I'm a Cadre

From "The Real Split in the International" Thesis 36, by Debord and Sanguinetti:

"Today, the cadres are the metamorphosis of the urban petty bourgeoisie of independent producers that has become salaried. These cadres are themselves very diversified as well, but the real stratum of upper cadres, which constitutes the model and the illusory goal for the others, is in fact held to the bourgeoisie by a thousand links, and integrates itself into that class more often than not. The vast majority of cadres are made up of middle and small cadres, whose real interests are even less separate from those of the proletariat than were the real interests of the petit bourgeoisie - for the cadre never possesses his [sic] instrument of work. But their social conceptions and promotional reveries are firmly attached to the values and perspectives of the modern bourgeoisie. Their economic function is essentially bound up with the tertiary sector, with the service sector, and particularly with the properly spectacular branch of sales, the maintenance and praise of commodities, counting among these commodity labor itself. The image of the lifestyle and the tastes that society expressly fabricates for them, its model sons, greatly influences the sectors of poor white-collar workers or petit bourgeois who aspire toward their reconversion as cadres, and is not without effect on a part of the current middle bourgeoisie... The cadre, always uncertain and always deceived, is at the center of modern false consciousness and social alienation. Contrary to the bourgeois, the worker, the serf and the feudal lord, the cadre always feels out of place. He always aspires to more than he is and can be. He pretends and, at the same time, he doubts. He is the man of malaise, never sure of himself, but hiding it. He is the absolutely dependent man, who believes that he must demand freedom itself, idealized in its semi-abundant consumption. He is ambitious and constantly turned towards his future - a miserable future, in any case - while he even doubts that he is occupying his current position as well...."

A last, a valid description of my job and role in capitalist society! Now to figure out what to do about it!

Populism?

Blogger k-punk gave a very good response in a recent debate on populism including Bat at Lenin's Tomb, Jon at Posthegemonic Musings, Le Colonel Chabert and Kenneth Rufo at Ghost in the Wire:

[...]

Defences of populism typically trade on an equivocation between populism and the popular. But as I argued in the last post, an unpopular populism is not only conceivable, it is the form which Capitalist post-politics takes in both Britain and the US at the moment. Conversely, and this is crucial, popular movements are not necessarily populist. Populism is, rather, the entrapment of popular movements within an already-existing representation. The masses are invited to rally under an ready-made image of themselves arising from lowest-common-denominator thinking. So my problem with populism is not, as Kenneth Rufo suggests, that it is not 'popusist enough' but that it has too little faith in the ways in which popular movements can exceed the circumscribed horizons of the populist.

It is not the demand itself which is characteristic of populism. It is stopping with the demand (and/or its satisfaction). All of which is why I don't have any problems with Bat's rather elegant overturning of situationist wisdom in the following passage:

'Here I'd suggest that the answer lies in the direct converse to the famous (and eminently hysterical) situationist graffito "Be realistic, demand the impossible!". Rather than formulate realistic but impossible demands, our "demands" must be unrealistic but nevertheless possible. And moreover they should be addressed diagonally, ie to both the ruling elite and the popular movement simultaneously, or more precisely, they should formally pose a demand addressed to the elite, but actually raise a slogan that engages and resonates with the movement – mobilising it and thereby subjectivating it from within.'

k-punk: Left hyperstition 2- Be Unrealistic, Change What's Possible

The main dialectic of the debate revolved around whether populism is pro-fascist or proto-communist. I would argue that it is neither and both. populism is an expression of grassroots political power. It can evolve in many directions. Both fascism and communism are possible outcomes, as history shows us. Is populism on the measure a force of progress or reaction? It is the project of the revolutionary vanguard to ensure that it is the former.

Fight to Build a Progressive Media Alternative

This is an elaboration of a point I made on the comment page for a post on Union-Firms-Markets titled "Losing Hearts & Minds or Lack of Political Power."

The premise of the post is that the right is able to take over any debate and turn it to their own ends. The conclusion seemed to be that the left will continue to loose group by defending so-called failed social programs that came out of the New Deal.

I disagree. We fight for and defend these programs because they are good and have good material results for the masses and the poor. We are good people, and we fight to defend programs which bring good into the world. To cede more ground to the right is defeatist and counter-revolutionary.

We must understand that the "debate" that happens on television, in the newspapers, radio and all other mass media is simply the sound of one hand clapping. It is, in the words of Guy Debord in Society of the Spectacle:

1:13

[The spectacle's] means are simultaneously its ends. It is the sun which never sets over the empire of modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the world and bathes endlessly in its own glory.

Therefore the project of progressives must be to develop a counter cultural media. We must educate people to simultaneously divorce themselves (as much as possible) from the media spectacle AND develop an informed critical eye of the spectacle so as to read between lines. Understanding what is omitted or maligned from within the media torrent reveals what the ruling classes fear the most - namely, a socialist working class consciousness.

The media spectacle omits, distorts, retards and alienates. Its purpose is to keep us afraid, weak, unorganized and alienated from each other, in our social relationships, our personal relationships and even in our relationships with our own bodies and minds. It teaches us to hate and fear and to feel disempowered.

