from Guy Debord

To Andre Girard[1]
Tuesday 15 May 1962
Dear Andre:

Following our conversation yesterday evening (and to avoid the least illusion that could incite your friends to a very late extremism), I must state clearly:

1) that you have decided to renounce all relations between us on the purely personal plane, whereas you are mixed up in affairs that are, from the point of the view of the S[ituationist] I[nternational], a little behind the times and even suspicious up to a certain point (a decision that no one can blame, indeed, that no one on my side has pushed on you).

2) that you have subordinated our next meeting, on Wednesday or later, to the formation of a more presentable group made up of certain resigned or semi-resigned members of P[ouvoir] O[uvrier], thus reprising a "public" dialogue with this group, whereas such a group has, until now, been systematically avoided by us (and you easily understand that your attitude at the last meeting only added more to the sub-political miseries that are decidedly inseparable from the conduct of this poor group).

Thus, you are absolutely spared the trouble of once again making me (or any of my friends) the bad guy.

I suppose that you yourself have drawn the same conclusions, but, given the last delirious interpretations made by Pierre Guillaume (after my formal refusal to speak with him and his tendency), we are in agreement, you and I, that it is better to emphasize the same evidence. And it is true that we have shaken the dust off of a discussion that had been closed and expired for several months -- a discussion on the P.O. "organization" and the style of desirable comportment in everyday life -- which has now ended in a practically complete opposition.

Believe it, don't believe it, it is the same: I retain the best memories of my meetings with you -- and Richard[2] -- when they weren't faked.


Guy Debord

[1] Andre Girard, member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.

[2] Richard Dabrowski.


(Published in Guy Debord, Correspondance, Volume 2, 1960-1964. Footnotes by Alice Debord. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! April 2005.)



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