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

More by Debord:

"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" - Laura Mulvey - summary and review (part 2)

"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" - Laura Mulvey - summary and review 

part 1 - 2

Both mechanism discussed in the previous section, Mulvey says, are gendered. Scopophilia in films is a structure which functions on an axis of passive/active with the man always on the active gazing side and the woman on the passive "to-be-looked-at-ness" side (see the male gaze). This is done in two completing manners, with both the male figure within the duegsis and the camera looking at the woman and directing the viewer's objectifying gaze. In plain words, the woman in films in meant to be looked at.

The distinction between the passive woman active man is also manifested in the structure of the cinematic narrative. The films Mulvey surveys revolve around a dominant male figure with which the viewer can identify. This identification is similar to Lacan's mirror stage in which the narcissistic fragmented subjected experiences himself a whole and potent in a reflected self image. Methods that produce cinematic realism aid in this mirror-like identification which reinforces the ego.

According to Mulvey, the female cinematic figure is a paradoxical one. She combines attraction with the playing on deep fears of castration. The male subconscious has two ways of escaping his fear of castration. One is the demystification of the female figure is the dismantling of her mysteries (in films: the female figure is punished or saved by the male figure). The other way to escape fear of being castrated by the woman is through the fetishization of her (for instance as the glamorous unobtainable star). Films, according to Mulvey, attempt to resolve the tension between being attracted to the woman and fearing her, and therefore they provide for the needs of the masculine form of desire.

Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" was criticized on the one hand for reinforcing heterosexuality and on the other hand for assuming a passive, un-negotiating viewer. 

      

"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" - Laura Mulvey - summary and review 

part 1 - 2

See also: Laura Mulvey's theory of representation

The male gaze in feminist film theory

Gaze Theory Explained

Take it to the next level:

  

"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" - Laura Mulvey - summary and review (part 1)

"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" - Laura Mulvey - summary and review 

part 1 - 2

In her "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" Laura Mulvey utilizes psychoanalysis theory as a "political weapon" to demonstrate how the patriarchic subconscious of society shapes our film watching experience and cinema itself. According to Mulvey the cinematic text is organized along lines that are corresponding to the cultural subconscious with is essentially patriarchic. Mulvey argues that the popularity of Hollywood films is determined and reinforced by preexisting social patterns which have shaped the fascinated subject.

Overview of "Visual Pleasure"

Mulvey's analysis in "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" combines semiotic methodology of cinematic means of expression with psychoanalytic analysis of desire structures and the formation of subjectivity. The semiotic end of Mulvey's analysis enables the deciphering of how films produce the meanings they produce, while the psychoanalytic side of the article provides the link between the cinematic text and the viewer and explains his fascination through the way cinematic representations interact with his (culturally determined) subconscious.

Mulvey's main argument in "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" is that Hollywood narrative films use women in order to provide a pleasurable visual experience for men. The narrative film structures its gaze as masculine (the male gaze). The woman is always the object of the reifying gaze, not the bearer of it (this has something reminiscent of John Berger's "Ways of Seeing") 

The male gaze 

The cinematic gaze is always produced a masculine both by means of the identification produced with the male hero and through the use of the camera. Mulvey identifies two manners in which Hollywood cinema produces pleasure, manners which arise from different mental mechanisms. The first involves the objectification of the image, and the second one the identification with it. Both mechanisms represent the mental desires of the male subject. The first form of pleasure relates to what Freud termed as scopophilia or the pleasure derived from subjecting someone to one's gaze. The second form of pleasure other which operates alongside the scopophilia is the identification with the represented character which is brought about by needs stemming from the Freudian Ego. 

"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" - Laura Mulvey - summary and review 

part 1 - 2

See also: Laura Mulvey's theory of representation

The male gaze in feminist film theory

Gaze Theory Explained

Take it to the next level:

Review: Fredric Jameson/ postmodernism - Part 2: the cultural dominant

part 1 - 2 - summary

Fredric Jameson's interpretative principles in "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" hold that one cannot interpret art of any cultural text by appealing to the artist himself and by assuming creative freedom, and that certain preconditions, historical, political and economical ones have to be identified beforehand. In this he holds true to the Marxist tradition of "totality" (material and historical) as a principle source of explanation for all individual phenomenon. A given cultural product is always the product of temporal conditions, which have their own "cultural dominant" that although, as Jameson notes, is not deterministic or all-encompassing, it is still nevertheless unavoidable. This stance expressed in the concept of "cultural dominant" helps Jameson to soften the crude Hegelian and Marxist dialectics.

The current (1991) cultural dominant, Jameson says, is postmodernism. Jameson's arguments such as the rise of pastiche, the waning of affect, depthlessness and others expressed in "Postmodernism" all have to do with the current mechanisms of representation and experience in culture, and they all interact with the historical, economical, political and aesthetical form of postmodernism. In this Jameson is of course true to the Marxist tradition such as the thinking of Lukács in relating the historical totality with its different manifestations. After all, for Jameson, postmodernism is still in accord with the Marxist historical narrative.

Jameson's selection of examples, such as E.L.Doctorow's "Ragtime", Warhol's "Diamond Dust Shoes" or the Westin Bonaventure hotel all come from the American culture which is for Jameson the source of postmodernism.

