In our recent relations with the "world of publishing," there's been a repetition of irrational telephonic imprudences. And these certainly aren't the first ones. [1]

One is henceforth forced to deduce that the SI [Situationist International] in its current formation and style isn't in a state to seriously manage the smallest enterprise that requires discretion.

All comrades must choose here between an unfortunately limited number of options. Is it necessary to completely renounce a part of the activity that makes a "group of theoreticians," in the sense we understand the term, effective? Is it necessary to put this group into a "specific organization"? Is it necessary to explore the possibilities of a more trustworthy regroupment around a theoretical and practical accord that can really execute what is always so easily admitted or announced?

The first two routes are incompatible with what, up until now, has been our basic agreement. Is it necessary to change it or finally necessary to realize it? This last one will be the third route. It risks offending certain people, because it implies, for example, that a conduit that critique has admitted once (by explicit agreement, or simply by everyone's silence), must never be reproduced. This route implies the end of methodical thoughtlessness, the spontaneism of the stupid, the initiative that knows that it can't stand up straight, the euphoric amnesia, and the childish bad faith employed by several obstructionist pseudo-arguments. These considerations are, moreover, inseparable from the most general verification of the capacities that are currently involved in the publication of #13. [2]

Until a satisfactory rule is made, I believe I no longer have to communicate to members of the SI certain facts concerning myself, the thoughtless revelation of which could eventually become harmful. I suppose that the least fanciful comrades will be like me, in what concerns their personal affairs. But this evidently isn't a remedy for all the problems that we can face together.

Next, I will write a less limited text: one part will formulate my accord with Paolo's theses, the other part to precisely treat several subordinate difficulties that again delay putting this platform into action.

Note: written by Guy Debord, 7 July 1970. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! August 2004.

[1] I do not know the details of the event (someone babbing personal information about Debord to someone at a publishing house) to which Debord refers, but Paolo Savladori seems to have been the offending situationist.

[2] The situationists planned to publish a thirteenth issue of their journal L'Internationale Situationniste, but it never came out.