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Selected Opinions on the
Bureau of Public Secrets
(Part I: 1975-1996)
“I have paid you a rare compliment; I have assumed that you mean what you
say.”
—Nero Wolfe
David Jacobs & Chris
Winks (ex-Point-Blank)
Anonymous
Michael Bradley & Michel Prigent
Daniel Denevert
Yoshiharu Hashimoto
Isaac Cronin
Michel Prigent
Greil Marcus
Jean-Pierre Voyer
International Correspondence (Hong Kong)
Bill Brown (Not Bored)
Grant Emison
Morgan Gibson
Trevor Carles
Nelson Foster
Left Bank Books worker
Although the theoretical output
of the Knabbist axis amounts to very little in terms of conceptual presentation, they have
achieved a certain preeminence within the American situationist movement by virtue of
their sheer prolificacy, their ability to maintain at least the appearance of a continuing
project. . . . In Double Reflection, “theory” appears as meta-theory,
as, in a restricted sense, a theory of theory and theorizing about theorizing. This
deliberate narrowing of the scope of critical inquiry marks a retreat from an historical
plane of analysis. . . . The “critical” undertakings of the Bureau of
Public Secrets and his allies find their culmination in the project of a
“Phenomenology (sic) of the Subjective Aspect of Practical-Critical
Activity.” . . . This trivialization of theory appears not only in
Knabb’s crude parody of the Hegelian system but in his simplistic psychologization of
“practical-critical activity.” In the Knabbist cosmos, which is surprisingly
impervious to historical change, the theorist becomes the “experiencing
subject,” who develops endlessly through a sequence of subjective
“moments,” arriving finally at an ultimate goal of “realization.” This
development, although erratic, is hardly dialectical: Knabb, in his Hegelian mimicry, does
not even attempt a parallel construction to the latter’s Phenomenology. His
pseudo-phenomenology does not involve the subject’s interpretation of the world as it
appears to him; there is no movement analogous to the progression of naive consciousness
from sense-certainty to perception to understanding. . . . In his poster, The
Blind Men and the Elephant, Knabb himself wishes to play the role of curator of the
situationist movement; since everyone outside of himself and his associates is unable to
interpret the situationist project, Knabb takes upon himself the task of explaining the
S.I. and of translating its texts. . . . It is, of course, no accident that
Point-Blank formed a primary object of the Knabbists’ scorn; we, and later Diversion,
constituted the most formidable threat to their hegemonic ambitions. . . . If we
recognize the failure of Point-Blank, it is certainly not out of a capitulation to our
former antagonists. Our present interests lie outside the situationist movement.
—David Jacobs & Chris Winks, At Dusk: The Situationist
Movement in Historical Perspective (Berkeley, August 1975)
* * *
Using their names in public is presumably a
device for demystifying activity, for teaching the elementary but generally poorly
appreciated lesson that it is from for-real individuals that theory and practice come.
Furthermore, their public self-presentation over time provides a certain sort of
“continuity,” provides data for others to use in studying and creating
situationist activity and theory. . . . The “Notice” poster
discouraged idle readers from writing the “Notice Comrades” idly, encouraging
them to “show us” their agreement by their own public work. . . .
They’ve taken on a difficult task, attacking one manifestation of a central problem.
Namely that to the extent that a radical generates some temporary successes, there will be
others who enjoying the successes, will, if anything, become relatively content because of
the successes and will appreciatively expect more of the same, from others; while the
leaders, personally feeling the sterility of the followers, will tend to see in the
evolving relationship a justification for the maintenance of their role . . . .
Early in this century this process was so poorly appreciated that the revolutionary
movement decimated itself without even taking the crudest anti-hierarchical formal
organizational measures. Now it is fairly clear that the destruction of this process
requires the destruction of the whole spectacle. Which is difficult for seven individuals
to accomplish in front of an audience all too interested in participation in the show.
. . . The Notice Comrades, dealing with the above, employ an enriched technique
of invitation to join-in-the-fun. Namely, they insult the passive reader . . .
and along with their insults, they offer to him, perhaps intentionally, certain defects
just waiting for him to attack publicly.
