A Situationist Dictionary



The Inversion of Inverted Meaning: Language Recaptured

"It is impossible to get rid of a world without getting rid of the language that conceals and protects it, without laying bare its true nature. As the social truth of power is permanent falsification, language is its permanent guarantee and the Dictionary its universal reference."
Mustaha Khayati (Captive Words: A Preface to a Situationist Dictionary, 1966)

Who is this for?

Language has become the communication human capital makes as accomplice in its self-regulatory flow. The dead muttering - no more! We write and publish this for ourselves, and to entice and enlist the creative, informed, and subversive contributions of others who have the need for new self-definition and self-creation. Words are tools through which we communicate our ideas, but they can also be means for locating ourselves in the historic moment, and for rendering our feelings and thoughts into creative expression. They can be the means for making explicit what is hidden, of dissolving social amnesia, and of introducing an element of critically aware playfulness into the otherwise drab and depressing realm of pseudo-social-discourse. Thus, re-capturing and re-tooling words into our own expressive subversion is part of the project of recapturing of our own life-worlds, and this project will be worthwhile only in the context of a world-wide agitation aimed at the definitive overthrow of global capitalism (and its ideologies.) Thus our interest in this project, to put it simply, is to contribute to that potential movement, which, in our view, can have in its sights the dissolution of all forms of hierarchical domination, both on a world scale and in our own daily lives. We believe, until we are proven wrong, that this transcendence can only be carried through by the world proletariat, by which we mean, the class of workers and fellow travelers who work and live in this context of the planet-wide colonization by capitalism, and whose lives are being suffocated and destroyed by the alienated forms of wage-labor, commodity production, capital accumulation, State power, and all forms of contemporary social domination. When we refer to revolutionary proletarians, we mean all the workers of the world who know themselves to be the victims of this epoch-long social dispossession, and who will seek, even potentially, for a way out of the global catastrophe that is now unfolding. Our need for socio-historical awareness arises naturally in this world in crisis, the crisis that we feel everyday, at every moment of working and playing and consuming and producing. This crisis is the context of our lives. Everywhere we look, we find constricted and reified selves lost to fetishized roles, commodified consciousness, dependency on the dictates of capital and market mechanisms, and obedience to the State. This world, as presently constituted, embodies the opposite of authentic life. Alienation and submission are universal, and the use of language and words has long-since passed into the service of mass social control, of forcing upon us a social context into which we are all born and raised and trained to think and feel, and which has surrounded us and embedded within us the requirements of a way-of-life seemingly beyond question. As we absorb, so we speak, as we speak, so we think, as we think, so we act. The ideologies of capital are all-pervasive: they map themselves into our minds and onto our bodies. Everywhere we see things and their prices, and our only means of acquisition is in the service of capital. This cycle must be broken. We must locate in ourselves and others the will, the understanding, and the means to break through the fetishizations and reifications that are defining our existence. The re-creation of our means of expression through the recapturing of words and their uses is meant to be a contribution to the project of radical social therapy -- we are once again engaging ourselves in the decolonization of our thoughts and our forms of expression. The only way this project can be "successful" is when it comes up against its own limitations and provokes the demand in all of us for a new form of social consciousness -- the demand to move beyond the ways we are currently obliged to think and act. We invite contributions from all those who want to play this game, who feel this need, who want to experiment with subversive expression and methodological precision. Everywhere language is in chains -- we have a world of words, and their revolutionary uses, to win.

What attitude will it express?

Ours. Surreal, existential, dark & buoyant, exclamatory, virulent & intoxicating, vile & beloved, antagonistic and charming, ravaging, thorough & unquenching, dynamic, heavy-handed & lighthearted. All of these and less, none of these and more. One rule only: it's alive... it's alive! It will be the vocabulary of its writers, their expressed connections to the movement for generalized self-management as their own, and to the moods and passions of being and becoming. Definitions will grow and change - built on predecessors. Human expression - language, like art - is helical or it is deadweight and deadening. It is dialectical self-messaging... a feedback loop for those still listening, for senses still aware.. It is life - through and as us, evolving - in motion (emotive, evocative, imaginative, visionary, retrospective, analytical). Rather than tying the words to a stake as meal for recuperation, they shall be living and dynamic like the breeze in our hair. The meaning, use, inflection, and expressiveness of truly human culture is to be lived and is for the sake of living. Unlike museum dictionaries where words act as gravestones - words, their usage, and meanings shall as be the meadow of wildflowers that blow in the human wind and sing back with their intoxicating scents as and in words.

