We were already dismayed to see your signature on the collective letter of 8 February [1970], and your letter of the 11th adds to our amazement.
As to points 1 and 2, you recognize that, on 27 January, Gianfranco [Sanguinetti] "reported inexact information to Paolo [Salvadori]." The critique of G[ianfranco] made and accepted in Paris not only partially concerned a question of money (and this as sign). What was placed in general doubt was his preceding conduct, in the sense of his style in a certain social situation and in the organizational sense. The question was: is he worthy of remaining in the SI? The communal response was, Yes, if he immediately corrects what can be immediately corrected and if, in around two months, he concretely corrects all that might necessitate the taking of some time. Among the things to be immediately corrected, there obviously was the practice that led him to make a falsified report on the discussion of Valeri.[1] Thus, if your own organizational "decisions," and the formalism behind which you hide and mislead, have the least practical value, G[ianfranco] must be excluded immediately for the sole fact that he relapsed in reporting "inexact information"; through lack of awareness or even malevolence, this is what we don't know, and this is what has little importance.It isn't to Eduardo [Rothe] that one must attribute, and require the sanctioning of, this "inexact information," but to the Italian section [as a whole].
The French section has not been so severe, and hasn't demanded this exclusion, nor any other "disciplinary" sanction (which, indeed, we do not accept). We have drawn your attention to your communal responsibility for the renewed imprudences of G[ianfranco]. It was for G[ianfranco] himself to recognize that, simply to keep your confidence, he should have had the decency to abstain from certain resolutions concerning questions with which he himself had problems. In feigning to believe that we would reproach G[ianfranco] for his presence at the meetings, your collective response maladroitly takes us for imbeciles! This manner of separating, of atomizing, the elements of a problem, if it isn't simply an instance of bad faith, is a complete refusal of dialectical thought. We all recognize you to be an intelligent person. But intelligence is unimportant to us if one looks at it beyond its use. Your signature on the letter of 8 February is at least the most maladroit act a situationist has committed since the beginning of the SI.
One can not even say that, for the comrades from Milan, a tree hides the forest. It is worse: if one of you evokes the concept of the tree, you immediately admit that it excludes the concept of the forest. And thus you remain in the selva oscura[2] of your organizational and intersubjective misery, which nevertheless weighs upon you like an oppressive, perceptible reality.
Those who do not know how to live cannot hope to learn how to think.
Sincerely,P.S. Naturally, this letter is not private, but communicable to all members of the SI.
We do not forget your sense of humor: the tendency that we formed [on 14 February 1970] has been entitled For the maintenance of the second "Thesis on Feuerbach," or, better still, Sequel to "You Fuck With Us?" You Will Not Fuck For Long.
[1] See the letter of 3 January 1970, note 4[: Ennio Valeri, object of a debate at the heart of the Italian section, concerning his text on the break with Sylvain and Sigiani].
[2] "Obscure forest" (Dante, The Inferno).
(Published in Guy Debord, Correspondance, Volume 4, 1969-1972. Footnotes by Alice Debord. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! June 2005.)