—“Diverse Comments on the Public Activity
of the Bay Area ‘Notice Comrades’ ”
(anonymous pamphlet, New England, July 1976)
* * *
This pamphlet is in favour of the humanization
of daily life and “the realization of religion.” The super-reform of the
detestable and unpalatable; the call for compassion and magnanimity in a world of loathing
is just a bad joke. . . . Just as Spartacus slave revolt shocked the world of
antiquity (1st century BC Italy), into producing a millenarian adventist Messiah (Jesus
the Toad of Nazareth), and saddled Judas Iscariot with the wicked debt for his
“sacrifice,” so the fierce and nasty revolutionary project since the 1960’s
has been arousing similar messianic cults — Knabb’s is one. Cruelty is less
harmful than indulgence and fake compassion. Such “compassion” in the face of
roles and ideology can only be complicity and commiseration. CLASS WAR MUST BE WARLIKE.
Our enemies know well how to exploit our humanity and sympathy. Death to all exploiters,
no forgiveness!!
—Michael Bradley & Michel Prigent,
The Catalyst Times #0 (London, July 1977)
* * *
The notion of behindism as originally treated in Double-Reflection
was acceptable as an attempt to describe and comprehend what the author considered to be
“a permanent organizational problem of our epoch.” If it already manifested a
rather dubious concern to distinguish a somewhat more sincere, well-intentioned form of
followerism from other more crude forms, it was nevertheless worth reading; it did not
pretend to be anything but a tentative contribution to an ongoing discussion, one way
among others of approaching a certain problem. The most serious drawback of this notion
stemmed from the author’s assumption that “practical-critical activity” was
sufficiently established and perfectly studiable as such, without seeing that the notion
of behindism had only manifested itself within a particular sector of the social
practice of theory and within a narrow conception of the notion of theory.
. . . “Theoretical activity” doesn’t exist, it is
nothing but a representation which tends to justify the role of petty specialists
in revolution while reinforcing the paralysis of their direct imitators. . . .
The very term “theorist” reflects the fetishism of language, which is dominated
by the logic of the division of labor and which recreates this logic. . . . The
Bay Area comrades’ perspective tended to reinforce the image of the model-theorist
that the behindist already had in his head. . . . It was necessary to criticize
the theoretical model that this notion implied. It takes two for there to be a behindist
— the other party has to go along with the relation. Behindism is a phenomenon that
can persist only in the context of illusionistic relations between individuals,
accompanying an enterprise whose objectives are abstract and insufficiently
defined. When the task, and therefore the obstacles that must be overcome, become clear,
the behindist can only conquer or give up, he can’t settle for half-measures.
—Daniel Denevert, “Sur le fond d’un divorce”
(Paris, October 1977)
* * *
No anarchist do refute or cast a diatribe toward
Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin and Spanish C.N.T. like you except a Marxist, an
ultra-nationalist and an ignorant liberalist. . . . You know “When you are
in Rome you must do as a Roman do.” It is at least an etiquette over the world.
Surely you have done it in the bad manner like some Japanese “anarchists.”
—Yoshiharu Hashimoto, “A Reply to a Situationist,”
in Libertaire (Tokyo, November 1977)
* * *
The hierarchy of the American
situationists was divided along traditional lines: At the top sat Knabb, the
“reluctant” pope, encouraging “autonomy” or intervening benevolently
according to which action seemed more likely to maintain both the family of
dependent social relations and a modicum of public production. . . .
Knabb’s Double-Reflection is central to a comprehension of the American
situationists. In it he concentrated and solidified their image of revolutionary practice
as a series of acquirable techniques transmitted hierarchically through a supervised
apprenticeship which created a community with its own standards of conduct and criteria of
judgment. . . . Knabb’s recent text The Realization and Suppression of
Religion is a strikingly self-conscious moment of this superficial reformation which
openly rejects the objective determinants of the anti-statist struggle — even going
so far as to adopt the viewpoint of the enlightened spectator, in order to better lure him
into the camp. . . . He gently strokes those people who have had the good sense
to ignore society and go off on their own . . . and leaves open the role of
“theorist” for himself should these people seek a little advice on the social
context of their struggles. Those of us who know Knabb personally can recognize that each
time he broadens his conception of serious struggles it more and more closely conforms to
his own narrow private life and preoccupations. He can never set aside the manipulative
tactics he appears to bemoan because beneath the humble exterior, its
“flip-side,” lies a bottomless arrogance based on a belief in an absolute truth
— himself.
