The situationists were anti-capitalist: they were against work and looked to play and spontaneity as the cornerstones necessary to modern life. As they saw it, modernity, limited work and relative abundance, city planning and the welfare state produced not happiness, but depression and boredom. Boredom to the situationists was a modern phenomenon, a modern form of control. With God missing (presumed dead), people felt their condition not exactly as a fact but simply as a fatalism, devoid of meaning, which separated every man and woman from each other

They sought to understand that moment when people gain insight into the alienated patterns of their everyday lives, prompting the question: ‘I’m not happy- what’s wrong with me?’
...
1976

‘Your God has gone away’
"No Feelings," Sex Pistols

When he sang "Pretty Vacant," Johnny Rotten claimed the right not to work, and the right to deny all the values that went with it - perseverance, ambition, piety, frugality, honesty and hope. The past that God had invented work to pay for, the future that work was meant to build- there was none.

# posted by Gerry Canavan @ 11:43 AM  |