What is its purpose?

To name, to communicate, to subvert the implicit within the explicit, and vice-reversa.... To circumvent, to act as starting point, to act as rallying point, to act as separating point, to vector where we desire. This evolved ability to momentarily communicate the state of the moment in an inversion of the slowly barbecued human terminologies, histories, and innovation maps - is to be regained as it never was before - ours. Else, we shall follow then into the invisibility of subjugation. In past projects, called loaded words and captive words the purpose was much the same: freeing the source of language - its use. Loading them prevents their recapture for advertising rebellion. No more shall that happen when the dictionary grows with the recapture and total rebuilding of vocabulary around change, not stasis - around life, not its re-presentation.

CEG, KAK 11-april-2005

Active Contributions

CC, CEG, KAK, MC, MKS, MX/B, SPP, VL

Inadvertent Contributions

JH/JB/K/R, KK/BPS, SI, TW

Current Vocabulary

Nouns: 134
Pronouns: 0
Adjectives: 12
Adverbs: 7
Verbs: 5
Prepositions: 0
Conjunctions: 0
Articles: 0

Last 30 Additions

self-appropriate, shrekization, refutility, domestic arrangements, pop culture, populist, popularity, leftist, left-wing, leftoid, rightist, right-wing, rightoid, virus, viral, domicile, bunker-buster, colony, virtual, globalization, globanalization, tribal narrowism, poem, poetry, poet, surreal, surrealism, surrealist, capital, order, chaos, silence, laggarty

Last Updated

19-may-2005, 10:35 PDT


Map of The Village from The Prisoner television series
Yesterday, the village... tomorrow, today. - ceg


act, actor, action, activity, activism, activist

act
1.    noun

2.    verb

advertising, advertisement (as with propaganda)

advertisement
1.    noun

advertising
1.    noun

 alienation, alienated, alienating, alien

alienation
1.    noun

altruism, altruist, altruistic

altruism
1.   
noun

altruistic
1.   
adjective

altruist
1.   
noun

anarchy, anarchism, anarchist

anarchist
1.   
noun

ancestor, ancestry, ancetoral

ancestry
1.    noun

appropriation, appropriate, mis-appropriate, self-appropriate

appropriation
1.    noun

self-appropriation
1.    noun

appropriate
1.    verb

architecture, architect

architecture
1.    noun
architect
1.    verb
2.    noun

art, artism, artist

art
1.    noun

artist
1.    noun

association, associate

1.
2.

authority, authoritarian, authoritarianism

1.
2.

avant garde

1.
2.

bane, banal, banality

1.
2.

becoming

1.
2.

being

1.
2.

best interest

best interest
1.   
noun

bourgeois, bourgeoisie

bourgeoisie
1.   
noun

bunker-buster

bunker-buster
1.    noun

bureaucracy, bureaucratic, bureaucrat

1.
2.

cannibalism (as in (self-cannibalism, social cannibalism, cyclic capitalist cannibalism)

1.
2.

capital, capitalism, capitalist, human capital

capital
1.    noun

caprice, capriciousness

1.
2.

cause, causality, cause-and-effect, caution

1.
2.

centralization, centralism, centrism, centralist

1.
2.

chaos, chaotic

chaos
1.    noun

character, character-armor, character-armoring

1.
2.

chattel slavery, chattel slave

chattel slave
1.    noun

chattel slavery
1.    noun

chauvinism, chauvinist

1.
2.

city, citizen, citadel

citizen
1.    noun

city
1.    noun

citadel
1.   
noun

civil, civility, civilized, civilization, civilian

civil
1.    adjective
civilization
1.    noun

class, class society, classless society, classlessness

1.
2.

colony, colonize, colonization, colonialist

colony
1.   
noun

commodity, commodification, commodity fetish

commodity
1.   
noun

commune, communalism, communalist

1.
2.

communism, communist

1.
2.

confederate, confederation, confederate

1.
2.