—Isaac Cronin, “The American Situationists: 1972-77”
(Berkeley, February 1978)
* * *
The recent publication by Ken Knabb called
“Situationist International Anthology” needs a few critical words in order to
cut to size this pretentious creep. But above all what is striking when one picks up this
anthology is the way it is edited. The English speaking reader can only read what Knabb
has selected. In so doing he has put his stamp on this anthology, shaping it to his own
ideological perspectives. It is no more than a knabbization. One day when the whole of the
review called Internationale situationniste is made available in English, as it
stands in French, no more, no less, everyone will be able to notice that Knabb’s
anthology is but a poor rendering of the original texts, today it is no more than a boring
morass in the hands of this editor. . . . what this Saint forgets to tell his
readers is of his own contradictions, his own mistakes, his own confusion, in fact his own
stupidity that he has dished out in numerous neo-pamphlets over a period of more than ten
years. . . . anyone with a bit of critical insight can see that Knabb is a jerk
and a Berkeley pseud. Here are a few examples of this knabbery, in fact all of it could be
included in his Blind Men and the Elephant. It is shameful on his part to have
brushed all his false consciousness under his California carpet, so there is nothing left
for us but to pull the rug from under his editor’s feet. Knabb in his Realization
and Suppression of religion, published in 1977, went so far as to say: “when
religion is treated by the situationists, it is usually brought in only in its most
superficial, spectacular aspects,” this is a lie, pure hogwash. How can this student
in revolution say such a thing and include for example Vaneigem’s text Basic
banalities which deals extensively with God, religion, and modern alienation.
. . . Maybe the Reverend Knabb should have gone to Jonestown (Guyana), in fact
the massacre orchestrated by that other swine-priest called Jones contradicted
Knabb’s intervention mania, it was another irony of history and it fell on
Knabb’s thick head! And yet he continues to distribute his magnificent piece on
religion. And of course there is no mention of all this in his anthology, it is
disgusting. Knabb should try to intervene armed with his “new Bible,” in Salt
Lake City or try the terrain of all Christian Revivalists, the repugnant Billy Graham
included. . . . A couple of years earlier, he went so far as to admit in his “Bureau
of Public Secrets” (a sort of dishrag) that he had been a book fetishist, at
last he has another fetish “his anthology with his name on the front” and he is
even known in the Library of Congress, why not send a copy to Reagan?! . . . Mr.
Knabb in his journal called League of Secret Misery, once more gave us another
gem to laugh at, and goddamit did we laugh, he had sent himself a telegram, today he can
do the same, congratulating himself on his new venture. It is pitiful. . . . At
the time of the fall of the last shah of Iran, our Saint issued a poster called
“The Opening in Iran” (Freudian slip no doubt!). Anyone with a bit of common
sense would have realized that which was to come in that part of the world, was a
nightmare. . . . Knabb in fact took his ready-made schema out of his suitcase
and started applying it to Iran, the result was a disaster that did not help a critique of
religion in that country.
—Michel Prigent, “Biography of the Anthologer”
(London, April 1982)
* * *
In the U.S.A. the Situationist International is mostly
known, if it is known at all, as a small group of dadaist provocateurs that had something
to do with the May 1968 uprising in France. The name has been batted around in reference
to punk, because Sex Pistols Svengali Malcolm McLaren was supposedly connected with the
situationists. . . . The situationists were, ah, sort of like the Yippies, one
hears. Or New York’s Motherfuckers. . . . Or the Frankfort School
. . . the ideas were similar, right? Situationist International Anthology
— the result of years of work by Ken Knabb, an American student of the group —
makes clear that the Situationist International was something considerably more
interesting: perhaps the most lucid and adventurous band of extremists of the last quarter
century. . . . It is exhilarating to read this book — to confront a group
that was determined to make enemies, burn bridges, deny itself the rewards of celebrity,
to find and maintain its own voice in a world where, it seemed, all other voices of
cultural or political resistance were either cravenly compromised or so lacking in
consciousness they did not even recognize their compromises. . . . The Situationist
International Anthology does not present the complete text of the situationist
journal, and it has no illustrations. But the translations are clear and readable —
sometimes too literal, sometimes inspired. Entirely self-published, the anthology is a
better job of book-making than most of the books published today by commercial houses.
