
The Society of the Spectacle - psychanarch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle
======
Iv
So, I got into hot debate about this book. I read it, or attempted to do so in
French, my native language. Thing is, while I do have some philosophical
culture, I do not have a degree in philosophy, and people told me that my
opinion is therefore irrelevant.

Debord in this book insists on being obtuse and obfuscates relatively simple
ideas. Worse, he would masquerade opinions as reasoning and loves using vague
words without defining them, jumping from one possible meaning to the other
the next sentence.

The thing is unreadable and the ideas it contains (I read some explanations of
the books by other "lesser" philosophers) pretty basic.

Better read Manufacturing Content by Chomsky. I don't know why Americans are
so enamored with French philosophers while they have decent ones at home. I am
a bit ashamed that the aura our culture has is used to promote such hacks as
the situationists.

~~~
Der_Einzige
Because state sanctioned sources with an incentive for American discord have
used it to subvert the educational system. If you don't believe me, take a
look at what a competitive high school or college policy debate looks like
today. It's literally 4 kids speed reading (as fast as they can!!! Seriously
auctioneers would be proud!) Obscure French post-modernist philosophy. They
avoid any discussion that might be about a policy implementation of the topic
being debated (it's not strategic to use regular language or arguments anymore
due to the judges) As a result, I routinely speak with wealthy 15 year olds
who insist on calling themselves "maoists".

Don't believe me? Look up "TOC semi final policy round" or "Harvard vs Berkely
finals policy debate" on YouTube. anything even kind of like that. There's no
way that this happened without the intervention of either spooks or worse,
foreign spooks

Books like this, or the works of other terrible French scholars, are the bread
and butter of this fashionable nonsense

~~~
52-6F-62
I did look this up. How this can be construed as a coherent argument in a
timed debate is... it's nearly unbelievable to me.

Yes, they fit in far more information and logical constructs than I could in
that kind of time but it throws all oratory practice out the window. It's not
just incoherent, indistinguishable babbling, it's also terrible to listen to
with those deep, throaty breaths he has to take in order to accomplish his
speed read...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZeDq90Ar4k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZeDq90Ar4k)

I had no idea these courses were carried out this way.

~~~
Der_Einzige
It's not courses. It's tournaments. And the people who speak fastest and read
the most obscure arguments are the ones who win the most.

~~~
52-6F-62
What good are the arguments if they can't be understood. And I don't mean for
their philosophical obscurity, but practically. Even slowing down that audio
doesn't render discernible words.

------
aidenn0
Someone recently linked me to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation)
which seems very closely related to this.

~~~
77544cec
I recommend Simulacra and Simulation by Baudrillard over The Society of the
Spectacle. Less obscure. Better Style. Also check out America by the same
author:

> I went in search of astral America, not social and cultural America, but the
> America of the empty, absolute freedom of the freeways, not the deep America
> of mores and mentalities, but the America of desert speed, of motels and
> mineral surfaces. I looked for it in the speed of the screenplay, in the
> indifferent reflex of television, in the film of days and nights projected
> across an empty space, in the marvellously affectless succession of signs,
> images, faces, and ritual acts on the road; looked for what was nearest to
> the nuclear and enucleated universe, a universe which is virtually our own,
> right down to its European cottages. I sought the finished form of the
> future catastrophe of the social in geology, in that upturning of depth that
> can be seen in the striated spaces, the reliefs of salt and stone, the
> canyons where the fossil river flows down, the immemorial abyss of slowness
> that shows itself in erosion and geology. I even looked for it in the
> verticality of the great cities. I knew all about this nuclear form, this
> future catastrophe when I was still in Paris, of course. But to understand
> it, you have to take to the road, to that travelling which achieves what
> Virilio calls the aesthetics of disappearance.

Here:
[https://monoskop.org/images/a/ac/Baudrillard_Jean_America_19...](https://monoskop.org/images/a/ac/Baudrillard_Jean_America_1989.pdf)

~~~
aidenn0
Thanks for the link. I didn't really "get" the first part, as I don't really
have a close relationship with the American West, but once it hit New York, I
was impressed with how succinctly he summarized my impressions of the American
East.

[edit] After familiarizing myself with the author's style on the topic of New
York, it was well worth rereading the rest of the book.

------
sjustns
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------
viburnum
Guy Debord goes over my head but I think it's fun that he made a board game:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Game_of_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Game_of_War)

~~~
pavlov
I'm slightly disappointed the board game is not called "Jeu Debord".

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itronitron
Cliffs Notes for this >> [https://hyperallergic.com/313435/an-illustrated-
guide-to-guy...](https://hyperallergic.com/313435/an-illustrated-guide-to-guy-
debords-the-society-of-the-spectacle/)

------
incompatible
"it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images".

This was about television and other mass media? It seems to apply better to
Snapchat.

