely when anarchists criticise the CNT (or even the FAI) this criticism
>> has included the suggestion of leninism.
>
>Suggestion, insinuation, supposition, hypothetic, .......

Oh sorry, I thought you were in favour of such groups as <<The Friends of
Durrutti>> who denounced the CNT-FAI for betraying the working class, who
even raised the banner of revolt against the reformism of the sirectors of
the CNT-FAI in May 1937.

Please be a bit more specific. I would hate to think that you were alligned
yourself with those anarchists who accused <<The friends of Durrutti>> of
being Fascists and provocateurs and attempted to get them kicked out of the
CNT-FAI - unless of course it's true.

>> The problem is that in these criticisims they too often revolve around a
>> defense of anarcho-authenticity,
>
>Too often is just what the teacher said about my mischief at the kindergarten.
>
>Some anarchists gave a more serious analyzis and criticism... but one has
>the right to choose whom it is easier to blame.
>
>> and other anarchists are criticised for
>> not being sufficiently authentic in their anarchism.
>
>"Authenticity" is not part of the common vocabulary of class war social
>anarchists... but who care?
>
>> As this question of
>> authenticity is tied in with a semi-conscious political identity with brand
>> @ @narchism the only way it is possible to understand how pissed off you
>> are with "being called a leninist" is precisely because you immersed within
>> this identification.
>
>Barking on the wrong tree is not a crime...
>
>> Thus your emotive hackles rise precisely at the point
>> where any critical understanding and hence development of your politics
>> could begin.
>
>I wonder what pseudo scientific branch of "psychology" is used here
>for the psychologism - that evade to the point text.

Why else do you get upset when people criticise other people? Perhaps I am
wrong? But it is hard to see what you are defending if not @narchism?

>> There is a short circuit which you experience as pain and it
>> produces a whelp of insults just as surely as a pavlovian dog. In this
>> sense @narchism can express an internalisation of control which can
>> precisely extol the virtues of freedom because it has already neutralised
>> any reflective process which could break out of a pre-structured
>> consciousness.
>
>I have never had encountered so condence pseudo scientific psychologism
>way to evade political challenge. However in the postmodernism era you
>should not be
>surprised.

And I was thinking that you were evading a political challenge

>Anarcho-communism can be libertarian communism with few levels higher than
>some pseudo leftist Marxists.

How true, but sadly it does not always realise its potential

communist greetings

Leutha Blissett



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