“The only historically justified tactic is extremist innovation” – Debord & Wolman, A User’s Guide to Détournement (1956)
I’ve been thinking about the Situationists for about a decade now, after learning of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle in some Propagandhi liner notes (I think) about a decade ago. Sadly, after all that time, I’ve developed no great insights as to what the hell they were talking about. I mean, I get the gist if that counts for anything, but I think to really grasp what they’re really getting at, one needs a graduate seminar and plenty of contextual knowledge. Nevertheless, the shit is damn brilliant and informs my worldview in many ways (most of which are surely based on misreading). Since presently, I do what one might call information work, and as a result have become heavily invested in the web and social networking, I’ll use this post to share some cool films by the Situationist International (SI), and briefly look at how the SI’s ideas of spectacle, détournement, and separation apply to the social web.
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Somewhat self-righteously, I consider myself a pretty good teacher. I teach high school modern American History on the west side of Cleveland where some consider making it to the end of the day a victory. I’ve been slowly pushing myself and my students to aim for goals much higher however. Call me audacious. The recent explosion amongst the ranks of historians, history teachers, and digi-gurus in promoting both historical thinking skills (See Wineburg and the site) and web 2.0 technologies demands serious attention with this goal in mind. The two can be intimately tied together to achieve a mastery of both.
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I’m one of those people who listens to NPR all day. In the shower, in the car, while cooking, as a Sunday morning activity with my partner. I almost never watch television, but I love passively listening to smart people talk, which is not really substantially different than watching dumb people swap wives when you get down to it. Though I suppose it’s also not unlike sitting in an undergrad history lecture. The point is, I like to be entertained and I also like to learn. And I like doing it with my ears, so I can use my eyes and hands for other things. What follows is an incomplete list of high-quality podcasts dealing with various topics in history.
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