The society of the spectacle

Guy Debord Separation Perfected

This short chapter in the reader is no more than series of definitions and characteristics of "the spectacle", probably best summarised by some highlights with my comments in italics. "The spectacle" encompasses several things, and can be contradictory (Kaplan, undated)   In purple I consider the specific points referred to in the course notes.

• In societies with modern production, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles;
• The spectacle is not a collection of images but a social relation among people,  mediated by images. This demonstrates the Marxian backdrop to Debord's thesis;
• The spectacle is a Weltanschauung that has become materially translated. Weltanschauung is a fundamental concept within German philosophy and translates literally as "world view". In English this suggests an approach based in how the world seems, a method to understand what actually exists on a global scale rather than a comprehensive philosophy;
•  The spectacle is both the result and the project of the existing mode of production. I think Debord is here emphasising that spectacle is not just a philosophical notion but a view of how we are;
• The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible. Debord is surely trying to have it all ways here - firstly he is suggesting that the concept has a mind of its own, it can "present itself", secondly the three characteristics he mentions seem contradictory - not sure how something can be positive and inaccessible;
•  The spectacle subjugates living men to itself to the extent that the economy has totally subjugated them. This is meaningless.
• The spectacle naturally finds vision to be the "privileged human sense" rather than sense of touch as in previous epochs. This is a crude assertion for which Debord elicits no evidence.
•  The spectacle is the material reconstruction of  the religious illusion.  

What does Debord mean by the spectacle?

I do not pretend to know what Debord means by the spectacle; indeed I think Debord does not entirely know what he means by the spectacle. It is difficult not to present his views as the random jottings of a troubled mind, or alternatively as self evident. His central thesis that everywhere reality is replaced by images which in turn themselves become reality is, when one thinks about it, not as profound as it seems. Magazines, comic strips, advertising, soap operas to mention a few are all examples of visual media that extract elements of our societal existence and present them in a different way, and in so doing themselves become part of the very societal existence. Consider as one example Private Eye, the fortnightly satirical magazine that deliberately seeks to uncover the darker, funny, ironic, and contradictory sides of public life yet in so doing becomes itself part of the establishment. Hussey (2001) claims that Debord realized that his concept became less of a revolutionary concept than a common place aphorism:

It depressed him in his later years that [his] insight had long since ceased to be a revolutionary call to arms but the most accurate, if banal, description of modern life. The term "society of the spectacle" had itself become a cliché, entering the post-modern lexicon to describe any contemporary process....(Hussey, 2001)

Has the passage of time confirmed his view? 

I think the above suggests it has but not in the revolutionary way he would have wished. His view is mainstream now, the frustration for his followers would be that his concept changed nothing.

Does the view that we "see the world by means of various specialized mediations" mean that we are having our world controlled or that we don't know what is propaganda...?

At face value, it means the former - our view of the world is filtered by institutions whether as "objective" as the BBC likes to think it is or as unashamedly partisan as a Daily Mail headline.  We can absorb, consider, analyze and judge only so much information so rely on these filters to do some or all of these functions for us. Some consider this manipulative; a more relaxed view consider it inevitable, indeed useful, in an information loaded society. We should not merely accept that the media is iniquitous and controlling. That is a neo Marxist view that scarcely does justice to people's independence of thought and deed. In this respect, perhaps Debord is only stating a fact: we do see the world by these means; what is less sure is the effect this has on us.

Is the spectacle viewing the real as abstract or an extreme reification?

To be honest, I am not sure - the excerpts above suggest it could be neither, either or both of these. The last bullet point suggests the spectacle as reification.

References:

Hussey (2001) Situation abnormal Available from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jul/28/biography.artsandhumanities Accessed on 2 March 2014


Kaplan (undated) Between mass  society and revolutionary praxis: The  contradictions   of GuyDebord’s Society of theSpectacle. Available from http://www.academia.edu/2235717/The_Contradictions_of_Guy_Debords_Society_of_the_Spectacle. Accessed on 2 March 2014