It is clear from the history of the mass media and especially the internet media sphere including the blogosphere that another media is possible - one that does not conform to Marx's declaration that (in the German Ideology, 1845): "[the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas]."

Like our brothers and sisters in previous "epochs" we must today build a true alternative to the mass media and introduce the ideas of the working class to the broadest possible audiences. The fascists of all classes know this, it is time progressives learn it as well for the stakes are indeed very high.

Guy Debord a.k.a. Situationist Pt. I

Readers of this blog will no doubt have noticed that it is proclaimed to be "situationist" and further doubtlessly (for the non-anarchists out there) have scratched their heads wondering what the heck that exactly means.

Wikipedia offers:

The journal Internationale Situationniste defined situationist as "having to do with the theory or practical activity of constructing situations." The same journal defined situationism as "a meaningless term improperly derived from the above. There is no such thing as situationism, which would mean a doctrine of interpretation of existing facts. The notion of situationism is obviously devised by anti-situationist." (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist)

Which is a quite decent summary, and verifiable from many sources. But what does "constructing situations" mean? Well, I'm going to leave a deep-dive into general situationist thought for another post and instead redirect the spotlight onto Guy Debord, the key figure in the Situationist International and author of the brilliant "Society of the Spectacle."

A brief bio of Guy Debord from Nothingness.org (the de facto home of the Situationist International) reads as follows:

Self-proclaimed leader of the Situationist International, Guy Debord was certainly responsible for the longevity and high profile of Situationist ideas, although the equation of the SI with Guy Debord would be misleading. Brilliant but autocratic, Debord helped both unify situationist praxis and destroy its expansion into areas not explicitly in line with his own ideas. His text The Society of the Spectacle remains today one of the great theoretical works on modern-day capital, cultural imperialism, and the role of mediation in social relationships.

After the dissolution of the Situationist International, Debord was tangentially implicated in the assassination of his friend and publisher Gérard Lebovici. The accusations infuriated Debord, and he consequently prohibited the showing of his films in France during his lifetime. Debord continued writing, and in 1989 he published his Commentaries on the Society of the Spectacle, arguing that everything he wrote in 1967 was still true, with one major exception: the society of the spectacle had reached a new form, that of the integrated spectacle. The prospect of overturning the society of the spectacle seemed more unlikely than ever. In December of 1994, at the age of 62, Debord killed himself. The French press, who had always repudiated the significance of the Situationist International, suddenly made him a celebrity.

Karl Marx describes the fundamental inner workings of Capital as he understood it during the late 1800s. Indeed the primal forces of capitalism still function largely as Marx described them, with exchange value and primative accumulation and all of the other core concepts completely intact.

What Guy Debord brings to the table is a compelling analysis of the recursive nature of capital in a society where image has become the core commodity. This is what Debord describes in the Society of the Spectacle, where he has radically developed the concept of the fetishization of the commodity as image, or spectacle. In his later works he applies systems theory to describe how this process continues to accelerate, and this he calls the "integrated spectacle."

The Society of the Spectacle, like Marx's works before, contains much hope. Both Marx and Debord say that the "evil systems" they are describing contain within them the kernels of their demise. Considering the way both of their lives ended I would not be surprised if either or both of them gave up hope eventually.

I suppose that I cannot imagine what it was like to go through the challenges the Guy Debord faced, with several of his friends having been assassinated and continual harassment from secret police. Nevertheless, I find and grab onto the great inspiration and hope in his early works.

I do believe that, no matter how small the chance, the seeds of a another possible world are daily planted, and like the snow crocus in early spring, that world will slowly but surely rise up from the frozen conditions to bring about a better, brighter and more just world for all man- and woman-kind.

New Translations of Debord

Bill Not Bored (notbored.org) has announced some interesting progress on a recent project, as follows:

Comrades

1. We have translated all of the first volumes of "Guy Debord, Correspondance" (1957-1960, and 1961-1964), neither of which have been in English before. So far we have uploaded the letters to or concerning Ivan Chtcheglov, Socialisme ou Barbarie and the Zengakuren. Scroll to "Letters" on http://www.notbored.org/debord.html
   
   
2. We are the online publishers of two pirated translated of new books by Cornelius Castoriadis, a co-founder of Socialisme ou Barbarie. Neither has ever been in English translation before. See http://www.notbored.org/RTI.html and http://www.notbored.org/FTPK.html
   
   
3. We have begun a series of essays on "Money and Literature." Scroll to the bottom of http://www.notbored.org/contents.html
   
   
4. We have finally worked out the weaknesses of Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" with respect to Debord's "Society of the Spectacle." See http://www.notbored.org/foucault-and-debord.html
   
   
5. This Foucault/Debord commentary is an extended footnote to the beginnings of our meditations on "the prison." See "All the World's A Prison" at http://www.notbored.org/all-the-world.html
   
   
6. We have resumed selling situationist memorabilia. See http://www.notbored.org/buy.html
   
   
7. For a very good read, see "Dancing in the Streets! Anarchists, IWWs, Surrealists, Situationists & Provos in the 1960s, as recorded in the pages of the 'Rebel Workers' and 'Heatwave'" (Charles H Kerr, 2005)
   

Best wishes for May Day, etc
Bill Not Bored