Western Philosophy
20th century philosophy |
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Name
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Birth
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December 28, 1931
 Paris
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Death
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November 30, 1994
Champot, Haute-Loire
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School/tradition
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Situationist
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Main interests
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Social theory, Reification,
Commodity fetishism
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Notable ideas
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Society of the Spectacle, Detournement
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Influences
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Marx, Lukács, Castoriadis, Dadaism, Surrealism
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Influenced
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May 1968, Jean Baudrillard
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Guy Ernest Debord (born December 28, 1931 in
Paris; died November 30, 1994 in Champot, Haute-Loire) was a writer,
filmmaker, hypergraphist and founding member of the
groups Lettrist International and Situationist International (SI). He was also briefly a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.
Life
Guy Debord was born in Paris. His father died early, and he was raised by his
grandmother in a series of Mediterranean towns. He was a headstrong youth, and after
graduating high school he dropped out of the University of Paris where he had been
studying law. He became a revolutionary poet, writer and film-maker founding the Lettrist International schism with Gil J. Wolman. In the
1960s he led the Situationist International group, which influenced the Paris uprising of 1968.
His book Society of the Spectacle (1967) was a major catalyst for
the uprising [citation needed]. In the 1970s Debord disbanded the Situationist movement, and resumed
filmmaking with financial backing from the movie mogul and publisher Gerard Lebovici.
His two best films date from this period: a film version of Society of
the Spectacle (1973) and the autobiographical "In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur
Igni" (1981). After the dissolution of the Situationist International, Debord spent his time reading, and occasionally writing,
in relative isolation, although he continued to correspond on political and other issues, notably with Lebovici and the Italian
situationist Gianfranco Sanguinetti[1]. His lifelong steady alcohol consumption began to take a toll on his health.
Apparently to end the suffering from a form of polyneuritis brought on by his excessive
drinking, he committed suicide, shooting himself in the heart at his cottage in Champot on
November 30, 1994.
Works
Guy Debord's best known works are his theoretical books, Society of the
Spectacle and Comments on
the Society of the Spectacle. In addition to these he wrote a number of autobiographical books including "Mémoires",
"Panégyrique", "Cette Mauvaise Réputation..." and "Considérations sur l'assassinat de Gérard
Lebovici". He was also the author of numerous short pieces, sometimes anonymous, for the journals "Potlatch", "Les Lèvres
Nues," "Les Chats Sont Verts," and "Internationale Situationniste".
In broad terms, Debord's theories attempted to account for the spiritually debilitating modernisation of both the private and
public spheres of everyday life by economic forces during the post-WW2 modernisation of
Europe. He rejected as the twin faces of the same problem both capitalism of the West and the
statism of the Eastern bloc. Alienation, Debord postulated, could be
accounted for by the invasive forces of the 'spectacle' - "a social relation between people that is mediated by images". Debord's
analysis developed the notions of "reification" and "fetishism of the commodity" pioneered by Karl Marx and
Georg Lukács. This analysis probed the historical, economic and psychological roots of
'the media'. Central to this school of thought was the claim that alienation is more than an emotive description or an aspect of
individual psychology: rather, it is a consequence of the mercantile form of social organization which has reached its climax in
capitalism.
The Situationist International, a political/artistic movement organized by Debord and his colleagues and represented by a
journal of the same name, attempted to create a series of strategies for engaging in class struggle by reclaiming individual
autonomy from the spectacle. These strategies, including "dérive" and "détournement", drew
on the traditions of Dada and Surrealism.
The SI initially drew membership from the Lettrists – a post-Surrealist group of writers and
poets dedicated to the destruction of bourgeois values by reducing the written word to
onomatopoeic syllables. However, the SI broke with the formal aims of the Lettrists and,
after subsuming much of their membership, were fully established in their own right by 1959. After
an intense period of theoretical analysis, publication and the expulsion of most of its few members, the SI dissolved itself in
1972.
Debord's first book, Memoires, was bound with a sandpaper cover so that it would destroy other books placed next to
it.
Debord has been the subject of numerous biographies, works of fiction, artworks and songs, many of which are catalogued in the
bibliography by Shigenobu Gonzalves, "Guy Debord ou la Beaute du Negatif".
