Guy Debord THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE [1968] [. . .]
1.
THE WHOLE LIFE OF THOSE SOCIETIES in which modern conditions of production prevail
presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once
was directly lived has become mere representation.
2.
Images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream, and the
former unity of life is lost forever. Apprehended in a partial way, reality
unfolds in a new generality as a pseudo-world apart, solely as an object
of contemplation, The tendency toward the specialization of images-of-the-world
finds its highest expression in the world of the autonomous image, where
deceit deceives itself. The spectacle in its generality is a concrete
inversion of life, and, as such, the autonomous movement of non-life.
3.
The spectacle appears at once as society itself, as a part of society and as
a means of unification. As a part of society, it is that sector where
all attention, all consciousness, converges, Being isolated - and precisely
for that reason this sector is the locus of illusion and false consciousness;
the unity it imposes is merely the official language of generalized separation.
4.
The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship
between people that is mediated by images.
5.
The spectacle cannot be understood either as a deliberate distortion of the visual
world or as a product of the technology of the mass dissemination of
images. It is far better viewed as a weltanschauung that has been actualized, translated into the material realm - a world view
transformed into an objective force.
6.
Understood in its totality, the spectacle is both the outcome and the goal of
the dominant mode of production. It is not something added to the real
world - not a decorative element, so to speak, On the contrary, it is
the very heart of society's real unreality. In all its specific manifestations
- news or propaganda, advertising or the actual consumption of entertainment
- the spectacle epitomizes the prevailing model of social life. It is
the omnipresent celebration of a choice already made in the sphere of
production, and the consummate result of that choice. In form as in content
the spectacle serves as total justification for the conditions and aims
of the existing system. It further ensures the permanent presence of
that justification, for it governs almost all time spent outside the
production process itself.
7.
The phenomenon of separation is part and parcel of the unity of the world, of
a global social praxis that has split up into reality on the one hand
and image on the other. Social practice, which the spectacle's autonomy
challenges, is also the real totality to which the spectacle is subordinate.
So deep is the rift in this totality, however, that the spectacle is
able to emerge as its apparent goal. The language of the spectacle is
composed of signs of the dominant organization of production - signs
which are at the same time the ultimate end-products of that organization.
8.
The spectacle cannot be set in abstract opposition to concrete social activity,
for the dichotomy between reality and image will survive on either side
of any such distinction. Thus the spectacle, though it turns reality
on its head, is itself a product of real activity. Likewise, lived reality
suffers the material assaults of the spectacle's mechanisms of contemplation,
incorporating the spectacular order and lending that order positive support.
Each side therefore has its share of objective reality. And every concept,
as it takes its place on one side or the other, has no foundation apart
from its transformation into its opposite: reality erupts within the
spectacle, and the spectacle is real. This reciprocal alienation is the
essence and underpinning of society as it exists.
9.
In a world that really has been turned on its head, truth is a moment of falsehood.
10.
The concept of the spectacle brings together and explains a wide range of apparently
disparate phenomena. Diversities and contrasts among such phenomena are
the appearances of the spectacle - the appearances of a social organization
of appearances that needs to be grasped in its general truth. Understood
on its own terms, the spectacle proclaims the predominance of appearances
and asserts that all human life, which is to say all social life, is
mere appearance. But any critique capable of apprehending the spectacle's
essential character must expose it as a visible negation of life - and
as a negation of life that has invented a visual jorm jor itself.
11.
In order to describe the spectacle, its formation, its functions and whatever
forces may hasten its demise, a few artificial distinctions are called
for. To analyze the spectacle means talking its language to some degree
- to the degree, in fact, that we are obliged to engage the methodology
of the society to which the spectacle gives expression. For what the
spectacle expresses is the total practice of one particular economic
and social formation; it is, so to speak, that formation's agenda. It
is also the historical moment by which we happen to be governed.
12.
The spectacle manifests itself as an enormous positivity, out of reach and beyond
dispute. All it savs is: 'Evervthing that appears is good; whatever is
good will appear.’ The attitude that it demands in principle is the same
passive acceptance that it has already secured by means of its seeming
incontrovertibility, and indeed by its monopolization of the realm of
appearances.
13.
The spectacle is essentially tautological, for the simple reason that its means
and its ends are identical. It is the sun that never sets on the empire
of modern passivity. It covers the entire globe, basking in the perpetual
warmth of its own glory.
14.
The spectacular character of modern industrial society has nothing fortuitous
or superficial about it; on the contrary, this society is based on the
spectacle in the most fundamental way. For the spectacle, as the perfect
image of the ruling economic order, ends are nothing and development
is all - although the only thing into which the spectacle plans to develop
is itself.
15.
As the indispensable packaging for things produced as they are now produced,
as a general gloss on the rationality of the system, and as the advanced
economic sector directly responsible for the manufacture of an ever-growing
mass of image-objects, the spectacle is the chief product of present-day
society.
[. . .]
The spectacle is capital accumulated to the point where it becomes image.
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