NOT BORED! writes:

Guy Debord on Raoul Vaneigem, [Part One]

Not Bored!

Originally written 35 years ago, Guy Debord's "Communique of the SI concerning Vaneigem" was originally published in The Real Split in the International: Public Circular of the Situationist International (Chronos, 1974, 1985, 1990). A rather rough read, this translation has never been available on-line. What follows is a brand-new translation, which is interesting because 1) it is very well-written, and in Vaneigem's flowing style, not in Debord's aphoristic manner; 2) it is full of both stinging criticism and compassionate appreciation; and 3) it is very relevant to today's "practioneers" of "situationism."

"Communique From the SI Concerning Vaneigem"
Guy Debord

To the members of the SI

9 December 1970

Finally obliged to seriously say something precise on what the SI is and what it has to do, Raoul Vaneigem has immediately rejected it in its totality. Up to this point, he had always approved everything.

His 14 November [1970] statement of position has the ultimate and sad merit of expressing very well, and in few words, what was at the center of the crisis that the SI knew in 1969–1970. It is obviously upside-down that Vaneigem passionately envisioned the truth of this crisis, but he demonstrated it exactly and, displayed to this degree, the inversion didn't risk hindering the reading.

Vaneigem qualifies our position as "the last abstraction that can be formulated in, for and in the name of the SI"; and as he never perceived its precedents, he wants to combat this one, at least. Thus, we must speak here of the concrete, the abstraction and he who speaks of abstraction.

Since its origin, the concrete terrain of this crisis has equally been a defense of the concreteness of the activity of the SI and [a defense] of the real conditions in which the SI actually accomplishes this activity. The crisis began when certain situationists glimpsed and began to make known [the fact] that the others had let them surreptiously monopolize the responsibilities to be taken, as well as the greatest part of the operations to be executed: the critique that began concerning this under-participation (quantative and especially qualitative) in the editing of our principal communal publications quickly spread to the more dissimulated under-participation in matters of theory, strategy, meetings and external struggles, and even in current discussions on the simplest decisions that fell upon us. Everywhere there existed a de facto fraction composed of contemplative comrades, systematically approving and never manifesting anything other than the firmest stubbornness in maintaining inactivity. They comported themselves as if they estimated that they had nothing to win, but perhaps something to lose, in supporting a personal opinion or charging themselves with working, by themselves, on any of our specific problems. This position, of which satisfied silence was the principal weapon, also covered itself — on its days of glory[1] — with several general and always very euphoric proclamations on the perfect equality realized in the SI, the radical coherence of its dialogue, and the collective and personal grandeur of all of the participants. Up to the end, Vaneigem was the most remarkable representative of this sort of practice.

When several months of discussions and very precise texts had carried the critique of this deficiency to a degree at which none of the implicated individuals could any longer believe — honestly, without deluding themselves — that they could still entertain the illusion among their comrades, Vaneigem more than any other found refuge in silence. It was only in learning, on 11 November,[2] that our positions would henceforth be diffused outside of the SI that he immediately estimated that he could no longer remain in it.

Having arrived at this point, Vaneigem made allusion to "more or less skillful and always odious tactical maneouvres" on our part. He obviously will not make anyone believe that it would have been necessary to have a tactic, to be more or less skillful, or to maneouvre in any kind of manner to oblige a comrade — who for many years has been a member of an organization always affirmed to be egalitarian — to actually participate in the decisions of this organization and in their execution, or even to quickly avow that he can not and does not want to [participate]. The absence and silence of Vaneigem, or others, can without doubt disguise themselves for long enough using more or less petty maneouvres, but finds themselves eliminated quite easily as soon as someone (it doesn't matter who) announces that he no longer wants to support them, whereas the contemplative position must, on its side, agree that it truly wants nothing other in the world than to continue to be supported among us. But Vaneigem used the plural, which evokes a past in which such maneouvres — "always odious" — were not aimed at him nor his current imitators. We will not content ourselves with recalling that Vaneigem — who was never opposed, neither in writing nor at a single meeting, nor even, to our knowledge, in any personal interview with a member of the SI, to any of these so-called "maneouvres," never evoking in any manner their existence or their possibility — would be inexcusably and miserably an accomplice to them. Naturally, we will go further: before the judgment of all the revolutionaries who already exist today, we formally defy him to immediately designate a single one of these "maneouvring tactics" that he had found out about, and let go, in the SI, during the ten years in which he was a member.

