Capitalism and Culture: Insights from Guy Debord - Essay Example

?Capitalism and Culture: Insights from Guy Debord This work assesses the relevance of Guy Debord’s “The Society of the Spectacle” in understanding capitalist culture. Specifically, Debord had pointed out that “capital accumulated to the point that it becomes the image.”1 The work assess whether this perspective from Debord allow us to understand better the development of culture under capitalism. Making this assessment is important as Debord is considered one of the influential intellectuals on capitalist culture and society after World War II. I. Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle” A fundamental point of Debord’s “Society of Spectacle” is that “in society where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles.”2 According to Debord, the spectacle presents itself simultaneous as all of society, as part of society, and as instruments of unification.3 Spectacles are social relations among people mediated by images.4 The spectacle is the justification of conditions and goals and occupies the main part of time lived out of modern production.5 Separation is the beginning and end of spectacle.6 This is akin to the Marxist concept of alienation. In the Marxist concept of alienation, for example, the worker’s alienation from his product enabled the capitalist to appropriate the product for himself and in so doing was able to use the product to exploit further the proletariat. However, in the Debordian concept of spectacle, spectacle can be interpreted to have originated from the alienation of the proletariat from his produce and, at the same time, the Debordian perspective that spectacle would lead to further alienation suggest that a spectacle serves to alienate the proletariat and whole of society further away from their lives. Spectacle within society reinforces the reproduction of alienation.7 In a figure of speech, Debord said that “the spectacle is capital to such a degree of accumulation that it becomes an image.”8 In particular, Debord pointed out that “the spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life.”9 The spectacle arises because of tendency of use value to fall and the consumer has to become a consumer of illusion through spectacle.10 The spectacle is associated with the abundance of commodities under modern capitalism.11 In this society of the spectacle, the historical mission is to install truth.12 II. Class Lecture’s on Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle” Our class lectures on capitalism and culture have pointed out that the idea of a consumer society was popularized sometime after World War II. Consumer societies have been pointed out to have emerged in the mid-1950s when consumer objects and products became more widely available. The “Situationist” perspective or “situationism” is a response to the emerging consumer society immediately after World War II. Our class lectures have pointed out that the perspective originally developed out of artistic avant-garde. Our class lectures have also pointed out that the movements that opposed have become commodities themselves after World War II as rapid industrialization required skills and a tremendously large labor force. Our class lectures have pointed out that for Guy Debord that life as spectacle has become real throughout capitalist society. Our class lectures have pointed out our ideals for living have been defined by the mass media through the direct and subliminal messages they have injected in our minds through what we read, see on television and movies, and through the messages that we derive from street advertising and billboards. The magazines, the literature, the movies, the newspapers, and the media created representations of what an ideal life in our society consist of. Living has become a spectacle and the spectacle has become more real than our actual life. For example, our class lectures have pointed out that we know more about Bradd Pitt than we know of our immediate surroundings and the people that immediately surround us. In this sense, our lives have revolved on spectacles and, to a certain extent, have consisted of spectacles. The spectacular parts of our lives have become more real than the realities of our lives. The transformation of life into spectacle is even worse: life has become something passively looked at rather than something actually lived or actively done. We spend more time watching baseball, basketball, and even chess games rather than playing baseball, basketball and chess. The spectacularization of life has transformed the nature of life and human relations; it has transformed how man lives with his fellowmen and transformed all relations in society. Our class lectures have pointed out that the commodification of life is the loss of life directly lived. The spectacularization of life is the take-over by spectacle of how life is lived. In sum, we can argue that capitalism first transformed life into a commodity and then into a spectacle. First, we lost control over our lives and then spectacle dominated how we live life. Spectacularization has transformed our lives into an illusion but the transformation is actually much worse, the transformation has actually been much worse because the spectacle has become more real than life