The Society of the Spectacle - Essay Example

Audio-visual critical theory – The Society of the Spectacle Audio-visual critical theory – The Society of the Spectacle ‎ The Society of the Spectacle was published in France in 1967. It was a work of philosophy and a critical theory written by Guy Debord. The writing presents a reinterpretation of Marx’s philosophy and contains 221 short theses. There is also particular focus made on the contemporary mass media and the commodity fetishism. Debord has directly addressed to the Soviet and American societies through his work. Debord has mentioned many of his ideas in his book and they can be analyzed in several phases. Debord suggested, in his words, that whatever that was once lived has now become just representation. He has developed the modern society and in it he has replaced the authentic social life with his interpretation of representation. He has thus, written about the traced of this modern society. He also argued through his book that the social life history should be understood by the “decline of being into having, and having into appearing”. This is the history where the commodity is finally recognized as colonization of the modern social life. This is the overall idea of the degrading of the human life. Debord has used the term spectacle in his title which is also closely related to the confluence in the society of advance capitalism. The word has been specifically used in the sense to describe the mass media and the kinds of governments who have favored the phenomenon. In his book that followed Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, Debord mentioned the spectacle as the period coming to the existence in the 1920s. He introduced this period as the coming to the existence in which the modern techniques of advertising were introduced, more innovative techniques and ideas were initiated to being used in which the campaign of Edward Bernays for the industry of tobacco was keenly highlighted (Debord, 1998, p. 87). The spectacle is thus described as the image of the modern society where the relations between the commodities have taken place by the relations of the people amongst themselves. This society is the one in which the genuine activity is seen and identified with the spectacles. But the spectacle is not merely taken to be the collection of images; it is rather the relation of the people amongst each other which is reflected by the images. Throughout his analysis of the spectacle society, the writer has regarded that the quality of life is getting poorer. He highlights some of the major points that can be influenced in these aspects such as the lacking in authenticity, the effects on the human perceptions, and the degradation of knowledge but it degraded the critical thought of the writer. Debord also analyzed the knowledge and how it is used to reflect the goodwill of reality. This is done when the spectacle makes the past unclear, bursting the future into the undifferentiated masses which is a kind of a never-ending present. In this way, with the imploding of the future, spectacle makes sure that the individuals realize that the spectacle society is not only the moment of history but it is the moment that can be overturned by revolution. The aim of Debord was to awaken the spectator that has been influenced by the spectator images, to do this by taking radical actions by constructing the situations, the situations that could bring a revolutionary change in life, politics and art. In view of describing these situations, they are called as those moments created and characterized by the sense of existence and self consciousness inside a specific environment or atmosphere. Debord has often criticized the commodity fetishism even before globalization had become popular. He argued for major issues such as division of class, cultural imbalance and the mass media. Some of the suggestions say that all that was once lived is now representation which means that the importance of the image in the society has been taken over by the natural human interaction. He also wrote in his thesis that the spectacle is not just a collection of images but a relationship of people influenced by images. The spectacle is said to reveal what the people must have needed through the image. Eventually, the social life becomes an appearance of the image, and he further says that the world is full of ups and downs but the true moment is the moment of false. This depicts his idea of mass media and commodity fetishism (Debord, 2006, p. 102). Debord has also idealized the comparison between the religion and marketing in the society. He does this by equalizing between the contribution of mass media marketing and the participation of religion in the pre modern society. The wave of images by the mass media produced a spread of the hype for a product. Some of the other observations that Debord made on religion aspects were that the family and the principles of heritage of class and power are assured only when the enjoyment of the world is nothing more than the repressive enjoyment. He further analyzes that the growth of the society and the knowledge includes the history and the culture which can be expressed by the destruction of God. In chapter one he has mentioned the idea of the degradation of the human life which he has started with the dealing of the changing relations of the experience of direct living and meditation and mere representation in the modern society. Throughout explaining his view of the modern society and the development from the past to the modern society, he has criticized the developments and used negative aspects to talk about the separation of the human beings through their class due to advanced capitalism. The spectacle is the assigned of capacities to justify the societies as they are. For Debord, there was no difference between the material world and the world of representation. According to his writing, the spectacle had power because it demanded for obedience and saw things the way they were represented. The nature of the spectacle was that it was one sided and