Vaneigem, who feigns to believe that the SI will disappear because his absence must make it withdraw ("would still like to save a group," "to reconstitute the French section"), establishes that he didn't know how to make this group "anything of what (he) wanted it to be." We certainly do not doubt that Vaneigem wanted to make the SI an organization, not only revolutionary, but also of a sublime and perhaps even absolute excellence (cf. Treatise on Living [for the Younger Generations], [3] etc.). Over the years, other comrades have said that the real historical success of the SI did not, all the same, go so far, and especially too often allowed avoidable faults (their existence moreover rendering all the more unfortunate the myth of the admirable perfection of the SI, with which hundreds of stupid external spectators — and unfortunately several spectators among us — have gargled). But Vaneigem, in now adopting, post festum, the tone of the disabused leader, who had not "known" how to make this group "anything" of what he would have liked it to be, forgets to pose this crucial question: what has he ever tried to say, or do, by arguing or setting an example, so that the SI became even better or closer to the superior personal tastes that he proclaimed to have? Vaneigem did nothing for such goals; although, meanwhile, the SI didn't remain nothing! Before the evidence of what the SI has done, for any individual who knows how to think, Vaneigem today completely discredits himself by launching so childishly the sullen and burlesque counter-truth of the complete failure of the SI and of himself in particular. Vaneigem has never wanted to recognize a single bit of failure in the action of the SI, precisely because he knew that he was too intimately tied to this bit of failure; and because his real deficiences have constantly appeared to him to call for, as remedies, not their supercession, but simple peremptory affirmations that everything goes for the better. Now that he can no longer continue, the failure of which he must admit the existence is brusquely presented, to the scorn of all probability, as total failure, the absolute nonexistence of our theory and our action in the last ten years. This bad pleasantry judges him.

In this basic buffoonery,[4] the only thing that appears as a particularly pleasant detail is Vaneigem's very sociological-journalistic allusion to the "slight penetration of situationist theory into the worker milieu," and especially his overwhelming discovery — made in the unexpected light of the Last Judgment of the SI, initiated for him by his departure — that none of the situationists work in a factory! Because, if Vaneigem had known this sooner, since it appears to have affected him, he would certainly have signaled the problem and some radical solution to it.

In that case, it is necessary to recall that Vaneigem, when he was serious, didn't simply enunciate the admirable goals that he reserved for the SI. The one among us who spoke the most abundantly of himself, his subjectivity, and his "taste for radical pleasure," also had admirable goals for himself. But has he realized them, has he even concretely struggled to realize them? Not at all. For Vaniegem, as for the SI, Vaneigem's programme was only formulated to save himself all of the fatiques and all of the small historical risks of its realization. The goal being total, it was only envisioned in a pure present: it was already here as a whole, insofar as one could believe to make it believed, or it remained quite inaccessible; one never succeded in defining it or in approaching it. The qualititative, as the spirit of table-turning,[5] has made one believe that it is here, but it is necessary to admit that this was only an extended error! Vaneigem finally discovered that the mayonnaise in which he feigned to take pleasure did not taken shape.

In such a metaphysical light, one can certainly expect the pure moment of the Revolution and, in this relaxed expectation, one can amiably let it have the "care of recognizing its own" (but it will nevertheless be necessary that its own know how to recognize this revolution, and, for example, cancel their reservations for their vacations, if by misfortune the two phenomena happen to coincide).[6] Meanwhile, when it concerns questions more immediately close to our consciousness and direct action, as the SI and Vaneigem in person, if one pretends that all that is wanted is already totally realized, mystique degrades itself into bluff. What one has affirmed to be perfect, one must one day affirm to be totally nonexistent. A joyous discovery, which affected none of the completely extra-historical radicality of Vaneigem. Thus, in recognizing today his total error about the SI, Vaneigem doesn't glimpse that he has already implicitly recognized a total error about himself. He believes he is still in 1961, ten years have passed like a simple dream, this negligible nightmare of history, after which Vaneigem once again finds his project, simply and purely "differed," always equal to itself, of "absolutely re-making (his) own coherence." Yet, if the SI still hasn't existed, then Vaneigem still doesn't exist. But one day, perhaps soon? Tomorrow will raze coherence gratis! But since historical justice — as much as real action in history — is foreign to Vaneigem's preoccupations, he doesn't do justice to himself.

In the history of the SI, Vaneigem occupied an important and unfortgettable place. In 1961, having joined the theoretico-practical platform constituted in the first years of the SI, he immediately shared and developed the most extreme positions, those that were then the most novel and that went towards the revolutionary coherence of our times. If, at that moment, the SI's contribution to Vaniegem certainly wasn't negligible — it gave him the occasion, the dialogue, several basic theses and the terrain of activity to become what he wanted and could authentically be, and profoundly radical — it is also true than Vaneigem made a very remarkable contribution to the SI: he had plenty of intelligence and culture, a great boldness of ideas, and all this dominated by the truest anger towards existing conditions. Vaneigem had genius then, because he knew perfectly to go to the extreme in everything that he knew how to do. And all that he didn't know how to do, he simply had not yet had the occasion to confront personally. He burned to begin. In the years 1961–1964 -- and this is a period that was important for the SI as well as for the ideas of modern revolution — the SI was strongly marked by Vaneigem, perhaps more so than by any other. In was in this period that he not only wrote the Treatise and other texts that bore his signature in the journal I[nternationale] S[ituationniste] ("Basic Banalities," etc.), but also participated grandly in the [writing of the] anonymous collective texts in issues 6 through 9 of this journal, and [participated] very creatively in all of the discussions of this era. If he forgets all this now, we do not. If today he wants to spit in his own plate, so much the worse, because the revolutionary generation that formed in the subsequent years has already been served from it.