conformity, conformism, conformist

1.
2.

conscious, consciousness (false consciousness, detourned false consciousness)

1.
2.

constructionism, constructionist

1.
2.

constructivism, constructivist

1.
2.

cooperative, co-op

1.
2.

corporation, corporate

corporation
1.   
noun

corporate
1.    adjective

councilism, councilist, council, councilism (neighborhood council, factory council, council-communism)

1.
2.

counter-revolution, counter-revolutionary, counter-revolutionist

1.
2.

creation, create, creativity, creator

1.
2.

creationism, creationist

creationism
1.    noun

creationist
1.    noun

critical theory, critical theorist

critical theory
1.    noun

culture, cult, cultural

culture
1.    noun

current

current events
1.    noun
current
1.    noun

currency
1.    noun

cutback (as in layoff, downsizing, cost reductions)

1.
2.

cybernetics, cybernetician

1.
2.

dada, dadaism, dadaist

dada
1.   
noun

 day off

day off
1.   
noun

daily, daily life

1.
2.

decentralization, decentralism, decentrism, decentral. decentralist

1.
2.

decompose, decomposition

decomposition
1.    noun

deconstructionism, deconstructionist

1.
2.

deity, deify, deification

1.
2.

demon, demonic, demonism

1.
2.

derive, derivation, derivative

derive
1.    noun

detourn, detournement, detour

detournement
1.    noun

dialectic, dialects, dialectical

1.
2.

diction, dictionary, dictionarian

dictionary
1.    noun

disease

disease
1.    noun

dogma, dogmatic, dogmatism, dogmatist

1.
2.

domicile, domestic

domicile
1.    noun
domestic arrangement
1.    noun

doubt

doubt
1.    noun
2.    verb

drift, drifting, drifter

1.
2.

drivel, drivelous, driviality

1.
2.

duty, dutiful

1.
2.

eco-fascism, eco-fascist

1.
2.

ecology, ecologist

1.
2.

economy, economics (as differentiated from all that is social)

1.
2.

egalitarianism, egalitarian

1.
2.

ego, egoism, egoist (as in narrow egoism, expanded egoism)

1.
2.

egotism, egotist

1.
2.

emoticon

emoticon
1.   
noun

emotional plague

1.
2.

enculturalize, enculturalization

1.
2.

entropy, entropic, entropist

1.
2.

environment, environmentalist

1.
2.

eros, erotic, eroticism

1.
2.

ethos, ethical, ethics

1.
2.

everyday, everyday life

everyday life
1.   
noun

2.    noun, obiect

evolution, evolving, evolutionary, evolutionist

1.
2.

exchange, exchange-value

1.
2.

existentialism, existentialist

1.
2.

expertise, expert

1.
2.

expropriation

1.
2.

extract, extraction, extractor (as in capital mining)

1.
2.

fantasy, fantastic

1.
2.

fascism, fascist, fascistic

1.
2.

fashion, fashioned, fashionable

1.
2.

fatal, fatality, fatalism, fatalist, fatalistic

1.
2.

federation, federate

1.
2.

femi-nazi

1.
2.

feminist, feminism

1.
2.

feminoid, feminoidism, feminoidist

1.
2.

fence, fencing, fenced-off

fenced-off
1.   
adjective

festivity, festive, festival

1.
2.

fetish, fetishism, fetishist

1.
2.

feudalism, feudalist, feudalistic (also neo-feudal, neo-feudalism, neo-feudalist)

1.
2.

fictitious capital, fictitious value

fictitious value
1.   
noun

flatland, flatlandish, flatlander

1.
2.

free, freedom

1.
2.

frivel, frivelous, friviality

1.
2.

geosift

geosift
1.   
noun

geosifter
1.    noun

ghost, ghostly, ghostlike

1.
2.

ghoul, ghoulish, ghoulike

1.
2.

gift, gift economy

1.
2.

global, globalize, globalization

global
1.    adverb

globalize
1.    verb

globalization
1.    noun

globanal, globanalize, globanalization

globanal
1.    adverb

globanalize
1.    verb

globanalization
1.    noun

greed, greedy (as in narrow greed and expanded greed)

1.
2.

