Be le me

Debord is incredibly based. Read his Commentary on the Society of the Spectacle asap.

What's the point of Baudrillard when there's Debord? I'm honestly trying to figure it out.

Solid recommendations.

>and people in the SI, did this as well under May 68

How active was Debord in May 68? Seems like he would have known better and stay out and watch from a distance. I lose a little bit of respect for every philosopher I found out was highly active during this retarded time.

Can you really blame them, though? I mean there was a lot of stupid shit during that time and it's easy to write it all off as silly in hindsight but there was a real atmosphere of possible change that we just don't see anymore with todays out of control levels of cynicism and after 30 years of neoliberal propaganda.

But wouldn't he obviously see the protests as becoming part of the spectacle?

I can see SI associated people joining it, but Debord seemed smarter than that. Did he, for a fact, partake in the protests?

> but there was a real atmosphere of possible change

From what? What was so bad? I'm not sure they knew what they were protesting against.

There's very little Debord, and a ton of B. System of Objects is actually quite good, as is The Perfect Crime-- and America is strangely apt, even today (it concerns an extended visit he made to the U.S.- mostly out west during the Reagan 80's).

Will the fact that I haven't read Marx severely limit my reading experience with Debord, Baudrillard, etc.?

I love this.

It helped wake me from my dogmatic slumber.

Yeah but Simulacra seems like a worse Debord. I haven't actually read Baudrillard yet, and System of Objects does sound really interesting.

Would you say they're strongly opposed on certain points? I know Guattari personally hated Baudrillard.

larp is >Veeky Forums lingo, but you'll get made fun of there if you actually larp.

One of the funniest books I own is a Vampire the Masquerade LARPing book. It's filled with photography of 1990s teens running around parking garages in trenchcoats and victorian corsets, periodically they have to do rock paper scissors to resolve conflicts.

Bipartisan system was a mistake

A colossal mistake

Baudrillard is definately worth reading. System of Objects is good, but its still effectively a structuralist work, expanding marxist terms into semiotic terms. It informs later works by Baudrillard, but as one of his earliest pieces of writing, it doesn't reflect his later positions.

The Perfect Crime is dense, probably not a good place to start, but I'd consider it his magnum opus on the topic of Simulation.

America and Cool Memories are his aphoristic works, little clever quips and observations. There is some genius stuff in it though, like this bit about baggage claims, flying and death (pic related).

I actually think the best introduction to Baudrillard, if you find the aphoristic stuff too trivial and opportunistic, is to check out Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomenon. It's by far my favorite book I've ever read. Along with Society of the Spectacle and the Medium is the Massage by Mcluhan, I can't think of works that better describe our society. I suppose Critique of Cynical Reason by Sloterdjik and The Sublime Object of Ideology by Zizek could make that list, but they're both really bloated, not particularly well written.

I think that's fair. When he was younger B was a much tighter writer, less opinionated, not at all the freak that he became. Are you familiar with 'Pataphysics?

lol

>marxists

>marxists exist
its not the 1960's anymore champ

you can listen to this since you are canadian
Les années 1968-2018 : une histoire intellectuelle et politique
college-de-france.fr/site/pierre-rosanvallon/course-2016-2017.htm

radiofrance-podcast.net/podcast09/rss_11921.xml

I know Jarry, yes.

Transparency of Evil sounds pretty dank. Thanks.

>not realizing this on your own years ago
better late than never i guess...

someone redpill me on may 68

Not with Debord. He references Marx, Hegel and others but the premise or thesis of the book is clearly laid out on it's own and doesn't rely on any understanding of other people.

This, despite the author being associated with Frankfurt School cultural marxism type stuff the book applies equally to almost all left-wing and socialist/marxist related stuff as well.

The response of some people is to use the ideas from the book and similar ideas to attack right-wing views and say "Oh well nationalism and not wanting ilegal immigration or refugees etc is dumb because it's all just based on things that are imaginary and not real stirner.jpg"

But then you can turn it on them and point out that the justification for a lot of leftist causes are also just abstract ideas that are not based on any concrete truth or reality.

>trusting wishy Washy idealistic marxist sophistry over the hard truths of race science and economics
I think you're just pussying out man. You are weak.
And btw the cathedral is much more realer than the spectacle.

Jesus Christ give me at least a name, I've always hated VtM players AND LARPers

I wish I were a VtM-playing goth teen in the 90s

Nationalism is bad because it simply perpetuates the current system of economic domination under a somewhat different aesthetic. The reason I'm not right wing is because right wingers just reject the liberal imaginary while holding fast to the political economy, fetishised notions of culture and cop worship

...You didn't actually read either Debord or the frankfurt school writers, did you, a lot of his stuff sounds like literally Walter Benjamin.

