Debord1961a

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Perspectives for ConsciousAlterations in Everyday Lifeby Guy Debord

Published in Internationale

Situationniste #6, May 1961

A tape recording of this talk was presented 17 May 1961 at aconference of the Group for Researchon Everyday Life convened by HenriLefebvre in the Center of SociologicalStudies of the CNRS.

To study everyday life would be acompletely absurd undertaking,unable even to grasp anything of its

object, if this study was not explicitlyfor the purpose of transformingeveryday life.

The lecture, the exposition of certainintellectual considerations to anaudience, being an extremelycommonplace form of human relationsin a rather large sector of society,itself forms a part of the every day lifethat must be criticized.

Sociologists, for example, are only tooinclined to remove from every day lifethings that happen to them every day,and to transfer them to separate andsupposedly superior spheres. In thisway habit in all its forms - beginningwith the habit of handling a fewprofessional concepts (conceptsproduced by the division of labor) --masks reality behind privilegedconventions.

It is thus desirable to demonstrate, by

a slight alteration of the usualprocedures, that everyday life is righthere. These words are beingcommunicated by way of a taperecorder, not, of course, in order toillustrate the integration of technologyinto this everyday life on the marginof the technological world, but inorder to seize the simplestopportunity to break with theappearance of pseudo-collaboration,of artificial dialogue, establishedbetween the lecturer "in person" and

his spectator. This slight discomforting

break with accustomed routine couldserve to bring directly into the field of questioning of every day life (aquestioning otherwise completelyabstract) the conference itself, as well

as any number of other forms of usingtime or objects, forms that areconsidered "normal" and not evennoticed, and which ultimatelycondition us. With such a detail, aswith everyday life as a whole,alteration is always the necessary andsufficient condition for experimentallybringing into clear view the object of our study, which would otherwiseremain uncertain -- an object which isitself less to be studied than to bealtered.

I have just said that the reality of anobservable entity designated by theterm "everyday life" stands a goodchance of remaining hypothetical formany people. Indeed, the moststriking feature of the present "Groupfor Research on Everyday Life" isobviously not the fact that it has notyet discovered anything, but the factthat the very existence of everydaylife has been disputed from its very

inception, and increasingly so witheach new session of this conference.Most of the talks we have heard so farhave been by people who are not atall convinced that everyday life exists,since they haven't encountered itanywhere. A group for research oneveryday life with this attitude iscomparable in every way to anexpedition in search of the Yeti, whichmight similarly come to the conclusionthat its quarry was merely a popularhoax.

To be sure, everyone agrees thatcertain gestures repeated every day,such as opening doors or fillingglasses, are quite real; but thesegestures are at such a trivial level of reality that it is rightly objected thatthey are not of sufficient interest to justify a new specialized branch of sociological research. A number of sociologists seem disinclined torecognize any aspects of everyday lifebeyond these trivial ties. They thusaccept the definition of it proposed by

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Henri Lefebvre -- "whatever remainsafter one has eliminated allspecialized activities" -- but draw adifferent conclusion: that everyday lifeis nothing. The majority of sociologists

-- and we know how much they are intheir element in specialized activities,in which they generally have theblindest faith! -- recognize specializedactivities everywhere and every daylife nowhere. Everyday life is alwayselsewhere. Among others. In any case,in the nonsociologistic classes of thepopulation. Someone said here that itwould be interesting to study theworkers as guinea pigs who haveprobably been infected with this virusof everyday life because they, having

no access to specialized activities,have only everyday life to live. Thiscondescending manner of investigating the common people insearch of an exotic primitivism of everyday life - and above all thisingenuously avowed self-satisfaction,this naive pride in participating in aculture whose glaring bankruptcy noone can dream of denying, this radicalinability to understand the world thatproduces this culture -- all this never

ceases to astonish.

