Aufhebung
Aufhebung is the term used by Hegel to describe the dialectical transition in which a lower stage is both annulled and preserved in a higher one and which is commonly translated as ’sublation’. Debord quoted Hegel on the dialectic as the envoi to the book “The Real Split in the Internationale, public circular of the Situationist International”: ‘One party proves itself to be victorious by breaking up into two parties; for in doing so it shows that it contains within itself the principle it is attacking, and thus had rid itself of the one-sidedness in which it previously appeared… So that the schism that arises in one of the parties and seems to be a misfortune, demonstrates rather that party’s good fortune.’
The game of absolute negation played by the Situationst International under Debord’s direction, he was asserting here, had always been entirely faithful to this principle, which meant not that to destroy was to create but that destruction was in itself an absolute value.
Andrew Hussey
The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord
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