There are virtually no typos; it is well indexed, briefly but usefully annotated, and the
design, binding, and printing are all first class. In other words, Knabb has, unlike most
other publishers of situationist material in English, taken the material seriously, and
allowed it to speak with something like its original authority. . . . The
writing in the Situationist International Anthology makes almost all present-day
political and aesthetic thinking seem cowardly, self-protecting, careerist, and satisfied.
The book is a means to the recovery of ambition.
—Greil Marcus, Village Voice Literary Supplement
(New York, May 1982)
* * *
Marx rightly noted that it was in the most democratic
state of his time, the United States of America, that the citizens were the most
religious. . . . If the world of the commodity is a religious world, the fact
that the state is liberated from religion leads the citizens to become all the more
submissive to religion. . . . Thus it is not surprising that it was an American,
and specifically a Californian, Ken Knabb, who is to our knowledge the first person to
have pointed out (in his 1977 pamphlet The Realization and Suppression of Religion,
which has since been translated into French) the insufficiencies of the situationist
critique regarding religion.
—Jean-Pierre Voyer, Revue de Préhistoire Contemporaine #1
(Paris, May 1982)
* * *
In 1978, after visiting the “70’s”
in Hong Kong, the American situationist Ken Knabb wrote a critique of the group entitled
“A Radical Group in Hong Kong.” . . . Despite our vastly differing
positions, we find most of Knabb’s criticisms well-founded. In the libertarian
tradition of adversion to critique, anti-critique and self-critique (about which even
Bakunin must turn in his grave), the “70’s” never “cared” to
reply (some of the group’s overseas contacts even wrote to the group expressing their
disgust for Knabb’s doing so!).
—International Correspondence, “Open Letter on Our Split
from ‘Undercurrents’/‘Minus’ ” (Hong Kong, July 1982)
* * *
Anyone who cannot read French and is now
interested in the Situationist International owes Ken Knabb some kind of debt. It was
Knabb who single-handedly introduced the SI’s writings to the United States. (In
1974, of course, Christopher Gray’s Leaving the Twentieth Century: The Incomplete
Work of the SI introduced them to the United Kingdom. But Gray’s book
wasn’t well-translated or very representative in its selections; furthermore it
wasn’t adequately distributed in the U.S.) . . . I’m sorry to have to
report that by and large [Knabb’s other publications] suck. . . . The
Relevance of Rexroth looks like a poetry magazine but reads like a doctoral
dissertation, which has got to be one of the most unpoetic things around. Knabb’s
book wants the truth to be known about Rexroth — that he is under-rated and that more
of his books should be brought back into print — but it also wants to criticize him,
on precisely the grounds that the situationists made their own. Rexroth didn’t
understand the spectacle, Knabb claims, and thus Rexroth didn’t understand the May
1968 revolt in France. But who cares if he did or he didn’t? . . . The
second thing Knabb sent me that, ah, sucked was the little thing called “The War and
the Spectacle,” which he wrote, reproduced and distributed in April, 1991. (Why so
late, Ken? The ground war was over on 28 February.) It begins with the sentence, “The
orchestration of the Gulf war was a glaring expression of what the situationists call the
spectacle — the development of modern society to the point where images dominate
life,” which has got to be one of the all-time great turn-offs. Not only is the tone
appropriate to grade schoolers, and not only is the definition of what “the
spectacle” is simplistic, but the whole concept seems to be that recent events prove
that the situationists were right. . . . Rest in peace, Ken: the
situationists were indeed right. And so, in a way, are you when you write, “The point
is to undermine [the spectacle-spectator relation] — to challenge the conditioning
that makes people susceptible to media manipulation in the first place.” But
how?
—Bill Brown, “Ken Knabb, R.I.P.,” in Not Bored
#19
(Rhode Island, June 1991)
[As Bill Brown has complained that the above excerpts misrepresent
his position,
I have reproduced the complete text of his article below.]
KEN KNABB, R.I.P.