group

group
1.    noun

guilt, guiltbate, guiltbater, guiltmong, guiltmonger

guiltmonger
1.   
noun

guiltmong
1.    verb

hack, hacking, hacker

1.
2.

happy, happiness

happy
1.   
noun

happiness
1.    noun

heresy, heretic

1.
2.

hierarchy, hierarchical

hierarchy
1.   
noun

holiday, holyday, holydaze

holiday
1.    noun

hope, hopeful

hope
1.    noun

hypostatise, hypostatisation, hypostatize, hypostatization

1.
2.

icon, iconify, iconography, iconographist

1.
2.

idealism, idealist

idealist
1.   
noun

identify, identification, identity

identity card
1.   
noun

ideology, ideologue, ideologist, ideologification

ideology
1.   
noun

idol, idolism, idolatry

1.
2.

image, imagery, imaginary, imagination

image
1.   
noun

individual, individuality, individualism, individualist

1.
2.

international, internationalist (versus and/or w/r/t global, national, and pan-national)

1.
2.

invert, inversion

1.
2.

 isolate, isolation

isolation
1.   
noun

2.

joy, joyessness, joyful, joyfulness

1.
2.

labor, laborious, laborer

1.
2.

lag, laggard, laggardism, lagger, laggarty, laggardly

laggarty
1.    adverb

landscape (as in landscape of capital and landscape of the gift)

1.
2.

leftist, left-wing, leftoid

leftist
1.   
adverb

left-wing
1.   
adjective

leftoid
1.   
noun

leninism, leninist, leninoid

leninism
1.   
noun

libertarian, libertarianism

libertarian

1.    noun

libertarianism

1.    noun

libertarian communist

1.
2.

liberty

liberty
1.   
noun

2.

logos, logic, logical

1.
2.

loss, lose, lost, loss adjustment

loss adjustment
1.    noun

luddism, luddite

1.
2.

lumpen (as in lumpen proletarian)

1.
2.

lurk, lurking, lurkism, lurker

lurker
1.   
noun

lust, lusty

1.
2.

machine, machination

1.
2.

manifest, manifesto

1.
2.

martyr, martyrdom

martyr
1.    noun

martyrdom
1.    noun

marvel, marvelous

1.
2.

marxian, marxism

marxism
1.    noun

marxian
1.    adjective

mass, massify, massification

1.
2.

materialism, materialist (as opposed to it-doesn't-matter-ism and idealism)

1.
2.

mechanism, mechanical, mechanist, mechanization

1.
2.

media, mediate, mediation (also as im-mediate and medium)

1.
2.

merchant, merchandise, mercantile

merchandise
1.    noun

militant, military, militantism

militant
1.    noun
modern, modernism, modernist

modern
1.    noun

mores, morals, moralism, moralist

1.
2.

motivation

1.
2.

movement (as in Brownian movement, bowel movement, liberation movement)

1.
2.

music, musical, musician, muse, amuse

1.
2.

mystical, mysticism, mystic, mystifying

mystical
1.
2.

mysticism
1.
2.

mystifying
1.
2.

mystic
1.
2.

myth, mythical

1.
2.

natural, nature, Nature (also animality, humanity, necessity)

nature reserve
1.   
noun

necessary, necessity

1.
2.

necrophilia, necrophiliac

1.
2.

negation, negative, negation of the negation

1.
2.

negentropy, negentropic, negentropist

1.
2.

neocon (a.k.a. neo-conservative)

neocon
1.   
noun

neolib (a.k.a. neo-liberal)

neolib
1.   
noun

nerve, nerves, nervous

nervous
1.   
noun

nihilism, nihilist (as opposed to nil-ism and nil-ist)

nihilism
1.    noun

nihilist

1.   
noun

obedience, obedient

obedience
1.   
noun

obedient
1.   
adjective

object, objective, objectivity, objectivism, objectivist

1.
2.

obsolete, obsolescence

(planned) obsolescence
1.   
noun

omnicentralization, omnicentralism, omnicentrism, omnicentralist

omnicentralism
1.   
noun

oppression, oppressor

1.
2.

order, orderly

order
1.    noun

organization, organize, organizer

organization
1.   
noun

organizational
1.    adverb

pacifism, pacifist, pacify

1.
2.