~~~
cjslep
I don't think it was literal images/pictures, but the philosophical idea that
an _image_ represents (but is itself not) another [authentic] _thing_.

Edit: An example: You make a post on Facebook simply about your $HOBBY. I hit
the "Like" button. Do I actually, authentically like that Hobby, or you
talking about it, or both? Am I just pressing it out of a social obligation? I
instead could have reached out and called or texted and had a conversation
about your $HOBBY. And you could have then judged to what degree my interest
and "liking" of your $HOBBY was authentic, and how that reflects my interests,
or how I am trying to branch out and am taking a genuine interest in you-the-
person. But in lieu of a real conversation, I hit a "Like" button and let the
_image_ of an authentic feeling of "liked-ness" travel to you, instead of
taking the effort of conveying the _actual_ feeling of "I like you" to you.

This is the core problem with social media.

~~~
thinkingemote
I think "authenticity" with regards to the society of the spectacle is also a
kind of image, but I know what you mean.

I have in mind the modern trendy value on authentic things. For example
bespoke craft foods. The striving for authenticity in these things are itself
a type of spectacle.

Generally I struggle with Debord but with the Society of the Spectacle I think
I've got it down to something like:

1) Where once Bob could be cool in himself and people wanted to be like Bob.
Being.

2) Then people saw the cool clothes that Bob wore and got them. Having.

3) Now people just get the things that look like the clothes that the people
who look like Bob have. Image.

For "authentic" foods, same thing. People made good quality foods. Then people
got the same thing that these people had or bought their products. Then people
bought things that looked like it was the same thing. Or people valued the
look of having these things. Image.

I think it's basically consumerism. But I suspect it's something deeper and
applies to non products also. For example the image of being a good person, or
a useful employee.

With regards to social media, clicking "Like" could be an authentic emotional
response to an image. "I want to be like this"?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I think that people are fundamentally trying to find ways to love and approve
themselves. They think that's found in Being. (It's not - Bob may not have it,
either, but people think he does.) But they don't have that, so they try to
buy it with Having or fake it with Image. And it works, a little bit... but
not really.

------
cousin_it
I think the main problem is that communication technology makes it easier for
people to fall into sins, and harder to stay away from sins. If you
internalize the idea that envy, rage and sloth are bad for you and should be
kept out of your head, then Facebook and Twitter shouldn't pose much trouble.

~~~
iliketosleep
Good point, but beyond internalizing those ideas, you also really have to be
on guard these - the technologies in question are ubiquitous. They are almost
inescapable and are designed to get you hooked. It's easy to say look
something up on reddit and then dive into tangentially related material which
ends up turning into procrastination.

------
slim
Original book in french

[http://classiques.uqac.ca/contemporains/debord_guy/societe_d...](http://classiques.uqac.ca/contemporains/debord_guy/societe_du_spectacle/spectacle.html)

------
chongli
This thesis seems uncannily similar to the central theme in Huxley’s _Brave
New World_ , translated into Marxist academic language. Nevertheless, these
ideas are highly relevant in our social media and mass media dominated world.

At this point, they may now have become so obvious that they’re cliché.

~~~
fit2rule
Things becoming cliché is how you know that beingness has supplanted
havingness, with doingness long gone out the window.

A society which puts more attention on the results of an activity rather than
the factuality of the actions is long on its way out. Witness for example,
modern America's relationship with its illegal wars: nobody wants to know what
America is _really_ doing, as long as the result is attained...

------
maitland
He made a movie of this text, which is available online, it's low resolution
and some of the subtitles are hard to read. There's an updated version that's
more legible but which stays true to the original in all the important ways:
[https://youtu.be/irdHSmRrdh0](https://youtu.be/irdHSmRrdh0)

~~~
maitland
I would also add that 'The Dialectic of Enlightenment', is perhaps a more
thorough precedent to 'The Society of the Spectacle'... if you're at all
interested ... the chapter 'The Culture Industry' is good.
[https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-
content/uploads/2018/03/Max-H...](https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-
content/uploads/2018/03/Max-Horkheimer-and-Theodor-Adorno-Dialectic-of-
Enlightenment-Philosophical-Fragments-1944-1947.pdf)

------
onreact
You can read and download the book here for free:
[https://antiworld.se/project/references/texts/The_Society%20...](https://antiworld.se/project/references/texts/The_Society%20_Of%20_The%20_Spectacle.pdf)

------
etqwzutewzu
I heard many times people mentioning this book but I also heard it is not very
readable. Could somebody explain for people without a degree in philosophy
like me what are the main ideas that are exposed in this book?

------
rafaelvasco
I see around me and this Society of Spectacle is all around us. Specially in
social media;

------
xtiansimon
I like French intellectualism of this period, but why this, why now?

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foobar_
That's the thing about Marxist critique, they don't really have any solutions
than pointing out what sucks.

~~~
barbecue_sauce
Its criticism, not solutionism.