It is hard to determine whether Jameson is a "fan" of postmodernism or not. There is of course of a tone of lamentation throughout "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" but Jameson does not call for a negative stance towards postmodernism not does he wishes to undo its cultural dominance. It seems that for Jameson postmodernism, as an historical imperative, a product of the material dialectical history, and we just have to deal with it.

part 1 - 2 - summary

 

Review: Fredric Jameson – Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

part 1 - 2 - summary

Fredric Jameson's premise in his widely acclaimed "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" is that the Marxist meta-narrative can sustain a reliable account of all cultural texts produced by a given society. He therefore combines the theories of Marxist thinkers such as Lukács and Althusser with some post-structuralist thinking in order to create a complex method of interpreting cultural texts such a literature and architecture. As previous 20^th century modern thinkers such as the Frankfurt School he is also critical of the dogmatic and deterministic "crude" Marxist point of view which is refined in ""Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism".  Following Althusser and his affiliation with Lacan he adopts dome psychoanalytic notions along with the hermeneutic principle of overdetermination in order to provide a rich and complex stance for diagnosing ideological symptoms in cultural products.

Jameson's pursuit of the question of postmodernism in "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" can be seen as a direct development on his views in "The Political Unconscious" and "Postmodernism and Consumer society".

Jameson directly deals with the question of periodization, which in the Marxist context is directly related to the question of determinism. He relies on Ernest Mandel's work which offered an historical periodization on the basis of technological developments. He offers three stages of development in capitalism and it is interesting to ask whether the current "age of information", not yet dominant at the time of "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism", is a new fourth phase or the continuation of the third stage, the "post-industrial" or "multi-national", assigned by Mandel and adopted by Jameson. With everybody announcing the "postmodernism is dead" nowadays, it is also interesting to ask what is the current "cultural dominant" which in Jameson's time was postmodernism (perhaps neo-modernism, but who knows?).

part 1 - 2 - summary

Fredric Jameson / Postmodernism: high culture and popular culture – the case of Bonaventure hotel

Fredric Jameson - Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism - summary part

 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - Review

Depthlessness, pastiche, the fragmentation of the subject and other characteristics of postmodern culture introduced by Fredric Jameson (see previous parts of the summary) strongly question the notion of "high culture" as opposed to popular culture. Jameson notes how boundaries between high and low culture have been transgressed in postmodern times with kitsch and popular culture integrating with forms of high culture to produce one big varied consumer culture.

Jameson argues that not only is postmodernism a cultural dominant (i.e. the dominant form of cultural production) but that it has turned into a prime consumer product, with the aesthetic production being integrated into the general production of consumer goods. The growing need to produce ever newer products now allocates an essential structural position to aesthetic novelty.

Jameson notes to the aesthetic field which has the strongest ties with the economical system is that of architecture which has strong ties with real-estate and development which give rise to a tide of postmodern architecture, epitomized in the grandeur of shopping malls.   

Jameson famously analyzes the postmodern features of the L.A. Westin Bonaventure hotel. His main argument concerning the Bonaventure hotel is that this building, as other postmodern architecture, does not attempt to blend into its surroundings but to replace them. The Bonaventure hotel attempts to be a total space, a whole world which introduces a new form of collective behavior. Jameson sees the total space of the Bonaventure hotel as an allegory of the new hyper-space of global market which is dominated by the corporations of late capitalism.

It seems that in Postmodernism Jameson often laments the shortcomings of postmodern culture, though there is also a sense of inevitability in his writing. Postmodernism according to Jameson is an historical situation, and therefore it will be wrong to assess it in terms of moral judgments. Jameson proposes to treat postmodernism in line with Marx's thought which asks us to "do the impossible" of seeing something as negative and positive at the same time, accepting something without surrendering judgment and allowing ourselves to grasp this new historical form. 

Fredric Jameson - Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism - summary part

 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 -Review

additional resources:
Fredric Jameson/ "Reification and Utopia"
Two first chapters from the book
about the Jameson at Wikipedia
short introduction to the text

Fredric Jameson / Postmodernism: The Waning of Affect

Fredric Jameson - Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism - summary 

part 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - Review

Another deference between high or late modernism and postmodernism which Fredric Jameson locates in "Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" is what he calls "the waning of affect".

When we look at modern painting with human figures we will most often find in them a human expression which reflects and inner experience, such as in Edvard Munch's "The Scream" which epitomizes the modern experience of alienation and anxiety. In contrast, Jameson holds to that in postmodern art feelings wane (therefore "the waning of affect").

The concept of expression, Jameson notes, presupposes a model of inside and outside, a distinction between ones inner and outside world and the individual person as a single monad. But when we look at postmodern portrait such as Warhol's Marilyn we can hardly speak of any expression, and that is because, Jameson holds, postmodernism rejects traditional models of the depth (see depthlessness) such as the Freudian model of conscious and unconscious or the existential model of authentic and unauthentic.  

The idea of the subject as a monad, of individualism, is a 19^th and early 20^th century capitalistic bourgeois notion. With the rise of global economy this notion began to fade away with the sole trader, consumer and employee made insignificant, reduced to statistical numbers. Private human agency plays little part in the faceless era of corporate economy and Jameson notes how the crisis of alienation and anxiety gave way to the fragmentation of subject or "death of the subject".

Jameson proceeds to describe the waning of affect through the process in which the subject has lost his active ability to create a sense of continuity between past and future and to organize his temporal existence into one coherent experience. This reduces his cultural production abilities to nothing but random and eclectic "piles of fragments"

Fredric Jameson - Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism - summary 

part 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - Review