Guy Debord / Society of the Spectacle – summary: "Unity and Division within Appearance"

vSociety of the Spectacle -chapter 1 - chapter 2 - chapter 3

In chapter three of "Society of the Spectacle" Guy Debord suggests the dialectical, seemingly paradoxical, nature of the spectacle. He asserts that " The spectacle, like modern society, is at once unified and divided" (54). This is a bit tricky to grasp but the idea here is that contradictions in society, which are present in the spectacle, are themselves being contradicted by it, a reversal of meaning, so that out of division comes unity.

Here the society of the spectacle functions in a manner similar to Gramsci's notion of Hegemony. It can contain contradiction, for example, by offering "false models of revolution to… revolutionaries" (57). By assigning each with his place in the spectacle "The division of spectacular tasks preserves the entirety of the existing order and especially the dominant pole of its development" (58). The spectacle also has a capacity of banalizing things with everything being diverse but actually the same, producing what Debord calls "pseudo-enjoyment". Even rebellion is conducted within the terrain of the spectacle and thus is in fact a part of it, a part of what it allows and another example of how contradiction merges into unity within the spectacle. This, for Debord, "reflects the simple fact that dissatisfaction itself became a commodity as soon as economic abundance could extend production to the processing of such raw materials" (59).  The spectacle also serves imperialism by invading the social surface of underdeveloped countries even before economic dominance is gained.

 Debord looks to the cultural phenomenon of "the celebrity", which he understands as " the spectacular representation of a living human being" (60). The celebrity is a form of production, a shallow spectacle of a role and life style. As agents of the spectacle they appear on stage as the opposite of the individual, the opposition ("enemy") of the individual in themselves as well as in others. " Passing into the spectacle as a model for identification, the agent renounces all autonomous qualities in order to identify himself with the general law of obedience to the course of things" (61). The diversity of celebrity characters is in truth a unity of their adherence to presuppositions of their culture about a successful way of living. This is of course the opposite of the notion of the celebrity is one which fulfils himself to the highest degree. " The admirable people in whom the system personifies itself are well known for not being what they are; they became great men by stooping below the reality of the smallest individual life, and everyone knows it" (ibid).

When treating the value and function of commodities in the society of the spectacle Debord hold true to the notion about the deterioration from being into having (commodities) and form having into merely appearing, thus "The satisfaction which no longer comes from the use of abundant commodities is now sought in the recognition of their value as commodities: the use of commodities becomes sufficient unto itself" (67). Commodities no longer have any intrinsic value, not use value in any material functional sense, but rather only "spectacular" value, which might me found in what is now widely know and criticized as a "brand".  Bebord further claims that "The pseudo-need imposed by modern consumption clearly cannot be opposed by any genuine need or desire which is not itself shaped by society and its history" (68) and the result is for him the "falsification of social life" (ibid).

Debord describes this process of falsification in the society of the spectacle by showing how a new product (think of the iPhone or iPad) hold promise of being the ultimate thing for you, but by the time you realize it is not, there is something new to hand on to. This "fraud of satisfaction"(70) is easily recognizable with the change in products ("That which asserted its definitive excellence with perfect impudence nevertheless changes") and therefore "Every new lie of advertising is also an avowal of the previous lie" (70). The rapid replacement of consumer products reveals to illusionary nature of the society of the spectacle. The paradox of the spectacle for Guy Debord is the contradiction between natural condition of constant change and its inclination of appearing as essential   

Society of the Spectacle -chapter 1 - chapter 2 - chapter 3

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Guy Debord / Society of the Spectacle – summary: Chapter two: "commodity as spectacle"

Society of the Spectacle -chapter 1 - chapter 2 - chapter 3

According to Guy Debord in "Society of the Spectacle", the notion of commodity, in its Marxist sense, has transcended in advanced capitalism to the form of the spectacle. "The world of the commodity is thus shown for what it is, because its movement is identical to the estrangement of men among themselves and in relation to their global product" (37). Commodity is essentially tied with the quantitative, which negates any unique intrinsic value and equals everything in our life through the medium of currency.  