There is in this an evident will to hidebehind a development of thoughtbased on the separation of artificial,fragmentary domains so as to rejectthe useless, vulgar and disturbingconcept of "everyday life." Such aconcept covers an uncatalogued andunclassified residue of reality, aresidue some people are averse toconfronting because it at the sametime represents the standpoint of the

totality; it would imply the necessityof an integral political judgment.Certain intellectuals seem to flatterthemselves with an illusory personalparticipation in the dominant sector of society through their possession of one or more cultural specializations;these specializations, however, haveplaced them in the best position torealize that the whole of this dominantculture is manifestly moth-eaten. Butwhatever one's opinion of thecoherence of this culture or of the

interest of one or another of its

fragments, the particular alienation ithas imposed on these intellectuals isto make them think, from theirposition in the heaven of thesociologists, that they are quite

outside the everyday life of thecommon people, or to give them anexaggerated idea of their rank on thescale of human powers, as if theirlives, too, were not impoverished.

Specialized activities certainly exist;they are even, in a given period, putto a certain general use which shouldbe recognized in a demystifiedmanner. Everyday life is noteverything - although its osmosis withspecialized activities is such that in asense we are never outside of everyday life. But to use a facilespatial image, we still have to placeeveryday life at the center of everything. Every project begins fromit and every realization returns to it toacquire its real significance. Everydaylife is the measure of all things: of thefulfillment or rather the nonfulfillmentof human relations; of the use of livedtime; of artistic experimentation; of revolutionary politics. It is not enough

to recall that the old stereotypicalimage of the detached scientificobserver is fallacious in any case. Itmust be stressed that disinterestedobservation is even less possible herethan anywhere else. What makes forthe difficulty of even recognizing aterrain of everyday life is not only thefact that it has already become theostensible meeting ground of anempirical sociology and a conceptualelaboration, but also the fact that itpresently happens to be the stake in

any revolutionary renewal of cultureand politics.

To fail to criticize everyday life todaymeans accepting the prolongation of the present thoroughly rotten forms of culture and politics, forms whoseextreme crisis is expressed inincreasingly widespread politicalapathy and neoilliteracy, especially inthe most modern countries. On theother hand, a radical critique in acts of prevailing everyday life could lead toa supersession of culture and politics

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in the traditional sense, that is, to ahigher level of intervention in life.

"But," you may ask, "how does ithappen that the importance of this

everyday life, which according to youis the only real life, is so completelyand directly underrated by peoplewho, after all, have no direct interestin doing so - many of whom are evenfar from being opposed to some kindof renewal of the revolutionarymovement?"

I think this happens because everydaylife is organized within the limits of ascandalous poverty, and above all

because there is nothing accidentalabout this poverty of everyday life: itis a poverty that is constantly imposedby the coercion and violence of asociety divided into classes, a povertyhistorically organized in line with theevolving requirements of exploitation. The use of everyday life, in the senseof a consumption of lived time, isgoverned by the reign of scarcity:scarcity of free time and scarcity of possible uses of this free time.

Just as the accelerated history of ourtime is the history of accumulationand industrialization, so thebackwardness and conservativetendency of everyday life are productsof the laws and interests that havepresided over this industrialization.Everyday life has until now resistedthe historical. This represents first of all a verdict against the historicalinsofar as it has been the heritage andproject of an exploitative society.

The extreme poverty of consciousorganization and creativity ineveryday life expresses thefundamental necessity forunconsciousness and mystification inan exploiting society, in a society of alienation.

Henri Lefebvre has extended the ideaof uneven development so as tocharacterize everyday life as a laggingsector, out of joint with the historical

but not completely cut off from it. I

think that one could go so far as toterm this level of everyday life acolonized sector. We know thatunderdevelopment and colonizationare interrelated on the level of global

economy. Everything suggests thatthe same thing applies at the level of socioeconomic structure, at the levelof praxis.

Everyday life, policed and mystified byevery means, is a sort of reservationfor good natives who keep modernsociety running without understandingit--this society with its rapid growth of technological powers and the forcedexpansion of its market. History--thetransformation of reality--cannotpresently be used in everyday lifebecause the people of everyday lifeare the product of a history overwhich they have no control. It is of course they themselves who makethis history, but not freely.

