Sun, 16 Nov 1997

Richard Barbrook and Luther Blissett

In Richard Barbrook's "The Philosophy Of Fools", Luther Blissett is mispelt as "Luther Blisset" and described as an "Italian pro-situ group" (note 23, at pag.38 of the draft whose photocopies are circulating in London).

First of all, being an uncontrollable multiple name, Luther Blissett is not a "group" and cannot belong to any nationality.

Moreover, anyone stating that Luther Blissett is a 'pro-situ' is obviously unaware of the nature of the Luther Blissett Project, which has nothing to do with the rancorous impotence and hegelian paranoia of the poor imitators of the SI, indeed, it has nothing to do with the SI itself. LB's mythopoeia is absolutely in contradiction with Debord's paralysing theory of the "spectacle". All the lexical coincidences (e.g. "psychogeography") are just... coincidences. Soon after Guy The Bore's death, a tiny minority of long-time multiple name bearers who had had a slightly 'situationist' stance jettisoned the bore and the SI by writing "Guy Debord Is Really Dead". After that, LB didn't mention St. Guy anymore.

The most evident theoretical ascendancy over the LBP is the subterranean stream of proletarian consciousness which runs from Marx's notion of a "general intellect" (as sketched in the "Grundrisse..."), of which LB is a "paradoxical antropomorphisation", through Amadeo Bordiga's comments on that concept (as well as Bordiga's own practice of a "revolutionary anonymity") to Jacques Camatte's definition of the "Homo Gemeinwesen" [human community] - and far beyond.

The LBP is an experiment with "con-dividuality" as a "behavioral prerequisite of communism", as well as a jolly variation on anonymity which takes inspiration on the mythologies spread around such XVII-XVIII century "folk heroes" as Captain Swing and Ned Ludd. The complexity and richness of these theoretical references is perfectly balanced by the plainnes and contagiousness of LB's praxis.

To sum up, the anonymous creators of LB never gave a shit about the Situationist International, that was (and is) regarded - as camatte himself put it - as "a very shallow and superficial group". I hope Mr Barbrook will delete that phrase from the definitive version of his essay. Anyway, I'm very pleased whenever someone beats the crap out of Hakim fucking Bey.