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A Few Extra Remarks |
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5 . l e n b r a c k e n
of the existing order with a total critique and a total
practice (in short, revolution). Indeed, I read this
"cohérence" as a stylistic variant on Debord's use of the
concept of totality (especially when succeeded by "du
monde"): the coherence of the world to be reversed is the
spectacle. Part of the confusion, apparently unforeseen by
the original translator's abandonment, three times in a
row, of "coherence," is that it makes little difference if
"a" is connected to "b" or "b" to "a" - what's important
about a connection is if it's made or not, or else broken.
The notion of the "coherence of the world," on the other
hand, can, at least theoretically, be "reversed." For
example, the separation that holds the existing world
together is reversed and the unity of what was separate
becomes the world's cohesive force. Such a reversal, on a
global scale, has never taken place - the May-June 1968
occupations, riots and other (much more limited) protests
erupted around world, were as close as history has come to
experiencing what Debord was getting at when he wrote about
the "coherence of the world," and it was still a long way
from realizing a complete reversal of the existing order.
LEAVING ASIDE THE NOTION of reversibility, my literal
translation "coherence of the world" (something akin to the
spectacle), is a "connecting factor" in the SI translation.
I haven't done a word count on the use of "coherence" in
all of Debord's work - the word surely appears from time to
time, but Debord doesn't rely on it to develop a "theory of
coherence" akin to the theory of truth developed by Neurath
and Carnap, which is systematic in scientific and
mathematical ways, and if he did, the "reversible
connecting factor" was not one of his initial axioms. It
figures that Marcus wouldn't use a more literal translation
because "coherence" denotes orderly, logical connections and
a degree of consistency that is absent in Lipstick Traces.
This isn't a malicious attack but a statement of fact. As
one Extraphile reader put it: "When reading Marcus, I get a
buzz, but I don't really know what's going on." To put it
another way, the reasoning in Marucs' discourse is
incoherent; nor does he "cohere," which is to say connect
naturally and logically, with the work of Debord.
MARCUS MAY HAVE READ into the word "connecting" the
internal connection in dialectics that makes a continuous
whole of the process of all life and things. If that were
the case, why not use the word "dialectics"? It was good
enough for Hegel, Marx and Debord. (As for presenting a
dialectical perspective akin to Debord, Marcus is, in my
opinion, off the mark: "Nothing that actually happens
becomes real until it is represented in the spectacle that
is social life - after which it becomes unreal, and passes
into its opposite"(pp 140-141): I would put just the other
way around: Everything that happens is real until it takes
its place in the spectacle, where it becomes unreal, but. . .
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