Critical Response No. 2 - Guy Debord

After the Second World War, Europe experienced a rapid influx of ‘modern’ American culture and technology that had been developing overseas since the turn of the century. For many, these changes resulted in a minor sense of culture shock, but for a few, the growing presence of capitalist values was much more salient. True to the Marxist tradition, Guy Debord and his peers feared and criticized the capitalist society. Although they were also critical of the Soviet Union, the focus of Debord tended to emphasize the perils of a commodity-based culture rather than the totalitarian state. His generation saw the rise of what Marx might have deemed ‘commodity fetishism’, and the trend towards placing value on the sign rather than the signified. The human relationship to the product was lost with the industrial revolution, they argued, and these products were contributing to the growing power of the spectacle. Debord states: “the worker does not produce himself; he produces an independent power” (Debord 31). The product enters our trading floors or department stores and the worker’s involvement in that product is lost. The worker, feeling no connection to the items he/she produces, will continue to contribute to the spectacle both in the realm of work and personal life.

Debord seems not only to have been influenced by Marx and his followers, but by more romantic and idealistic thinkers. Perhaps his rhetoric, which seems almost poetic when compared with some Marxist literature, is swaying my opinion on the matter. He seems not only concerned with the political risks of the rise of the commodity-based society of the spectacle, but with the impacts of such a culture on individuals and on human relationships. In thesis 17 he explains how he believes economy has come to dominate social life. With recent innovations, he argues, humans moved away from a state of simply ‘being’ into one of ‘having’ or wanting, buying, etc. The worship of the spectacle, he claims, takes this a step further, to the point that humans are acquiring products for the sake of appearances, and thus perpetuating the notion that human identity must be manufactured (Debord 17).

This is a 46 second long trailer for a 2009 film called Logorama. This short clip illustrates the type of culture Debord would have abhorred, as anyone living in a Western nation would recognize and relate to many of the brands and logos featured.  

The Situationist International movement attempted to discourage citizens from passively partaking in the creation and worship of the spectacle. Through the spontaneous and often artistic actions of the group, members aimed to bring people to the realization that they were contributors to this trend. Debord was not convinced, however, that simple awareness of this fact would liberate citizens from the society of the spectacle. He believed this phenomena had evolved to a point where it was deeply embedded in human interaction, “the spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images” (Debord 4). I would tend to agree with this sentiment. Technology and capitalist society have indeed led us to value a product by virtue of its appearance rather than its function, and we have adopted the notion that identity is something that may be created through the purchase of said products. Our relationship to the product is lost as what once would have been classified as a creation is now a commodity. As our attention is turned to the production and glorification of the spectacle, human interaction suffers.

Although at times his writing requires thoughtful translation in order to obtain his thesis, I find many of Debord’s thoughts inspiring and truthful. To paraphrase Debord, he views the spectacle as a ‘world vision’ that has been objectified or ‘materially translated’ (Debord 5). Even Debord and his colleagues noticed the role consumers played in the perpetuation of the spectacle; with the advent of the Internet and Web 2.0 I would argue we have become more active participants in its existence. 

What would Debord and his peers think of Web 2.0 and the way that his "society of the spectacle" has come to envelop our culture? Would he be optimistic about the apparent individualism promoted by accessible social media, or condemn these forms of expression as contributing to the spectacle?

Debord, Guy. “Separation Perfected.” Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black and Red, 1983. Sections 1-34.