situationism

English

Etymology

Noun

situationism (countable and uncountable, plural situationisms)

(psychology) A school of thought which holds that personality is more influenced by external factors than by internal traits or motivations.
(politics) A mid-20th-century offshoot of Marxism, influenced by avant-garde art movements.
Coordinate term: Lettrism
- 1989, Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces, Faber & Faber, published 2009:
  The situationists meant to define a stance, not an ideology, because they saw all ideologies as alienations, transformations of subjectivity into objectivity, desire into a power that rendered the individual powerless: “There is no such thing as situationism,” they said for years.

Usage notes

Members of the political movement avoided the term situationism and referred to it by the name of the founding organization, Situationist International (SI).

Related terms

Translations

school of thought

Finnish: situationismi
German: Situationismus, Personismus m
Italian: situazionismo m