itself. Life as spectacle has made our lives pseudo-living and our reality pseudo-reality. Our class lectures have pointed out that Marx has pointed out that commodities are bought because we use them or for its “use value”. However, our class lectures pointed out that today we buy commodities because we can use the commodity to create an image or spectacle of ourselves. For instance, we can have our coffee in an unknown restaurant but having the coffee at Starbucks project an image that we may want to project before our friends, acquaintances, and the public at large. In choosing the clothes that we want to wear, we may not be primarily looking at our comfort and immediate needs for clothing. Instead, we may be looking at the clothes that appear in our IPOD and magazines covers, clothes worn by stars appearing in the internet, and the like. Alternatively, we may be buying clothes to define another spectacle: creation of an image of individuality that we want to project. At the same time, our notion of individuality has been deeply mediated by the lifestyle of stars and models that we see in magazines, newspapers, the internet, and by the media. In other words, we have transformed our lives into a spectacle or as an object of spectatorship. In class, we have pointed out that Marx held that exchange a commodity to realize or obtain a use value. However, for Debord, exchange value takes a life of its own and acquires a life or use of its own. The exchange is valuable for itself. We buy a product not because we need the product for the use for which the product was designed but buy the product because having the product projects an image that we want for ourselves. In other words, the exchange itself is valuable because the exchange creates a spectacle for ourselves. We want to take our coffee in Starbucks not necessarily because Starbucks is able to produce our regular coffee in an extraordinary way but primarily because taking the regular coffee in Starbucks creates an image or spectacle for ourselves. In our class lectures, we described spectacularization as a phenomenon in which exchange values takes on a life of its own because we flaunt the exchange value of the product and its utility. Consumption is not about only consuming the product but also about consuming the product in conspicuous way or conspicuous consumption. Exchange is also about to been exchanging the product; advertising is also about advertising the price of the product. It is also about associating the product with status and lifestyle. Marketing in today’s capitalist world involves not about advertising the utility or the uses of the product but also about selling a cultural image. Marketing professionals and capitalism promote lifestyles and cultural images that can promote sales of the product. How we live our lives are affected by the lifestyles and cultural images promoted capitalism. Thus, capital has been accumulated such that exchange value became autonomous of the product. In the language of the “Society of the Spectacle,” this is a phenomenon in which “capital accumulated to the point that it becomes the image.” III. Significance of the Debord Perspective in History and Interpretations The Debord perspective on the “Society of the Spectacle” is associated with the “Situationist Internationale” was organized in 1957.13 Some documentation claim that Debord himself was instrumental in the formation of the movement but, unfortunately, I cannot immediately identify the source of the claim. However, the Library.Nothingness.Org documented Debord as the “self-proclaimed” leader of the Situationist.14 The Situationist became popular immediately after the mass strikes of 1968 but existed only as a group or movement until 1972 or 15 years from 1957.15 Libcom.org claims that even if the movement lasted only 15 years, Situationist ideas were deeply influential and become part of western society ever since. However, a check with the journals available in the Jstor.org indicates that only one journal has discussed the Debord perspective. The journal article is that one written by James Trier in 2007. Trier described Guy Debord as a “French Marxist theorist, radical filmmaker, and leader of the Paris based artistic and political avant-garde group known as the Situationist International.”16 Even if only one journal article describes or was inspired by the Debord perspective, certainly a number of theses develop their studies around the Debord perspective and this was documented by James Trier.17 Further, during the 15-year life of “The Situationist International, the Situationists produced 12 issues of its journal known as the the Internationale Situationaiste.18 The Situationists called attention “to the priority of real life, real live activity, which continually experiments and correct itself, instead of just constantly reiterating a few supposedly eternal truths like the ideologies of Trotskyism, Lenninism, Maoism or even anarchism.”19 Although the Library.Nothingness.Org Libcom.org claims that equating the views of Debord and the Situationist will be misleading, the Library.Nothingness.Org pointed out just the same that Deboard was the autocrat in “The Situationist”, helped unify the Situationists, and destroyed the Situationist expansion into territories not explicitly in