Debord describes an historical Marxist development of commodity by which societies free themselves from the task of surviving only to be enslaved to what granted them this freedom ("Economic growth frees societies from the natural pressure which required their direct struggle for survival, but at that point it is from their liberator that they are not liberated" (40)).

"The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life" (42) commodities for Debord are superimposed like geological layers, with the spectacle on top. If the first industrial revolution subjected humans to physical commodities and alientated them from the product of their own labor, the subsequent development of capitalism as alienated them from a more advanced product of again their own labor, the representation of their lives. At first capitalism cared only about the worker's work and not his leisure time, but with abundance obtained, it now seeks his cooperation not as a mere producer, but as a consumer as well, and here is where the spectacle comes into play. The economy can never once and for all defeat privation, it can only move further away from it by paradoxically nurturing it. The new privation is no longer (materially) related to survival, but to something more elevated, something of a "false privation" (like "false consciousness), and in Debord's phrasing: " The real consumer becomes a consumer of illusions. The commodity is this factually real illusion, and the spectacle is its general manifestation" (47).

" The spectacle is the other side of money: it is the general abstract equivalent of all commodities" (49). The spectacle is for Debord "a pseudo-use of life" in being, like money, the abstract representation of value which created equivalence between things that are not comparable. " At the moment of economic abundance, the concentrated result of social labor becomes visible and subjugates all reality to appearance, which is now its product" (50). When providing for a society is being replaced by the need to provide for the economy's growth " the satisfaction of primary human needs is replaced by an uninterrupted fabrication of pseudo-needs" (51). In other words, the society of the spectacle is for Debord a society which no longer needs a developing economy for its survival, but rather one which has to provide for the survival of the ever developing economy.

Society of the Spectacle -chapter 1 - chapter 2 - chapter 3

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Guy Debord/ Society of the Spectacle - summary: chapter 1:" Seperation Perfected"

Society of the Spectacle -chapter 1 - chapter 2 - chapter 3

Chapter one of Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" deals with the changing relation between direct experience and mediated representation in modern times, and it opens with the assertion that"Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation" (thesis 1). Debord has a very negative and critical stance towards these developments which for him serve for the individualization and separation of human beings and the reinforcement of exploitative class society under advanced capitalism.

For Debord the spectacle is not a collection of images, "but a social relation among people, mediated by images" (4) and he assigns the spectacle with reifying capacities, justifying society as it is. However, for Debord there is no separation between material "real life" and the false represented one, the spectacle. They are intertwined to such a degree that "the true is a moment of the false" (9), by displaying life, the spectacle negates them by reducing them to mere appearance. The spectacle's capacity for domination is its self-containment and "The basically tautological character of the spectacle flows from the simple fact that its means are simultaneously its ends."(13). The spectacle aims at nothing other than itself.

One of the key and most famous notions in Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" is "the obvious degradation of being into having… and from having into appearing" (17). And as articulated is the second chapter of "Society of the Spectacle", late capitalism has turned appearance into a commodity, which is the root of all evil in Debord Marxist eyes.

The spectacle has power because It demands obedience, seeing things they way they are represented, but its one-sidedness rules out any possibility of a dialogue.The spectacle, according to Debord, has also a neo-religious aspect to it in being "the technical realization of the exile of human powers into a beyond"(20), meaning that we assign the meaning of our existence to something which is beyond our immediate life which are enslaved to their representation (just think about your Facebook profile).

The spectacle is a vehicle for separation and the creation of the "lonely crowd" and it originates from the loss of unity in the world. It is an exploitative mechanism for in the spectacle, one part of the world represents itself to the world and is superior to it (29). Debord also has a Foucauldian panopticon notion of "What binds the spectators together is no more than an irreversible relation at the very center which maintains their isolation. The spectacle reunites the separate, but reunites it as separate" (29) With people trying to understand themselves through a representation, they in fact lose all hope of coherently and unitarily live their own life. "(the more he accepts recognizing himself in the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own existence and his own desires"(30)) "This is why the spectator feels at home nowhere, because the spectacle is everywhere" (ibid). with representation ruling over "the society of the spectacle", the unified direct human relations are replaced with the fragmented adherence to the spectacle which isolates us.

Society of the Spectacle -chapter 1 - chapter 2 - chapter 3

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