Subject: Re: AUT: Me and my interests
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 00 01:33:18 +0000
From: kubhlai <kubhlai-AT-proweb.co.uk>


>I think both the strength and weakness of the SI was its dependence on a
>conception of authenticity; its strength in terms of its ability like Marx
>to view today from a historical perspective, particularly from a possible
>future (yet not utopian) perspective. The problem I think is that while
>there are times when it is possible to express a real contradictory
>possibility in dualist terms, the rest of the time concepts of authenticity
>are downright dangerous.

Yes I can see what you mean here. I'm a chapter into reading "The War 
That Hitler Won" (Robert Edwin Herzstein) and there's a relevant quote 
from Gustav LeBon;

>>A crowd thinks in images, and the image itself immediately calls up a series 
of other images, having no connection with the first..... A crowd 
scarcely distinguishes between the subjective and the objective. It 
accepts as real the images evoked in its mind, though they most often 
have only a very distant relation with the observed fact.<<

Now crowd psychology is just one example of circumstances in which 
passionately felt experiences can have a fairly loose connection with 
immediate circumstances to which the crowd might be directed. Another 
example is an LSD trip in which one can be gripped by a powerful sense of 
the importance and reality of an idea which one scarcely understands (let 
alone correctly extrapolates from later). And a third example is the 
interpretation of "situation" which is common in young people who have 
only a flirting aquaintance with the writings of the SI -- (especially if 
that flirtation happens to have been with Vaneigem) -- and for whom 
authenticity simply becomes another word for self-indulgence or 
subjectivity, for ignoring consequence.

Now in fact I wouldnt actually agree that such states of mind are 
necessarily "INauthentic", but it shows the danger of a careless 
definition of authenticity -- of one which fails to stress the necessity 
to achieve a balanced view, which includes a balance between the 
emotional and rational faculties.
If the value of situationism rested exclusively upon the attainment of 
situations interpreted in those atavistic terms, then it would soon have 
to follow buddhism and daoism in striving for a more refined conception 
of what authenticity really is.
No harm in a little of that, but situationism is also a critique of human 
nature and his social relations. Authenticity can also be interpreted as 
a search for the truth and for the sustainable liberation of the mind 
based upon it and by no means precludes a role for the intellect directed 
at that end. Nor does it actually preclude long-term political struggle 
directed at creating the conditions in which that authenticity can be 
attained and maintained. 

Its just that the original SI set a rather poor example in that regard, 
(but hey -- they were young and bourgeois!). They *did* tend, it seems, 
to believe that by attaining a personal liberated state of mind first, 
social conditions would be bound to follow. In this they simply reflect 
the conceits of the time -- 1968 for example; one year after WoodStock 
with its romantic faith that Love would change the world without any 
other details needing very much attention.
Hakim Bey, as you correctly point out, expresses a less utopian view of 
what is possible under current hostile social conditions.

I suppose what I said (I think) of Bey (that a TAZ is basically not a 
radical idea -- its the way people live anyway whether enlightened by 
post-sit philosophy or not) is also true of those "dangerous" situations. 
Dont we ALL have points in our life -- especially in youth -- when we 
discover intense excitement, emotion, passion -- a feeling of being 
totally alive, and then come down to earth and realize the difficulty in 
sustaining it; thereafter struggling against conditions for the rest of 
our lives to maximize (as we see it) our opportunities to return to that 
state? 
Given the perspective that what the SI portray is so pandemic anyway, I 
think it is misleading, at least, to call it "dangerous" -- not because 
it isn't, but because it is no more dangerous than life is to begin with. 
The *advantages* of situationism however are that
a) it rationally identifies this underlying plot and purpose in life, and
b) it universalizes this understanding; revealing to us that what 
prevents it is social, that we can only liberate ourselves by 
collectively changing our relations with each other, ie the social order.

Which is not to say that it doesn't need further elaboration itself. But 
on the other hand, I would say -- imagine a world without the 
situationist articulation, imagine if all there was to motivate us toward 
political struggle were "more money", "shorter hours" (which is what 
classical socialist struggle tends to reduce itself to). What a banal 
aspiration that would be -- more dishwashers and hours in front of the 
box watching soaps (marxist soaps fer crissake!)....

>For "Autonomous Marxism" antagonism is always temporal and rooted in a
>particular class formation, but because of this is never as "outside" or
>capable of a totality of critique such as the SI.

well Situ-ism also sees the particular nature of the social problem at 
any time and place as rooted in the class formation. But it also directs 
attention to the individual and personal relations. One of the great 
underestimated strengths of situationism is that from a situationists 
outlook every moment within every relationship is a constant quest for 
penetration to the authentic, the truth of the situation always hidden 
beneath the appearances. A situationist puts in a lot of revolutionary 
man hours by doing what comes  naturally ;)

In the end, this is what sit offers that marxism doesnt -- individualism. 
On the other hand, what it lacks is power of organization, in which 
respect it struggles to even do as badly as classical anarchism. Some 
kind of fusion of collective values and physical practicalities with sit 
critique is what I came insearchof...

Thanks for pickin the thread up

-- kube


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