line with his own ideas.20 Libcom.Org pointed out that “situatonalist ideas are notoriously difficult to explain, and open to a wide degree of interpretation.”21 Libcom.org credits Situationists as the “first revolutionary group to analyze capitalism in its current consumerist form.”22 A viable interpretation to the narrative is that Libcom.org recognizes that other perspectives, particularly non-revolutionary perspectives, have recognized the consumerist content of capitalist culture ahead of revolutionaries. James Trier pointed out that a key concept associated with spectacle is detournement which he defined based on the works or earlier authors” to mean excision of elements from their original contexts and restabilization and recontextualization.23 Detournement is done for the purpose of critique.24 The work of James Trier also documented the role performed by the Situationist during the mass strikes of 1968 described by Libcom.Org. According to Trier, the Situationist gathering had been typically small because the Situationist has no desire for disciples. 25 The Situationist even worked to make their group smaller, expelling careerist, backsliding, and expelling art-as-politics adherents as opposed to recruiting politics-as-art adherents.26 However, although the Situationist group had been small, the Situationist achieved a cult status in Europe during the 1966-67 and then in France in 1968. 27 In 1966-67, a radical group of students from the Strasbourg University was elected into the French Student Union and distributed the Situationist “scathing critique and devastating attack on university life.”28 The students influenced by the ideas of Situationists produced a pamphlet known as “On the Poverty of Student Life.”29 The Strasbourg student used university funds to produce 10,000 copies of the pamphlet, conducted disruptions, and occupied buildings.30 The event was the first occupation of university buildings by students in Europe.31 The University sued the students for months and the pamphlet became a hit because of the occupation, the court case, and the publicity following from the occupation and the court case.32 The pamphlet was even translated into 10 languages.33 In the process, Guy Debord’s “The Society of the Spectacle” also became popular.34 In assessing the role of the Situationist and Debord’s ideas in the 1968 uprising or mass strikes in France, Trier concurred with the assessment of Greil Marcus.35 Trier concurs with Marcus that although one cannot say that the situationists started the May 1968 mass strikes and uprisings and that one cannot say that the situationist governed May 1968, it can be asserted, “had there never been a Situationist International, there never would have been a May ‘68”.36 Despite Libcom.Org documentation of the Debord perspective and his ‘Situationist Internationale, Libcom.Org has a description of the Situationist perspective represented in Debord’s “The Society of the Spectacle” that amounts to a pejorative treatment:37 1. Use French occasionally. 2. Use obscure language. 3. Use the word “boredom” frequently. 4. Make frequent references to seventy-year-old art movements like Dada and Surrealism. 5. Vehemently attack on the university and art as frequent as possible. 6. Make sure that your circle of friends is about 85% artists. 7. Take credit for spontaneous uprisings. 8. Denounce and exclude people. 9. Cut a comic strip and change its dialogue and use the situationist language. 10. Use Marxist reverse talks like “separate production as production of the separate.” 11. Invoke the proletariat, factories, and blue-collar imagery but do not associate them with real proletarians and work. Despite the pejorative treatment, Libcom.Org’s description of the Debord perspective is indicative that Debord’s perspective and views embodied in “The Society of the Spectacle” constitute as one of the mainstream views among artists, cultural workers, and perhaps even cultural activists. Further, outside of the Jstor.Org journals, a journal article inspired by Debord’s “The Society of the Spectacle is the one by Antonio Marturano. Maturano expressed explicitly that it was influenced by the Debord perspective as his title for the article is “A Debordian Analysis of Facebook.” Maturano noted that young Italians’ discontent with the current political situation and their representatives influenced the Italian youth to use Facebook as a channel for Italian emotions, self-representation, and their symbolic environment at the same speed of their telefonino or mobile phone.38 Marturano argued that “Facebook is realizing what Guy Debord calls ‘the invasive forces of the spectacle’---‘a relation between people that is mediated by images’”.39 According to Masturano, “Facebook is seen as an alternative tool able to amplify an individual’s alienation and narcissism, which, are a consequence of the mercantile form of social organization which has reached its climax in capitalism.”40 In Masturano’s interpretation of the Debord’s “The Society of Spectacle,” Masturano pointed out that Debord began his analysis on culture based on the Marxist analysis of fetishism in goods and commodities.41 According to Masturano, Marx held that goods have their use value and exchange value and that in advanced capitalist societies, exchange value is more important than use value.42 Masturano quotes a section of Debord’s “The Society of the Spectacle,” “In societies dominated by modern conditions, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation…The society based on modern industry is not accidentally or superficially spectacular, it is fundamentalist spectaclist [in text]. In the spectacle---the visual reflections of the ruling economic order---goals are nothing, development is everything. The spectacle aims at nothing other than itself…The spectacle is capital accumulated to the point that it becomes images.” 