I mean, you don't even seem to grasp Stirner, either.

For a good overview on Baudrillards thoughts get Douglas Kellners book on him, after that you can alway branch out.

Walter Benjamin was an actual Jewish occultist witch doctor who thought bringing down capitalism was his Talmudic duty. He's like Evola for the Low T set.

Can someone explain to me the appeal in reading Baudrillard in particular?

I've yet to see his particular contributions that are divergent from what Continental Marxists have been saying since the Frankfurt School, is it because he's not Jewish?

I get the feeling Baudrillard was Zizek for the 90s. He seems a lot more fucking ordinary than most continental philosophers of his generation.

Probably because he wasn't Jewish, I suppose.

Doesn't change how a lot of situationist theory and praxis rests on a revolutionary potential of the "now" that's VERY similar (or even the same, from where I'm looking) to Benjamin's view of the jeztzeit

Debord and Baudrilliard are banksy tier. Muh corporations Forcing me every Apple product! That's why we need to get bigger government and give away our stuff to Muslim rapefugees and unemployed liberal arts grads. Seriously, as the great Voltaire once said, if you want to find out who rules you look for who you aren't allowed to criticise. Bashing capitalist white males with Marxist jargon will get you a tenure track position and a five figure FEDGOV subsidised salary, while stating the facts on race and IQ or will make you a pariah

>things aren't things, they're thinglike
meaning itself becomes meaningless when you do this

you got it all wrong

Baudrillard is a redpilled traditionalist who wants to dismantle the technological society and restrict the sexual freedoms of women

>if you want to find out who rules you look for who you aren't allowed to criticise

So transgender aboriginals rule us but the President of the US doesn't?
Hmm...

Nationalism is just a tool. You can use it to prop up a broad range of economic systems. Same with religion. It is dumb to reject those tools. No you are never ever going to convince the masses through reason. If you want communism you will have to sell it as a sort of religion as was done successfully in many places.

>formal logic i.e. the bedrock of western civilization
The bedrock of western civilization is burning rival city-states/clans to the ground, raping the women and enslaving the children because of century-old blood feuds.
>me, an intellekshual
Learn how to throw a spear, win the favour of the old Gods, destroy society under their aegis.

The problem is not LARPing, the problem is you're just not LARPing hard enough

I have written many published essays on Debord and situationism, which has also made me quite familiar with Baudrillard, and I can tell with 100% certainity you've never even read their wiki articles.

Try calling trannies out on their shit and see what happens. Orwell would be proud. That's how you know it's being pushed from above. The LGBT movement is a radical leftist ideology that deliberately targets kids, some of them readily admit it. I'm not saying gas them, but an anti propaganda law like Russia's seems reasonable. The cathedral is showing some cracks, but it's definitely still alive. If my coworkers knew what I really believe my life would be over in a flash. I haven't told anyone I'm a Trump supporter.

It sounds like your issue is more so with boundaries from authority figures rather than political-economy.
How was your relationship with your mother growing up?

>marxists
You were meant to go the right way, not the wrong way (left) after Kant with your Hegels etc. Should have gone onto Schopenhauer onto Nietzsche onto Alex 'Icycalm' Kierkegaard' [should I join either of the forums?].

>The obsessive hatred, bordering on psychosis, against products — i.e. against man-made objects — seems to be the hallmark of the pseudo-intellectual today. Hatred of consumption, a problem which no sane, healthy person has ever had. As if food and clothes, as if eating or dressing were bad. Such is the pseudo-intellectual's craving to appear to be raging at something, that he will rage at life's basic necessitities if need be.

>The "consumer society" should have been called the "slave society", since there's nothing wrong with consuming, it is indeed the basis, the prerequisite, of all growth. Marx was at least healthy in focusing on production; Baudrillard's obsession with consumption is neurotic. Why not reduce it to zero and die of thirst in a few days, you fucking nihilistic little prick? Better yet just stop breathing; oxygen too is something that we consume.

>What is "capital"? It is simply another word for money, which is a medium that facilitates exchange. Capitalism, then, is merely a state of things in which individuals are able, and allowed, to enter into exchange. That's all it is. Capitalism = Exchange. And since it is impossible for any culture and civilization at all to exist without exchange (indeed exchange is the number one prerequisite for civilization, with language itself understood as a form of exchange, the exchange of feelings), we might as well say that Capitalism = Civilization. To be against capitalism, then, means to be against civilization — which is par for the course for the kind of subhuman dreck which perpetually champions this nauseating, decadent notion. Just take a good look at them and you'll see.

where's your Nietzsche-picture?

