Contrary to popular belief, situationism is not an obscure ideology held by a handful of anarchists, radicals and other romantics. Rather, it is a very mainstream school of thought which permeates just about every aspect of our society and is the philosophy by which most of us live our daily lives. The politician, the consumer, the soccer mom, the manager, the Trotskyist, the football fan, the businessman, the well paid scientist, the worker who is content to be a cog in the machine. They are all situationists - just of the no win kind.
No win situationism is the belief that capitalism is human nature, that wage slavery is the manifestation of our desire to be exploited and not the construct of an elite class of people who benefit from it.
No win situationism is the notion that progress is unstoppable, that there is nothing we can do to prevent the techno-industrial machine from raging on forever.
No win situationism is the belief that there is nothing we can do to stop the destruction of the planet, that capitalist civilization is a given.
No win situationism is the ridiculous belief that there is an all-powerful deity who we must obey, or that our lives are planned out ahead of us.
No win situationism is kidding yourself that there's any difference between politicians of different parties, and going through the ritual of voting every 4 years.
No win situationism is sitting around on your ass all day complaining about Bush but never getting involved in any movement against him and the system he is part of.
No win situationism is dropping out and living on a commune in the middle of nowhere while the rest of the world carries on getting screwed over.
No win situationism is being content to channel your rage into petitions and symbolic protests while denouncing "violent extremists" for their acts of rebellion.
No win situationism is the assertion that we need leaders in order to achieve liberation, that we must accept the authority of a vanguard of professional revolutionaries because we are too stupid to think and act for ourselves.
No win situationism is the belief that after the revolution we must retain the structure of the old society, and not build a completely new one.
No win situationism is the belief that resistance is futile, that there is nothing better than capitalism and that even if there were it would be unachievable.
So you see, we are all situationists. It's merely the issue of optimism that divides us into revolutionaries and law-abiding citizens.
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