Modern society is viewed throughspecialized fragments that arevirtually incommunicable; and soeveryday life, where all questions areliable to be posed in a unitary manner,

is naturally the domain of ignorance. Through its industrial production thissociety has emptied the gestures of work of all meaning. And no model of human behavior has retained any realrelevance in everyday life. Thissociety tends to atomize people intoisolated consumers, to prohibitcommunication. Everyday life is thusprivate life, the realm of separationand spectacle.

It is thus also the sphere of thespecialists' resignation and failure. Itis there, for example, that one of therare individuals capable of understanding the latest scientificconception of the universe will make afool of himself by earnestly ponderingAlain Robbe-Grillet's aesthetictheories or by sending petitions to thePresident of the Republic in the hopeof convincing him to change hispolicies. It is the sphere of disarmament, of the avowal of the

incapability of living. Thus theunderdevelopment of everyday life

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cannot be characterized solely by itsrelative inability to put technology touse. This trait is an important, butonly partial, consequence of theeveryday alienation as a whole, which

could be defined as the inability toinvent a technique for the liberation of everyday experience.

In fact many techniques do more orless markedly alter certain aspects of everyday life: the domestic arts, ashas already been mentioned here, butalso the telephone, television, therecording of music on long-playingrecords, mass air travel, etc. Theseelements arise anarchically, bychance, without anyone havingforeseen their interrelations orconsequences. But on the whole thisintroduction of technology intoeveryday life - ultimately taking placewithin the frame work of modernbureaucratized capitalism - certainlytends rather to reduce people'sindependence and creativity. The newprefabricated cities clearly exemplifythe totalitarian tendency of moderncapitalism's organization of life: theisolated inhabitants (generally

isolated within the framework of thefamily cell) see their lives reduced tothe pure triviality of the repetitivecombined with the obligatoryabsorption of an equally repetitivespectacle. One can thus conclude thatif people censor the question of theirown everyday life, it is both becausethey are aware of its unbearablemisery and because sooner or laterthey sense - whether they admit it ornot - that all the real possibilities, allthe desires that have been frustrated

by the functioning of social life, werefocused there, and not at all in thespecialized activities or distractions. That is, awareness of the profoundrichness and energy abandoned ineveryday life is inseparable fromawareness of the poverty of thedominant organization of this life.Only the perceptible existence of thisuntapped richness leads to thecontrasting definition of everyday lifeas poverty and as prison; and then, inthe same movement, to the negation

of the problem.

In these conditions, repressing thepolitical question posed by thepoverty of everyday life meansrepressing the depth of the demandsbearing on the possible richness of

this life - demands that can lead tonothing less than a reinvention of revolution. Of course an evasion of politics at this level is in no wayincompatible with being active in theParti Socialiste Unifié, for example, orwith reading Humanité withconfidence.

Everything effectively depends on thelevel at which this problem is posed:How is our life? How are we satisfiedwith it? Dissatisfied? Without for amoment letting ourselves beintimidated by the variousadvertisements designed to persuadeus that we can be happy because of the existence of God or Colgatetoothpaste or the CNRS.

It seems to me that this phrase"critique of everyday life" could andshould also be understood in thisreverse sense: as everyday life'ssovereign critique of everything that is

external or irrelevant to itself. Thequestion of the use of technologicalmeans, in everyday life andelsewhere, is a political question (andout of all the possible technicalmeans, those that are implementedare in reality selected in accordancewith the goal of maintaining oneclass's domination). When oneenvisions a future such as thatpresented in science fiction, in whichinterstellar adventures coexist with aterrestrial everyday life kept in the

same old material indigence andarchaic morality, this implies preciselythat there is still a class of specializedrulers maintaining the proletarianmasses of the factories and offices intheir service; and that the interstellaradventures are nothing but theparticular enterprise chosen by thoserulers, the way they have found todevelop their irrational economy, thepinnacle of specialized activity.

Someone posed the question, "What isprivate life deprived of?" Quite simply

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of life itself, which is cruelly absent.People are as deprived as possible of communication and of self-realization.Deprived of the opportunity topersonally make their own history.

Hypotheses responding positively tothis question on the nature of theprivation can thus only be expressedin the form of projects of enrichment;the project of a different style of life;or in fact simply the project of a styleof life ... Or, if we regard everyday lifeas the frontier between the dominatedand the undominated sectors of life,and thus as the terrain of risk anduncertainty, it would be necessary toreplace the present ghetto with aconstantly moving frontier; to work

ceaselessly toward the organization of new chances.