Anyone who cannot read French and is now interested in the Situationist International
owes Ken Knabb some kind of debt. It was Knabb who single-handedly introduced the
SI’s writings to the United States. (In 1974, of course, Christopher Gray’s Leaving
the Twentieth Century: The Incomplete Work of the SI introduced them to the United
Kingdom. But Gray’s book wasn’t well-translated or very representative in its
selections; furthermore it wasn’t adequately distributed in the U.S.) Knabb’s
selections and translations were, of course, published under the title Situationist
International Anthology in 1981, under his own auspices, after he couldn’t find
a publisher who knew the value of the texts. Although the Anthology contains no
situationist images, it has become a “classic” and is now in its second printing
(its second printing by Knabb’s Bureau of Public Secrets, that is).
Personally, I owe Knabb some kind of debt,
above and beyond the fact that I would not be able to read the SI, or even know about
them, were it not for his Anthology. He has answered my requests for help in
locating hard-to-find documents — such as debat d’orientation de
l’ex-internationale situationniste, which is still untranslated into English
— and has provided photocopies of his documents when originals cannot be located. I
get the feeling that he likes NOT BORED! because he keeps sending me things that
he has done since the Anthology. I’m sorry to have to report that by and
large, they suck. Now I know that some people — on the basis of the things Knabb
wrote and published about religion and the situ-influenced group Contradiction in the
1970s — will not be surprised by this pronouncement. “Hey guess what, shmuck?
He’s always sucked: the Anthology, because he didn’t write it himself,
is the only good thing he’s ever attached his name to.” (Those 1970s pamphlets did
look a lot like poetry magazines, didn’t they?)
The first thing from Knabb that really
disappointed me was The Relevance of Rexroth, a 1990,
looks-like-a-poetry-magazine book about the writer, critic, and teacher Kenneth Rexroth.
The book was published by the Bureau of Public Secrets, so one imagines that it, like
Knabb’s 200-page anthology of Rexroth’s Examiner and San Francisco
columns, did not yet find “a suitable publisher.” And for good reasons, it would
appear. The Relevance of Rexroth looks like a poetry magazine but reads like a
doctoral dissertation, which has got to be one of the most unpoetic things around.
Knabb’s book wants the truth to be known about Rexroth — that he is under-rated
and that more of his books should be brought back into print — but it also wants to
criticize him, on precisely the grounds that the situationists made their own. Rexroth
didn’t understand the spectacle, Knabb claims, and thus Rexroth didn’t
understand the May 1968 revolt in France. But who cares if he did or he didn’t?
“Farewell, wonderful old mentor!” Knabb cries out to Rexroth at the end of the
book. “Yes,” we want to add, “Good-bye and good luck!”
The second thing Knabb sent me
that...ah...sucked was the little thing called “The War and the Spectacle,”
which he wrote, reproduced and distributed in April, 1991. (Why so late, Ken? The ground
war was over on 28 February.) It begins with the sentence, “The orchestration of the
Gulf war was a glaring expression of what the situationists call the spectacle
— the development of modern society to the point where images dominate life,”
which has got to be one of the all-time great turn-offs. Not only is the tone appropriate
to grade schoolers, and not only is the definition of what “the spectacle” is
simplistic, but the whole concept seems to be that recent events prove that the
situationists were right. It’s always a drag when someone reverses things
and has the practice prove the theory right (instead of having the theory prove the
practice right), but especially where the situationists are concerned. Like they really
need to have their theory of the spectacle proved right, again? and at this stage
of things?
Rest in peace, Ken: the situationists were
indeed right. And so, in a way, are you when you write, “The point is to undermine
[the spectacle-spectator relation] — to challenge the conditioning that makes people susceptible
to media manipulation in the first place.” But how?
* * *
Many on the left . . . distrust interaction
with the outside world for fear that it may corrupt the purity of their means. One of
their greatest fears is cooptation and inclusion of their activities and beliefs in the
structure of the status quo. The article from Anarchy (see “War and the
Spectacle,” page 18) in this issue of The Thistle echoes this concern with
its warning that the spark of the protests against the war risk being smothered by
organized political movements to do “irrelevant” things like register people to
vote. . . . We abjure participation in structured, hierarchical organizations at
the risk of distorting our view of the world and foiling our attempts to achieve
far-reaching progressive change.