Films
- Hurlements en faveur de Sade 1952
[Howlings in favor of Sade]
- Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers une assez courte unité de temps, Paris, 1959 (short film, Dansk-Fransk Experimentalfilmskompagni).
[On the passage of some persons through a rather short period of time]
- Critique de la séparation, Paris, 1961 (short film, Dansk-Fransk
Experimentalfilmskompagni).
[Critique of separation]
- La Société du spectacle, Paris, (1973) (Simar Films)
Society of the Spectacle
- Réfutation de tous les jugements, tant élogieux qu’hostiles, qui ont été jusqu’ici portés sur le film « La Société du
spectacle », Paris, 1975 (short film, Simar Films).
[Refutation of all judgements whether hostile or in praise which up to now were given on the film 'The Society of the
Spectacle']
- In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (Simar Films) 1978
[We turn in circles in the night and are consumed by fire] This film, which was meant to be Debord's last one, is largely
autobiographical but begins with a thorough and pitiless critique of the spectator.
- Guy Debord, son art, son temps, 1995 (television film, by Guy Debord and Brigitte
Cornand, Canal Plus)
[Guy Debord - his art and his time]
Bibliography
Works by Debord
- Memoires, 1959 (co-authored by Asger Jorn),
reprinted by Allia (2004), ISBN 2-84485-143-6.
- La société du spectacle, 1967, numerous editions; in English: The Society of the
Spectacle, Zone Books 1995, ISBN 0-942299-79-5.
- La Véritable Scission dans L'Internationale, 1972 (co-authored by Gianfranco Sanguinetti); in English: The Real Split in the International, Pluto Press
2003, ISBN 0-7453-2128-3.
- Œuvres cinématographiques complètes, 1978, new edition in 1994; in English: Complete Cinematic Works: Scripts, Stills, and Documents, AK Press 2003, ISBN 1-902593-73-1.
- Considérations sur l'assassinat de Gérard Lebovici, 1985; in English: Considerations
on the Assassination of Gérard Lebovici, TamTam 2001, ISBN 2-85184-156-4.
- Commentaires sur la société du spectacle, 1988; in English: Comments on the Society
of the Spectacle, Verso 1990, ISBN 0-86091-302-3.
- Panégyrique volume 1, 1989; in English: Panegyric, Verso 2004, ISBN 1-85984-665-3; in Portuguese: "Panegírico" [2002], ISBN 85-87193-77-5.
- "The Proletariat as Subject and as Representation" [2]
Further reading
- Internationale situationniste, Paris, 1958-1969. Réédition
intégrale chez Van Gennep, Amsterdam 1972, chez Champ Libre 1975, et
chez Fayard 1997, ISBN 2-213-59912-2; complete translations are available in German:
Situationistische Internationale, Gesammelte Ausgabe des Organs der Situationistischen Internationale, Hamburg: MaD Verlag
1976-1977, ISBN 3-921523-10-9; and in Spanish: Internacional
situacionista: textos completos en castellano de la revista Internationale situationniste (1958-1969), Madrid: Literatura
Gris [1999-2001], ISBN 84-605-9961-2.
- Situationist International Anthology, edited by Ken Knabb, Bureau of Public Secrets 1981, ISBN 0-939682-00-1.
- Guy Debord, Anselm Jappe, University of California Press 1999, ISBN 0-520-21204-5.
- Guy Debord - Revolutionary, Len Bracken, Feral House 1997, ISBN 0-922915-44-X.
- I situazionisti, Mario Perniola, Roma, Castelvecchi 2005, ISBN 88-7615-068-4.
- The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord., Andrew Hussey, Cape
2001, ISBN 0-224-04348-X.
- Guy Debord and the Situationist International, edited by Tom McDonough, MIT Press 2002,
ISBN 0-262-13404-7.
- "The Beautiful Language of my Century": Reinventing the Language of Contestation in Postwar France, 1945-1968, Tom
McDonough, MIT Press 2007, ISBN 0-262-13477-2.
- Guy Debord, Andy Merrifield, Reaktion 2005, ISBN 1-86189-261-6.
- Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, Greil Marcus,
Harvard University Press, 1990, ISBN
0-674-53581-2.
See also
External links
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