The question of intensity of experience is posed today - with theuse of drugs, for example - in the onlyterms in which the society of alienation is capable of posing anyquestion: namely, in terms of falserecognition of a falsified project, interms of fixation and attachment. Itshould also be noted how much the

image of love elaborated andpropagated in this society has incommon with drugs. A passion is firstof all presented as a denial of all otherpassions; then it is frustrated andfinally reappears only in thecompensations of the reigningspectacle. La Rochefoucauldobserved, "What often prevents usfrom abandoning ourselves to a singlevice is that we have several." This is avery constructive observation if weignore its moralist presuppositions

and put it back on its feet as the basisof a program for the realization of human capacities.

All these questions are of presentsignificance because our time isvisibly dominated by the emergenceof the project borne by the workingclass - the abolition of every classsociety and the inauguration of humanhistory - and thus also dominated bythe fierce resistance to this projectand by the distortions and failures ithas encountered until now.

The present crisis of everyday lifetakes its place among the new formsof the crisis of capitalism, forms thatremain unnoticed by those who clingto the classical calculation of the date

of the next cyclical crisis of theeconomy.

The disappearance in developedcapitalism of all the old values, of allthe frames of reference of pastcommunication; and the impossibilityof replacing them by any othersbefore having rationally dominated,within everyday life and everywhereelse, the new industrial forces thatescape us more and more--these factsproduce not only the virtually officialdissatisfaction of our time, adissatisfaction particularly acuteamong young people, but also theself-negating tendency of art. Artisticactivity had always been alone inconveying the clan destine problemsof everyday life, albeit in a veiled,deformed, partially illusory manner.Evidence of a destruction of all artisticexpression now exists before oureyes: modern art.

If we consider the whole extent of thecrisis of contemporary society, I don'tthink it is possible still to regardleisure activities as a negation of theeveryday. It has been recognized herethat it is necessary to "study wastedtime." But let us look at the recentevolution of this idea of wasted time.For classical capitalism, wasted timewas time that was not devoted toproduction, accumulation, saving. Thesecular morality taught in bourgeoisschools has instilled this rule of life.

But it so happens that by anunexpected turn of events moderncapitalism needs to increaseconsumption, to "raise the standard of living" (if we bear in mind that thisexpression is completelymeaningless). Since at the same timeproduction conditions,compartmentalized and clocked to theextreme, have become indefensible,the new morality already beingconveyed in advertising, propagandaand all the forms of the dominantspectacle now frankly admits that

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wasted time is the time spent at work,which latter is only justified by thehierarchized scale of earnings thatenable one to buy rest, consumption,entertainments - a daily passivity

manufactured and controlled bycapitalism.

If we now consider the artificiality of the consumer needs prefabricatedand ceaselessly stimulated by modernindustry - if we recognize theemptiness of leisure activities and theimpossibility of rest - we can pose thequestion more realistically: Whatwould not be wasted time? Thedevelopment of a society of abundance should lead to anabundance of what? This canobviously serve as a touchstone inmany regards. When, for example, inone of those papers where the flabbythinking of "leftist intellectuals" isdisplayed - I am referring to France-Observateur - one reads a title like"The Little Car Out To ConquerSocialism" heading an article thatexplains that nowadays the Russiansare beginning to pursue an American-style private consumption of goods,

beginning naturally with cars, onecannot help thinking that one neednot have assimilated all of Hegel andMarx to realize that a socialism thatgives way in the face of an invasion of the market by small cars is in no waythe socialism for which the workersmovement fought. The bureaucraticrulers of Russia must be opposed noton the level of their tactics or theirdogmatism, but fundamentally, on thefact that the meaning of people's liveshas not really changed. And this is not

some obscure fatality of an everydaylife doomed to remain reactionary. Itis a fatality imposed on everyday lifefrom the outside by the reactionarysphere of specialized rulers,regardless of the label under whichthey plan and regulate poverty in allits aspects.