pan-national

1.
2.

paradox, paradoxical, paradoxicality

1.
2.

passion, passionate (as in Charles Fourier's passionate attraction)

1.
2.

passive, passivity, passivist, passify

passivity
1.   
noun

pataphysics, pataphysician

pataphysics
1.    noun

pathos, pathology, pathological, pathologist

1.
2.

personify, personification

1.
2.

petty bourgeoisie, petty bourgeois

1.
2.

phantom

1.
2.

phenomenology, phenomenologist

1.
2.

plagary, plagarise, plagarism, plagarist

1.
2.

plague (as in bucolic plague and emotional plague)

1.
2.

play, playfulness, playful

1.
2.

playpen, playground, player

1.
2.

pleasure, pleasurable

1.
2.

poem, poetry, poet, poetic

poem
1.    noun
poetry
1.    noun
poet
1.    noun

popular, popularity, "pop", populist, popular front

"pop" culture
1.    noun

popularity
1.    noun
populist
1.    noun
2.    adjective

post-modern, post-modernism, post-modernist

1.
2.

positivism, positivist

1.
2.

post-structuralism, post-structuralist

1.
2.

power, powerful, powerless, powerlessness

power
1.    noun
powerful
1.    adjective
powerlessness
1.    noun

practice

1.
2.

praxis

praxis
1.   
noun

prehistory, prehistoric

prehistory
1.    noun

price, priceless, price reduction

price reduction
1.    noun

primitivism, primitivist

1.
2.

profit, profiteer, profiteering

1.
2.

productivity, production, product, productive

1.
2.

progress, progressive

1.
2.

proletariat, proletarian, prole

proletarian
1.   
adjective

proletariat
1.   
noun

property

1.
2.

pseudo-object

1.
2.

pseudo-subject

1.
2.

psychogeography, psychogeographical, psychogeographer

psychogeography
1.   
noun

psychogeographical
1.   
adverb

psychogeographer
1.   
noun

psychology, psychologist

1.
2.

radical

radical
1.    noun
2.    adjective

ransack

1.
2.

re-appropriation

1.
2.

rebel, rebeling, rebellious, rebellion

1.
2.

recuperate, recuperationist, recuperation

recuperation
1.   
noun

refutility

refutility
1.    noun

regress, regressive, regression

1.
2.

regulate, regulatory, regulation

regulate
1.   
verb

reification, reify, reifying

reification
1.   
noun

reinvent, reinvention

1.
2.

religion, religionist

1.
2.

repress, repression, repressor

1.
2.

revelry, revelrous, revelrousity

1.
2.

revolution, revolutionary, revolutionist

revolutionist
1.    noun

revolutionary
1.    adjective

revolution

1.    noun

rightist, right-wing, rightoid (both as in individual vs. social, and as in the unity of opposites)

rightist
1.   
adverb

  • Purveyor of the personal side of inversion experienced by, as, and for Capital.

right-wing
1.   
adjective

  • A way to stay on the personal good side of the current deification - just in case and ensuring it wins.
  • A type of consumer that self-advertises through acts of narrowly greedy self-impeachment.
  • Non-recyclable way of viewing the world stood of its head by non-recyclable human capital.

rightoid
1.   
noun

  • Convenient role recuperating the sensing of the personal flaws of Capital.

role, role model

1.
2.

sabat, sabotage

1.
2.

satire, satirical, satirist

1.

scarce, scarcity (as related to post-scarcity and enforced scarcity)

1.
2.

self, selfism, selfist

1.
2.

selfish, selfishness

1.
2.

self-management

self-management
1.   
noun

self-sacrifice, self-sacrificing, self-sacrificial

1.
2.

semiotics, semiotician

1.
2.

shrek, shrekize, shrekian, shrekism, shrekist, shrekization

shrekization
1.    noun

sift, siftology, siftologist

1.
2.

sign, signify, signifier, signature

signature
1.    noun

silent, silence

silent
1.    adjective

silence
1.    noun

simpson, simpsonian, simpsonize, simpsonism

1.
2.

situation, situationism, situationist

constructed situation
1.    noun

situationism
1.    noun

situationist
1.    noun

skeptical, skeptic, skepticism

skeptic
1.    noun

skeptical
1.    adjective

skepticism
1.   
noun

slaveholding society, slave, slaveholder

1.
2.

social relations, social relationship

social relations
1.

social, socialization

social
1.

socialization
1.

socialism, socialist

socialism
1.   
noun
2.

socialist
1.   
noun
2.    verb, transitive

society, societal

society
1.   
noun

societal

1.    adverb

sociology, sociologist

sociology
1.   
noun

sociologist
1.    noun

space, spatial, space-time (as unitary, alienated, and expropriated space-time)

1.
2.

spectator, spectacle, spectate, spectaclist, spectacular, spectacularize, Spectacle

spectator
1.