—Grant Emison, The Thistle
(Massachusetts, 28 August 1991)
* * *
Ken Knabb gets at the essence of Rexroth
through his ideas, quoting a few poems but mainly choice passages of prose. Knabb also
gets at the way Rexroth talked, the way he “bantered with people” or slipped
into an “ironic showbiz persona . . . to get his points across without too
much solemnity” (p. 4). Yes, that is exactly the way he was at times. . . .
Knabb insightfully connects Rexroth’s chief themes, sex, mysticism, and revolution,
showing how Rexroth persistently interrelated these and other apparently incongruous
topics: civilization and nature, sex and mathematics, personal intimacies and history,
visionary contemplation and birthday parties, verse rhythm and riding a horse, for
instance. Knabb is especially insightful in his shrewd analysis of Rexroth’s
revolutionary theory and practice, his Buddhist anarchism, his communitarian personalism,
his affinities with Martin Buber. . . . Knabb’s main disagreement with
Rexroth is that he offered insufficient guidance for the massive revolts of the late
1960’s, when he had decided that personal freedom, poetry, song, and the arts
generally subverted the oppressive society more than social action. Knabb argues that even
the arts of rebellion have been co-opted in the “barrage of spectacles” that
maintain the status quo, a thesis that is developed further in his Situationist
International Anthology and other publications. Rexroth might well have welcomed such
intelligent criticism, but who can say what his precise response would have been? My
dissatisfaction about Knabb’s book is that it is too short to offer full explanations
for Rexroth’s ideas. . . . Like Eliot Weinberger, Knabb thinks that
Rexroth’s writings require little explication: but few critics have read as widely as
they have, and I know of no one, in or out of academia, who has read more widely than
Rexroth. The point of many of his allusions may be clear, but the processes of his
imaginative thinking are not so easily grasped. More, not less, explication of his work is
needed.
—Morgan Gibson, Poetry Flash
(Berkeley, January 1992)
* * *
The development of the radical
critique of religion has been hitherto unsatisfactory, with the exception of Ken
Knabb’s The Realization and Suppression of Religion. Rarely, if at all, more
than a vulgar materialism, such contributions to the critique as exist almost always fail
to get to the root of the matter, overlooking the content of religion in order to
attack the form. The fact, however, that religion has certain characteristics and
plays a certain role within a given social form does not limit it to that.
. . . [Knabb’s pamphlet] stands alone within the radical milieu as an
attempt to grasp what it is in religion that speaks to the human heart. He calls for a
discovery of “the content that is expressed in religious form,” and criticises
the previous development of the critique for its failure to meet the mark. . . .
On a practical and personal level for Knabb, the notion of the revolutionary movement as
“focus of meaning” takes the form of “affective detournement”.
. . . I understand this as theory that is practiced, a kind of self-applied
Reichian psychoanalysis. Not that this is “changing the world by changing
oneself”; Knabb states explicitly that “any ‘personal’ liberation is
condemned to failure without historical practice.” But his striving for a sort of
“authenticity” under the “character-armour” does seem to have a
“mystic” quality about it; I was reminded, while reading Knabb’s
“Affective Detournement: A Case Study,” of the Spanish Christian mystic St. John
of the Cross, who would “Desire nothing in order to desire
everything / Love nothing in order to love everything.”
—Trevor Carles, “Notes on Religion,” in Lantern Waste
#1
(Petersham, Australia, September 1992)
* * *
Loved your “Strong Lessons”
— really good. The lack of analysis — the simplemindedness (not to put too fine
a point on it) — of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship’s work has been driving me
bonkers. . . . By chance, I spoke with Alan Senauke [a BPF board member] after getting your
leaflet and mentioned it to him, whereupon he told me he’d organized a meeting to
discuss it! . . . I hope there’ll be a substantive response.
—Nelson Foster (Zen teacher and BPF cofounder), November 1993
* * *
We have circulated your latest broadside
around the city and it has created quite a stir. One Buddhist group has been rocked to the
core. Apparently this group is trying to expel the members who brought your statement up
for discussion. These tainted members also sent copies to their associates in NYC and a
ruckus arose there.
—Left Bank Books worker (Seattle, May 1994)
From Public Secrets: Collected Skirmishes of Ken Knabb (1997).
[More recent opinions on the BPS]
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