The present depoliticization of manyformer leftist militants, theirwithdrawal from one type of alienationto plunge into another, that of privatelife, represents not so much a return

to privacy, a flight from "historicalresponsibility," but rather awithdrawal from the specializedpolitical sector that is alwaysmanipulated by others - a sector

where the only responsibility theyever took was that of leaving allresponsibility to uncontrolled leaders;and where the communist project wasbetrayed and frustrated. Just as onecannot simplistically oppose privatelife to public life without asking: whatprivate life? what public life? (forprivate life contains the factors of itsnegation and supersession, just ascollective revolutionary actionharbored the factors of itsdegeneration), so it would be a

mistake to assess the alienation of individuals in revolutionary politicswhen it is really a matter of thealienation of revolutionary politicsitself. It is right to dialectize theproblem of alienation, to drawattention to the constantly recurringpossibilities of alienation arising withinthe very struggle against alienation;but we should stress that this appliesto the highest level of research (to thephilosophy of alienation as a whole,

for example) and not to the level of Stalinism, the explanation of which isunfortunately more gross.

Capitalist civilization has not yet beensuperseded anywhere, but itcontinues to produce its own enemieseverywhere. The next rise of therevolutionary movement, radicalizedby the lessons of past defeats andwith a program enriched in proportionto the practical powers of modernsociety (powers already constituting

the potential material basis that waslacking in the so-called utopiancurrents of socialism)--this nextattempt at a total contestation of capitalism will know how to invent andpropose a different use of everydaylife, and will immediately base itself on new everyday practices, on newtypes of human relationships (beingno longer unaware that anyconserving, within the revolutionarymovement, of the relations prevailingin the existing society imperceptibly

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leads to a reconstitution of one oranother variant of this society).

Just as the bourgeoisie, in itsascending phase, had to ruthlessly

liquidate everything that transcendedearthly life (heaven, eternity), so therevolutionary proletariat - which cannever, without ceasing to berevolutionary, recognize itself in anypast or any models - will have torenounce everything that transcendseveryday life. Or rather, everythingthat claims to transcend it: thespectacle, the "historical" act orpronouncement, the "greatness" of leaders, the mystery of specializations, the "immortality" of art and its importance outside of life.In other words, it must renounce allthe by-products of eternity that havesurvived as weapons of the world of the rulers.

The revolution in everyday life,breaking its present resistance to thehistorical (and to every kind of change), will create the conditions inwhich the present dominates the pastand the creative aspects of life always

predominate over the repetitive. Wemust therefore expect that the side of everyday life expressed by theconcepts of ambiguity -misunderstanding, compromise ormisuse - will decline considerably inimportance in favor of their opposites:conscious choice and gamble. Thepresent artistic calling in question of language - appearing at the sametime as that metalanguage of machines which is nothing other thanthe bureaucratized language of the

bureaucracy in power - will then besuperseded by higher forms of communication. The present notion of a decipherable social text will lead tonew methods of writing this socialtext, in the direction my situationistcomrades are presently seeking withunitary urbanism and somepreliminary ventures in experimentalbehavior. The central production of anentirely reconverted industrial workwill be the organization of new configurations of everyday life, the freecreation of events.

The critique and perpetual re-creationof the totality of everyday life, beforebeing carried out naturally by allpeople, must be under taken in thepresent conditions of oppression, in

order to destroy these conditions.

An avant-garde cultural movement,even one with revolutionarysympathies, cannot accomplish this.Neither can a revolutionary party onthe traditional model, even if itaccords a large place to criticism of culture (understanding by that termthe entirety of artistic and conceptualmeans through which a societyexplains itself to itself and shows itself goals of life). This culture and thispolitics are worn out and it is notwithout reason that most people takeno interest in them. The revolutionarytransformation of everyday life, whichis not re served for some vague futurebut is placed immediately before usby the development of capitalism andits unbearable demands--thealternative being the reinforcement of the modern slavery--thistransformation will mark the end of allunilateral artistic expression stocked

in the form of commodities, at thesame time as the end of allspecialized politics.

This is going to be the task of a newtype of revolutionary organizationfrom its inception.

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