2.

spectacle

1.    noun

spectate
1.

2.

spectaclist
1.

2.

spectacular

1.
2.

spectacularize

1.
2.

Spectacle

1.    noun

speculation, speculator

speculation
1.    noun

speculator
1.   
noun

spiritual, spirit, spirituality

spirituality
1.    noun

state, static, stasis

1.
2.

state capital, state capitalism, state capitalist

state capitalism
1.    noun

stormtroop, stormtrooping, stormtrooper

stormtrooping
1.    noun

strike (particularly as in usages with wildcat, national, union, general)

1.    noun
2.    verb, intransitive
3.    verb, transitive

structuralism, structuralist

1.
2.

subject, subjective, subjectivity, subjectivism, subjectivist

1.
2.

subliminal, subliminality

1.
2.

subvert, subversion

subversion
1.   
noun

supersede, supersession

1.
2.

suppress, suppression, suppressor

1.
2.

surplus (as in theory of surplus-value, value of surplus theory, trade surplus)

1.
2.

surreal, surrealism, surrealist

surreal
1.   
noun

surrealism
1.   
noun

surrealist

1.   
noun

2.    adjective

survival, survivalism, survivalist

1.
2.

symbol, symbolism, symbolist

1.
2.

syndicate, syndicalism, syndicalist

1.
2.

tantrumism, tantrumist

tantrumism
1.   
noun

tantra, tantricism, tantricist

1.
2.

technos, technical, technology

technos
1.   
noun

terrain

terrain
1.   
noun
theory, theoretical, theorist

theory
1.   
noun

third world, third-worldism, third-worldist

1.
2.

time, timely, timeliness, timeout, timeless

1.
2.

total, totality, totalistic

1.
2.

trade (specifically in usages: free trade, surplus trade, trademark, global trade, limited trade)

1.
2.

transcend, transcendence

1.
2.

tribe, tribalism

tribal narrowism
1.    noun

unfettered (as in decisionmaking and imagination and creativity)

1.
2.

union, unionism, unionist (as in trade unions, industrial unions)

union
1.   
noun

unitary

unitary space-time
1.   
noun

unitary urbanism
1.    noun

unity (as in solidarity, united front, unity of opposites)

united front
1.   
noun

2.

universe, universal, universalist

1.
2.

untrammeled (as in activity and selfish pursuit of self in others)

1.
2.

use, use-value

1.
2.

utilitarianism, utilitarian

1.
2.

utopia, utopian

1.
2.

value, valuation

1.
2.

vanguard

1.
2.

vegan, veganism, veganist

1.
2.

vegetative, vegetable (as in vegetative state and state of the vegetable)

1.
2.

vice

vice
1.   
noun

virus, viral

virus
1.    noun
viral
1.    adverb

virtue, virtual, virtuous

virtue
1.   
noun

virtual
1.    adverb
vision, visionary

1.
2.

voyeurism, voyeur

1.
2.

wage-labor

1.
2.

wage-slavery, wage-slave

1.
2.

whim, whimsey, whimsical

1.
2.

wholism, wholistic

1.
2.

workers' control

workers' control
1.   
noun

2.

workers' councils

1.
2.

zeal, zealous, zealot

zeal
1.   
noun

zealot
1.   
noun

zero, zero-sum

zero-sum
1.    noun
  • That social belief and practice centered around zero, which finds truth in an existence and experience where all gained is all lost, ending in a generalized zeroness. The inequality of hierarchy finds its excuse herein. Balance is health for one is ill-health for another; justification for a stasis based on altruism balancing with narrow greed - co-dependents in Flatland.