TOO SLOW.

low quality post

drivethrurpg.com/product/123666/Minds-Eye-Theatre-Vampire-The-Masquerade

All of the Minds Eye Theatre books are the LARP books.

>facts on race and iq
multiple citations needed

Don't encourage him

>I have written many published essays on Debord and situationism
Anselm Jappe's book on him was too hard for me, what is the definitive introduction to Debord? Also, I need to read Marx and Lukacs to get a bearing right?

youtube.com/watch?v=JeSx0g-PnaE

This is basically Debord in a nutshell but 1000x better and it's for free.

>Bashing capitalist white males with Marxist jargon will get you a tenure track position and a five figure FEDGOV subsidised salary, while stating the facts on race and IQ or will make you a pariah
persecution complexes were never meant to go this far

Can you explain in simple terms exactly why it is that you personally have such a very high opinion of Debord? What exactly is it that Debord did, either as an author or as a person, that was so pathbreaking, "much truer" than other thinkers, etc?

seriously, the need for the right-wing to cast themselves as victims is the most bizarre turn of events from the last few years.

Its not though, its how they've always operated.
Remember Hitler literally started World War 2 by claiming Poland was the aggressor

Yeah, but did he really believe that? Or was it a cynical lie?

I fear actually believes that nonsense.

I don't really like Jappe, though I had a seminar with him that was pretty ok.

Some grounding on Marx and Lukacs will help, of course, and some Adorno / Frankfurt theory, but in all honesty, there is hardly any introduction needed outside their own texts, namely, On the Poverty of Student Life, Report on the Construction of Situations and the first edition of the Internationale Situationniste journal (all of these texts can be found on both libcom and notbored.org).

Also, while I don't particularly love him like I love Debord, Vaneigem's Revolution of Everyday Life is very good in both providing a clearer insight into the SI beliefs and explaining what their endgame might be;

Not who you're replying to, but I've been reading Debord since my mid teens (so, around 10 years) and one thing thats impressive is just how lucid and real all his work seems. It might look like your basic "lol take the redpill break the matrix" shit, but once you get a grasp of where he's coming from, his critique is fucking SAVAGE, and very little can stand in it's way.

Yep, along with Perfect, Transparency's at the top of any fair reading list. Not so long ago these titles seduced me into reading them when scrolling through a Vertigo Books catalog. Objects I believe is his first, based, if I'm not mistaken, on his grad thesis. What I mourn through all of this (and beyond) is the loss of Phenomenology-- perhaps I'm a simpleton, but I like painstakingly descriptive philosophies. Ever read Gusdorf's La Parole? Those no better primer on speech.

What should I read before this?

Well, B became (I believe) a little too involved in the actual\non-actual administation of the same. Some minds can roll with this kind of thing, B's was ruined.

nice reductionism

A great extension of Debordian thought that deals with exactly the issue you raise, is Cracking the Movement: Squatting beyond the Media, by ADILKNO

Hunh. Never thought of that. A substantive insight on /lit. Who would've thought?

It's a pretty straightforward text. Don't scared by the french title. I think any average person could read Society of the Spectacle and grasp the core ideas. The Situationists influenced so much of the counter culture that came after them. If you get Punk, you'll have an intuitive grasp of what you're reading.

I've been working with a professor on the similarities between Benjamin and Debord, he actually has a great essay about both authors and their view of "negation". Tried to find it in english but I doubt it exists

academia.edu/31591222/Breves_considerações_acerca_do_estilo_da_negação_em_Walter_Benjamin_e_Guy_Debord

Bah. Benjamin was always trying to convince his Marxists friends that he hadn't abandoned the cause, because in fact he had, which was easy for him, because he never really adopted it. He couldn't. He was of too 'artistic' a temperment. There are a few texts that suggest otherwise, but come on. WB just wanted to be read, and he is.

No he's not. He's a nihilist. He outright says it in S&S. Stop trying to piggyback everything that people here like onto proselytizing your idiotic alt-right ideology. You're as bad as the feminists bashing everyone over the head with the personal is political shit.

>Baudrillard having a substantive political beliefs

Tbqh there's been a huge depolitization of Benjamin in the years following his death (and a lot of conspiration theories as to why this happened), but considering his last text is one of his most political ones (The thesis), this doesn't sound right (I can be wrong though).