43 From the work of Debords, Masturano identified three kinds of spectacles. According to Masturano, the first spectacle is concentrated spectacle.44 In the Masturano’s interpretation of Debord, the second spectacle is diffused spectacle while the third spectacle combines the first and second form.45 Unfortunately, Masturano failed to elaborate on his interpretation on the work of Debord. Nevertheless, Masturano emphasized that Facebook facilitated the transformation of “authentic social life” under modern capitalism into a mere representation as captured in the photographs of Facebook.46 Further, for Masturano, the phenomena exhibited by Wikipedia, far from promoting collaborative and participative endeavors but are instead, according to Masturano’s analysis which Masturano himself had described as an influenced by Debord, the development of social relations that are mediated by symbolic imaginary.47 However, Masturano’s analysis of Facebook deserves some scrutiny whether he made the analysis during the time when Facebook’s interface with video and call facilities was not yet developed. While it is true, that relations between individuals have been reduced to spectacle using Facebook, this is not entirely true as Facebook also facilitated the use of video and call facilities. It can even be argued that Facebook facilitated more face-to-face and continuous. Without social media like Facebook, yahoo and googgle chat, friendster, and tweeter, social interaction would be very limited, perhaps only a few hours a day. However, with the development of the facilities as modern capitalism becomes more developed, human interaction became more face-to-face and possible even on 24/7 basis or 24 hours and 7 days a week. While it is true that Facebook and the other social media programs have promoted spectacles through select photographs chosen by account holder of Facebook, his or her Facebook friends can debunk the spectacles created by uploading other photos. The technology of modern capitalism has also made it possible for every spectacle to be exposed as a spectacle. True, it is possible to create spectacles in Facebook and relationships can be mediated by images and spectacles. However, the same spectacles and images can be corrected by the same facilities offered by the social media (Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, and the like). Users of Facebook and other accounts can select their photographs to create an image for himself or herself to facilitate his or her penetration into a target audience. This can be the basis of the creation of social relationships based on images and spectacles. However, the same facilities offered by social media can promote human relationships that are authentic, continuous and on a 24/7 basis, 24 hours and 7 days a week. IV. Other perspectives on culture and capitalism Meanwhile, some of the other phenomena described by Debord’s 1967 work of “The Society of the Spectacle” have already been described by earlier works. For example, an important theory forwarded by Thorstein Veblen is the theory of conspicuous consumption. 48 In summary, this is consumption motivated not by characteristics intrinsic or inherent in the product but by a desire to project a social image or social status in society. People consume a commodity not necessarily because a person needs the commodity but because the commodity projects into the individual a certain status and lifestyle. Capitalists take advantage of the fact in developing their advertising strategies. For example, advertisers may use the personality of Bradd Pitt or other famous or more famous celebrities to sell their products. The messages seems to be like this: use this product because Bradd Pitt uses the product and you will be in the same league as Bradd Pitt when you consume the product. Of course, the more famous personalities can replace Bradd Pitt in the advertisement. Although, the promotion of values and mind-set happens in the newspapers, internet, advertising billboards, magazines, and the like, the influence of advertising on values and perspective can be very powerful because people’s encounter with advertisement is also round-the-clock, continuous, and active. Hillbourne Watson even pointed out that the promotion of modern capitalist culture is global and not merely national.49 Computer technology aids the diffusion of capitalist values and ideology. 50 Ann Martin proposed that it is useful to use the notion of consumerism in studying modern capitalist culture.51 According to Martin, products have symbolic values in addition to economic values and consumerism focuses as well on the symbolic values of a commodity. 