Posted by Hate Company on January 23, 2000 at 03:25:33 PM EST:
For once in this board, I won't discredit Voyer's take on the concept of the "spectacle" as a reduced one. And that is because I agree with him: the spectacle is not a cause but an effect. The spectacle does not explain the misery of the slaves. The alienation of communication explains the misery of the slaves.
The misery of the slaves is the effect of the communication being taken up by the things, it's the effect of the activity of the rulers of this world. Things think, and they think what the ruling class does (this is a bit of an inconvenience for the ruling class too, it is its inevitable alienation, but they can live with it, for, after all: 1) things think what the ruling class wants them to 2) the ruling class is the only one who has the power to realize the things' thought).
Therefore, understanding the concept of the spectacle as a "reduced" one, is not the problem with Voyer's theory, on the contrary it is its main advantage. Where is the problem then? Well, it is simply that Voyer's theory is not real. As he writes on his "Investigation" (and Hegel would have agreed) the reality of a thought is a practical problem, it’s the problem of its power and of the disappearance of its enemies. But, the rulers of this world still exist, Mr. Levy and his lovely wife still exist, the fools on the motorway still exist. Therefore Voyer's theory must be false by his own criteria.
Furthermore, if an example of an idea is (according to Voyer) "the taking of the Bastille by the people of Paris on 14 July 1789" , if we stick to his "very materialistic conception of the term", he didn't even had an idea. No Bastille was ever taken over because of Voyer's thought. This doesn't imply that what he wrote is wrong, just that it's not real.
The S.I at least tried to realize its theory and in a certain degree it succeeded. The revolt of May '68 was in part the product of this effort. If today the world is a sittuationistic, if "Le Monde" and Canal+ is full of "sittuationist" puffs is because S.I's theory became partly true. However, as a partial truth it is already a complete lie.
The problem with Voyer's theory is that it is a theory that doesn't know how to realize itself, and even worst, a theory that doesn't even try to. Voyer seems to have forgotten Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach. The only revolutionary question is not if all things have an end or not (as those teleologist idiots claim), but "What is to be done?". This is the true "hic Rhodus, hic salta" of Voyer's theory. This must also be our party's starting point.