This period, the beginning of the 1960s, saw the general formulation of the most total revolutionary programme. The revolution, of which we announced the return and the new demands, was then totally absent, in truly modern theory as in individuals and groups concretely struggling in the proletariat, using new radical actions and seeking new objectives. A certain generality, a certain abstraction, sometimes even the usage of the tone of the lyrical utterance, were the inevitable products of these precise conditions and even found themselves necessary, justified, excellent. We weren't many at that moment, and Vaneigem was there, knowing and daring to say what we said. We did well.

Quite fortunately, the movement of modern society did not fail to more or less visibly follow the road on which we had engaged it; and at the same time the new revolutionary current, which, corollarily, did not fail to manifest itself, reprised much of our critique, partially armed itself with our theory (which obviously continued to develop and make itself more specific), and even was inspired by certain examples of our practical struggles. It was necessary for us to make more precise analyses, and also to experiment with diverse forms of action then becoming possible. The situationists, with their era, entered into more and more concrete struggles that deepened until 1968, and still more since then. [But] Vaneigem was already no longer there.

"How," he asks himself today, "did what had been passionate in the consciousness of a communal project transform itself into a malaise of being together?" But he is careful not to answer his question, which thus remains purely elegiac. How did pure gold change into base lead? In this case, quite simply because the consciousness of a communal project ceased to exist in a communal practice — in what became the communal practice of the SI. Certain members lived the practice of the SI, with its difficulties and inconveniences, of which the worst was certainly having to struggle against the [leaden] heaviness introduced into our communal activity by the contemplative and self-admiring tendency of several situationists (cf. "The Questions of Organization for the SI," text from April 1968, reprinted in I.S. #12). On the contrary, Vaneigem only maintained the pure "consciousness" of the abstract generality of this project; and thus, to the extent that this concrete action widened itself, [his was] a consciousness always more obsolete and mendacious, a false consciousness on the so-called terrain of communal historic consciousness, simple bad faith. In these conditions, it was less and less impassionating to meet Vaneigem (and others who never impassionated anyone). It didn't please anyone to go on vainly repeating the same critiques, since become worn out. And, over the years, it was surely still more boring for Vaneigem to meet, in a completely changed style, comrades who, he knew quite well, knew his deficiencies almost as well as he himself knew them. Nevertheless, Vaneigem preferred to continue to figure formally among us, leaning upon the memory of an authentic participation and the always more remote and more abstract promise of a future accomplishment, playing on the quite cold relics of an amicable dialogue, and turning a deaf ear. As the president of Brosses wrote concerning a character of this type: "One can not decide to take up an annoyed side against a colleague, against a very amiable and sweet man who never responds to anything one says to him. The trouble is that sweet spirits are the most stubborn and insensitive of all. They never contest you. But one can not persuade them, nor determine them."

Over the course of the years 1965–1970, the disappearance of Vaneigem manifested itself quantatively (he hardly ever participated in our publications, except for the three short articles that he signed in the last three issues of I.S. [7] and he was often absent from meetings [and when he did attend] he generally kept quiet) and especially qualitatively. His very rare interventions in our debates were stamped by signs of the greatest incapacity to envision concrete historical struggles; pocked with the poorest loopholes concerning the maintainence of any relationship between what one said and what one did, and even with a smiling forgetfulness of dialectical thought. At the VIIth Conference of the SI in 1966, it was necessary to argue for two hours against a strange proposition Vaneigem made: he was certain that our "coherence" would always indicate, "in any debate on a practical action to be taken, after a deep discussion, the only just road to take, unequivocally recognizable from the start. So that, if a minority of situationists, at the end of the discussion, didn't declare themselves to be totally convinced, then they had thus proved that they didn't possess the coherence of the SI or that they had dishonestly hidden goals of sabotage, or at least a dissimulated theoretico-practical opposition. If the other comrades obviously defended the rights and duties of any minority in a revolutionary organization — with a hundred concrete examples — and even more simply the rights of reality, it is necessary to recognzie that, later on, Vaneigem never risked contradicting himself on this point by never finding himself, for even ten minutes, in the perilous situation of being in the "minority" on the least question debated by the SI. At the end of 1968, we recognized, against the advice of Vaneigem, the right to constitute tendencies in the SI if need be. Vaneigem glady rallied himself to the majority opinion, but nevertheless indicated that he could not even conceive how a tendency could ever come into existence among us. In the spring of 1970, a tendency formed itself to quickly and clearly resolve a practical conflict,[8] Vaneigem, of course, immediately joined it. It is useless to multiply examples.

[See Part 2, here.]