this meant there was no possibility for any dialogue. The spectacle also tends to have a neo-religious aspect to it. It is the technical aspect which shows that the human powers are often exiled into a beyond and we often tend to assign our existence to something which is a mere representation of our life to which we are enslaves. This example has been related to the online social network profiles that are representing the lived of the humans nowadays and how they are enslaved to that representation. The spectacle is created when the world seems to be no more united and forms the ‘lonely crowd’. It is also a vehicle for exploitation as it shows how one part of the world is superior to the other while the other part continues to live with inferiority. The author has used many philosophical aspects to describe the society of the spectacle that it often becomes difficult for the reader to understand what he really wants to convey. He says that the spectacle is binding together with the irreversible relation of the people with each other which maintains their isolation. Moreover, the spectacle reunites the separated, but reunites them as separated (Kaufmann, 2006, p. 53). The people of the spectacle are those who are in a struggle of understanding themselves and trying to find their representation but in that process, they lose all their hope and the urge to live their own life for themselves. He tries to understand himself through representation of the images and in doing the efforts to recognize him for the need of others; he fails to believe on his own existence for his own desires. In this fight against the representation of his image and his real life, the spectator starts feeling indifferent. This is the main reason why he doesn’t feel at home anywhere. He is just everywhere with the representation ruling over him and over the society as a whole. The direct human relations in these societies are often replaced by the isolations which surround the people due to the images. The notion of commodity in the form of spectacle ties everything that is related to quantity to the value which is through the medium of currency. Commodity has been shown for what it is and it has been advanced in capitalism to form the spectacle. He also described commodity through the example of the history of Marxist by which the societies survive to be enslaved by that what provided them the freedom. Debord writes that ‘the spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life’. He wrote that just as the first industrial revolution subjected that the humans would be aligned with the product of their own labor, the development of capitalism also subjected humans to be aligned with a better product of their own labor which was the representation of their own lives. In this society, as observed and stated by Debord, the capitalism only considered the human’s labor and not his leisure time, but now it also considers him as a consumer and this is where the spectacle steps in and plays its part. For Debord, the society in which we live in now is no more the society which is dependent on the growing economy for their survival but in fact it is that society which has to provide to ensure the survival of the developing economy. The spectacle is ‘a pseudo-use of life’ and is the other side of the money which is generally equal to all the commodities. When the society has to start providing for the economic growth it has to replace all its primary human needs by a fabrication of pseudo-needs. Thus, it merely becomes the representation of value (McDonough, 1997, p.11). In the third chapter of the book, Debord explains the logical nature of the spectacle. The spectacle according to him is very similar in nature to the modern society as it also unifies and divides at once. This concept means that the spectacle also contains a reversal of meaning in which there are contradictions within the society. This means it causes unity out of division. Because of this, Debord holds the suggestions about the deterioration from being to having and from having to appearing commodities. Thus, there is no satisfaction which comes from the use of the commodities to become sufficient. Commodities have no longer the intrinsic value but only the spectator value. However, Debord’s concept of the book is the lesson of life and the quote which explains this and signifies his thoughts is ‘“Separated from his product, man himself produces all the details of the world with ever increasing power, and thus finds himself ever more separated from his world. The more his life is now his product; the more he is separated from his life.” In this quote he tends to identify the goals of life and gives a broader view about them. He says that the life is not only the goal of life, but in fact, life is a product, a copy of images (spectacle). And the more life is now the product, the more he will be separated away from his life. The book shows many of the concepts and ideas that seem to be relevant in today’s society and mode of life as well. The book is a clear depiction of how society and culture was formed in the 20th and the 21st century. This writing is a cultural and theoretical aspect of the political borders. Though this book is not as difficult as it seems to be and as it is reputed to be, it is also not a clear academic point of view. It is an effort made by Debord to clarify the nature of the society in which we live and explain the positives and negatives associated with the methods of changing it. All the theses given in this book are related to issues of life and death. The most important part of the book lies in the example of the revolution of two centuries and their lessons which have shaped the society and explained the spectacles well. References Debord G., 2006. Society of the spectacle. France: Rebel Press. Debord G. 1998. Comments on the society of the spectacle. NY: Verso. Kaufmann V. 2006. Guy Debord: revolution in the service of poetry. Canada: University of Minnesota Press. McDonough T. 1997. Rereading Debord, rereading the situationists. NY: The MIT Press. Read More