One of Baudri's biggest criticisms (as far as I know) is how much of a reactionary he seems to be, but I'll admit that it's very easy to confuse one for the other (in his work, at least).

I would argue that his most political text is The Author as Producer. The first paragraph of the theses is vital, and remember he uses the chess illusion as a metaphor for historical materialism needing to be a puppet in the service of theology for it to be effective. In Benjamin's case, that theology is a peculiar Judaic mysticism.

I don't think is that clear, really. The dwarf and the puppet are a single thing which must win the game, and that's how I see his "theology": Historical materialism and messianism shall co-exist so that the game can be won, the revolution and the tiqqun being one and the same thing.

(Just making it clear, it's been a while since I've went through WBs writings and I haven't really gotten back into them yet, and I'm also extremely high, so, I might remember a shitload of things wrong).

>a huge depolitization of Benjamin in the years following his death (and a lot of conspiration theories as to why this happened)

Care to elaborate? Is this the Scholem trying to claim him as more Jewish than Marxist or something else?

Yeah, this is the mainstream one (and the one I subscribe to, actually). There's this brazilian Benjamin scholar named Michael Löwy (pic related) whose work is actually about showing how there's no Marxist Benjamin without Jewish Benjamin and vice versa. I don't know about Messianism and Romantism (his main work), but I do know he has some stuff translated to english (this picture is from the Verso site, actually).

Hmmm. You don't think that histmat is the sublated concept in terms of what Benjamin wrote? The Golem is powerful, but it returns to clay. The puppet moves the pieces, but is ultimately a dead inanimate thing. I agree that he saw them as interdependent and inextricable, though.

I don't know, the thesis is an outline. I love the essays in Illuminations, most of the Reflections, that mammoth abortion The Arcades of Paris, and I've even read the rewarding, but tough, Origin of German Tragic Drama. Few men loved books more. An NYRB book I'd recommend is Gershom Sholem's WB, The Story of a Friendship. Your position is fair, but I like WB the writer too much to give into it. Like Marx, I'm not a Marxist.

I can believe that he left Marxism because his critique of "quietist" Marxism and his concept of messianic time is a very strong critique of orthodox Marxism in my view. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see how Marxists have responded to Benjamin's critique. It's better than Adorno's negative dialectics, I think, which is also a strong critique of Hegelian concept of history/progress.

Have you guys read Agamben's work on Paul? I'm just getting into him but he seems to combine Benjamin's messianism with the Pauline texts.

The Origin of German Tragic Drama is great. That, the theses, the Surrealism essay, and Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century are my favourites.

I've read very little Agamben. I really did not like what I read, so I dropped him.

Fair enough. I think he's a little too Heideggerian but Homo Sacer is great and relevant, as is The State of Exception.

He's a big fan of Debord.

It's gonna be very difficult to explain myself in english here, but I think of it as: Histmat without theology is the illusion of victory, Theology without histmat is the promise of victory. If you get the chess robot without the dwarf, all you got is a tool that creates the possibility of victory, if you only get the dwarf you get someone who can win the game, but not with the proper tools - and it's important to think how betrayed Benjamin felt about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. In his views - I suppose, and I might be misremembering - communists in both Germany and Russia had become corrupted, because they let go of that revolutionary purity and so on and so on (I'm sorry for the shit explanation, but my english isn't really that good).

I love him, but I haven't read his book on Paul (yet). Homo Sacer is G O A T though, and that's from someone who isn't very fond of Heidegger.

Why don't you like him?

They were friends actually, I find it sort of endearing how Agamben always calls him Guy.

Have you ever browsed through a copy of the mammoth Arcades? The last essay you mention was to be the Introduction to it-- inside are all the notes he took (many read like little essays) for just about every aspect of late 19thc. Parisian life that would concern a literary person. It's wonderful, and sad. The bones of what he intended to be his masterpiece. ..Of the essays, all that deal with Proust, the death of storytelling, hashish, unpacking his library, and mech reproduction (i abbreviate, with a nod to my FAVORITE essayist, Paul Valery) are the ones that come first to mind. Oh, and the one on Karl Kraus!

here here

jesus christ how can you misread this badly

Not like the left thugs like antifa are physically attacking people for pointing out how the qoran says murtadis must die or anything

Lol antifa ain't doing shit, there's barely any violence against right-wingers

That's an impressive strawman. I didn't finish reading it.

The 68ers invented cultural marxism.

lol dude, haven't you seen the infographics on /pol/?

...

Exactly right, that is not happening at all, whatsoever, anywhere, ever.