52 Further, according to Ann Martin, another useful notion in studying modern capitalism is materialism.53 In modern capitalism, possessions or the lack of them provide the greatest satisfactions and dissatisfactions in life. This is unavoidable as both economic and political power are founded on the abundance or lack of abundance of possessions. Piety pointed out that the most significant development from latter part of the 20th century to the first parts of the 21st century has been the triumph of short-term thinking over long-term thinking.54 This is understandable because modern capitalism has trusted the market over planning. Given capitalist competition and battles among oligopolists, new technologies are being invented by the second. What have been invented in the past minute or hour are fast becoming obsolete by the minute and a few hours. This impresses an idea of impermanence in thinking and living under modern capitalism. In the 1970s, Alvin Toffler focused on the existence of sub-culture in modern capitalism.55 During that time, the sub-culture that co-exist with main culture of modern capitalism included “hippies and hot rodders, theosophists and flying saucer fans, skindivers and skydivers, homosexuals, computerniks, vegetarian, bodybuilders and Black Muslims.” 56 Today, the same thing is true as we have sub-culture of Muslims, Kung Fu enthusiasts, Buddhists, gangs, fraternities, sororities, and the like co-existing in the same capitalist society. This is unavoidable because in modern capitalism, we can have innumerable producers as well as monopolists, oligopolies, and petty-bourgeois production. In short, other than Debord’s notion of spectacle, we have several notions that are useful conceptual tools in understanding deeper the modern culture of capitalism. V. Analysis Debord’s “The Society of Spectacles” certainly makes a contribution to the analysis of culture under modern capitalism. The concept of spectacle that was emphasized by Debord in his work is certainly worth including in our kit of conceptual tools with which we can analyze capitalism. It seems that nobody in Marxist and non-Marxist literatures has focused on the concept of images in the same manner and importance as Debord. Nevertheless, it is also worth mentioning that some of Debord’s ideas are strikingly similar with the ideas of intellectuals like Thorstein Veblen and some of his notion of images can also be described by Veblen’s notion of conspicuous consumption. The concept of images in the discussion of culture is important because the use of images is a basic tool through which capitalism promotes a culture and way of life that promotes the consumption of products. The role of capitalist accumulation in the use of images is this: capitalist accumulation has created oligopolies with each oligopoly having a capability to supply the market with a huge volume of goods. In order for that oligopoly to remain afloat or viable in the market, the use of the product must be emphasize not only for their direct use values but also for the creation of images that can facilitate interaction. VI. Conclusion We conclude in this work that Debord’s notion of spectacle is useful in understanding capitalist culture. Nevertheless, we emphasize it is not only Debord’s notion of images that is useful in understanding capitalist society and culture. Today, in the 21st century capitalism, we have several notions that are useful conceptual tools in understanding better the culture of modern capitalism. Some of these useful notions are globalization, materialism, consumerism, and the notion of sub-culture that are consequences of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois production co-existing within the capitalist order of monopoly, oligopoly, and free market production. References Debord, Guy. Society of Spectacle, 1967 (Translation: Black & Red, 1977). Available in: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm (Accessed 11 April 2011). Libcom.Org. “Situationist: An Introduction” in http://libcom.org/thought/ideas/situationists (Accessed 11 April 2011). Libcom.Org. “How to talk like a Situationist” in http://libcom.org/library/how-to-talk-like-a-situationist (Accessed 11 April 2011). Library.Nothingness.Org. “The Society of the Spectacle” in http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/4 (Accessed 11 April 2011). Masturiano, Antonio. “A Debordian Analysis of Facebook.” SIGCAS Computers and Society 39, no. 3 (December 2009), 59-68. Martin, Ann Smart. “Makers, Buyers, and Users: Consumerism as a Material Culture Framework,” Chicago Journals 28, no. 2/3 (Summer-Autumn 1993), 141-157. Piety, M.G. “The Long Term: Capitalism and Culture in the New Millennium.” Journal of Business Ethics 51, no. 2 (May 2004), 103-118. Toffler, Alvin. Future Shock. Toronto, New York, and London: Bantam Books, 1971 (Reprint of 1970 Edition). Trier, James. “Guy Debord’s ‘The Society of the Spectacle.’” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 51, no. 1 (2007), 68-73. Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class, 1899. Available in www.elegant-technology.com (Accessed 11 April 2011). Watson, Hillbourne. “Globalization as Capitalism in the Age of Electronics: Issues of Popular Power, Culture, Revolution, and Globalization from below.” Latin American Perspectives, 29, no. 6 (Nov. 2002), 32-43. Read More