The spectacle is a central notion in the

Situationist The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution ...

theory, developed by

Guy Debord Guy-Ernest Debord (; ; 28 December 1931 – 30 November 1994) was a French Marxist theorist, philosopher, filmmaker, critic of work, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situat ...

in his 1967 book ''

The Society of the Spectacle ''The Society of the Spectacle'' () is a 1967 work of philosophy and Marxist critical theory by Guy Debord where he develops and presents the concept of the Spectacle (critical theory), Spectacle. The book is considered a seminal text for the Si ...

''. In the general sense, the spectacle refers to "the autocratic reign of the market economy which had acceded to an irresponsible sovereignty, and the totality of new techniques of government which accompanied this reign." It also exists in a more limited sense, where ''spectacle'' means the

mass media Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises b ...

, which are "its most glaring superficial manifestation." The critique of the spectacle is a development and application of Karl Marx's concept of fetishism of commodities, reification and alienation,Guy Debord (1967
''Society of the Spectacle''. (Paris, June 1967). Chapter I: Separation Perfected.
/ref> and the way it was reprised by

György Lukács György Lukács (born Bernát György Löwinger; ; ; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, literary critic, and Aesthetics, aesthetician. He was one of the founders of Western Marxism, an inter ...

in 1923. In the society of the spectacle, commodities rule the workers and consumers, instead of being ruled by them; in this way, individuals become passive subjects who contemplate the reified (or solidified) spectacle.

Description

Debord uses the word "Spectacle" to describe an overall social phenomenon where everything directly lived recedes into a representation, describing it as "a separate pseudo-world that can only be looked at", created from the rearrangement of fragmented images taken from every aspect of life. It is a worldview that identifies human social life with appearances, leading to the perceived autonomous motion of commodities and images and the negation of social life. But in the second chapter of ''The Society of the Spectacle'', Debord turns from the superficially visible nature of the spectacle to its material side, describing it as the outgrowth of

commodity fetishism In Marxist philosophy, commodity fetishism is the perception of the economic relationships of production and exchange as relationships among things (money and merchandise) rather than among people. As a form of Reification (Marxism), reificati ...

as the production and consumption of commodities colonizes all of social life. As a form of

false consciousness In Marxist theory, false consciousness is a term describing the ways in which material, ideological, and institutional processes are said to mislead members of the proletariat and other class actors within capitalist societies, concealing the ...

, the Spectacle is described by Debord as a social relationship in which alienated individuals are connected to the social whole through the spectacular pseudo-world. Prof. Hans-Georg Moeller at the University of Macau has characterized the Spectacle as being composed of three theoretical components: #The

semiotics Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. Semiosis is a ...

of how spectacular images relate to reality #The

political economy Political or comparative economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and national economies) and their governance by political systems (e.g. law, institutions, and government). Wi ...

that produces the spectacle #The

ontology Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of realit ...

of what is really true in a society organized around the production of appearances

Forms

Concentrated spectacle

Throughout ''The Society of the Spectacle'', Debord describes the spectacle as seen in the West in its diffuse form; however, he applies the concept to the Marxist-Leninist and

Fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...

states of the 20th century where there was a similar conflict between reality and media images. He develops the concept of the "concentrated spectacle" that is associated with concentrated bureaucracy. Debord also associates this form of spectacle with mixed backward economies and advanced capitalist countries in times of crisis. Every aspect of life, like property, music, and communication is concentrated and is identified with the bureaucratic class. The concentrated spectacle generally identifies itself with a powerful political leader. The concentrated spectacle is made effective through a state of permanent violence and police terror.

Diffuse spectacle

The diffuse spectacle is the spectacle associated with advanced capitalism and commodity abundance. In the diffuse spectacle, each commodity appears at the center of an envisioned society organized around its consumption, negating all other commodities. The spectacle offers satisfaction through the realization of every commodity's social vision, but only fragments of this satisfaction are accessible. The diffuse spectacle operates mostly through seduction, while the concentrated spectacle operates mostly through violence. Because of this, Debord argues that the diffuse spectacle is more effective at suppressing non-spectacular opinions than the concentrated spectacle.

Integrated spectacle

In ''Comments on the Society of the Spectacle'' (1988), Debord asserted that in the two decades since the publication of ''The Society of the Spectacle'', a new form of spectacle has emerged in modern capitalist countries that integrates features of both the diffuse and concentrated spectacle. Debord argues that this was pioneered in France and Italy. According to Debord, the integrated spectacle goes by the label of

liberal democracy Liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, or substantive democracy, is a form of government that combines the organization of a democracy with ideas of liberalism, liberal political philosophy. Common elements within a liberal dem ...

. This spectacle introduces a state of permanent general secrecy, where experts and specialists dictate the morality, statistics, and opinions of the spectacle.

Terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

is the invented enemy of the spectacle, which specialists compare with their "liberal democracy", pointing out the superiority of the latter one. Debord argues that without terrorism, the integrated spectacle wouldn't survive, for it needs to be compared to something in order to show its "obvious" perfection and superiority.

Terrain

Spectacular Time

Debord conceived the commodified consumable experiences of the spectacle to be a form of "pseudocyclical time", in contrast to the "irreversible time" created by the overall forward direction of socioeconomic development that came with the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

. Debord said that the society of the spectacle came to existence in the late 1920s with the rise of mass media. According to him, to turn workers into consumers, capitalism needed to first expropriate their time, noting "the time that modern society is constantly seeking to "save" by increasing transportation speeds or using packaged soups ends up being spent by the American population in watching television three to six hours a day". Thus, the overall project of the Situationists was to destroy the pseudocyclical time of the spectacle and create "a federation of independent times - a federation of playful individual and collective forms of irreversible time that are simultaneously present", and with the proletariat

conscious Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, a ...

of their place in time and history, bring about "authentic communism, which abolishes everything that exists independently of individuals."

The City

Debord saw the creation of the

proletariat The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist ph ...

, collectively disempowered but brought together into the same urban spaces by the same capitalist system as one of capitalism's

contradictions In traditional logic, a contradiction involves a proposition conflicting either with itself or established fact. It is often used as a tool to detect disingenuous beliefs and bias. Illustrating a general tendency in applied logic, Aristotle's ...

that threatened to negate it from within. Thus, capitalism survived by building over this space of authentic life with

urban planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

, in which life is dominated by vision. For the situationists, this urban space was fertile for the creation of situations, mainly through the

dérive The ''dérive'' (, "drift") is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually city, urban, in which participants stop focusing on their everyday relations to their social environment. Developed by members of the Letterist International, it ...

Recuperation

As early as 1958, in the situationist manifesto, Debord described official culture as a "rigged game", where conservative powers forbid subversive ideas to have direct access to the

public discourse The public sphere () is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion, influence political action. A "Public" is "of or concerning the people as a whole." ...

. Such ideas get first trivialized and sterilized, and then they are safely incorporated back within mainstream society, where they can be exploited to add new flavors to old dominant ideas. This technique of the spectacle is sometimes called ''recuperation''. To survive, the spectacle must maintain

social control Social control is the regulations, sanctions, mechanisms, and systems that restrict the behaviour of individuals in accordance with social norms and orders. Through both informal and formal means, individuals and groups exercise social con ...

and effectively handle all threats to the

social order The term social order can be used in two senses: In the first sense, it refers to a particular system of social structures and institutions. Examples are the ancient, the feudal, and the capitalist social order. In the second sense, social orde ...

. Recuperation, a concept first proposed by

,Robert Chasse, Bruce Elwell, Jonathon Horelick, Tony Verlaan. (1969)
Faces of Recuperation
'. In the American section of the Situationist International, issue #1 (New York, June 1969). is the process by which the spectacle intercepts socially and politically radical ideas and images, commodifies them, and safely incorporates them back within mainstream society. More broadly, it may refer to the appropriation or co-opting of any subversive works or ideas by mainstream media. It is the opposite of

détournement A détournement (), meaning "rerouting, hijacking" in French, is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and later adapted by the Situationist International (SI),'' Report on the Construction of Situations'' (1957) t ...

, in which conventional ideas and images are reorganized and recontextualized with radical intentions. Debord discusses the close link between revolution and culture and

everyday life Everyday life, daily life or routine life comprises the ways in which people typically act, think, and feel on a daily basis. Everyday life may be described as mundane, routine, natural, habitual, or Normality (behavior), normal. Human diurna ...

, and the reason why conservative powers are interested in forbidding them "any direct access to the rigged game of official culture." Debord recalls that worldwide revolutionary movements that emerged during the 1920s were followed by "an ebbing of the movements that had tried to advance a liberatory new attitude in culture and everyday life," and that such movements were brought to a "complete social isolation."

History and influences

Bernays and Adorno

Debord claims that in its limited sense, ''spectacle'' means the

, which are "its most glaring superficial manifestation".Debord (1977) thesis 24 However, T. J. Clark regards this as a journalistic cliché. Clark argues that the spectacle came to dominate Paris during the Second Empire thanks to

Haussmann's renovation of Paris Haussmann's renovation of Paris was a vast public works programme commissioned by French Emperor Napoleon III and directed by his prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 1853 and 1870. It included the demolition of medieval ...

. Debord, however, said that the society of the spectacle came to existence in the late 1920s.Eskilson (2005) pp.377-8Debord (1988) ''Comments on the Society of the Spectacle'', II This is the period in which modern

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a Product (business), product or Service (economics), service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of int ...

and

public relation Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. Pu ...

s were introduced, most significantly with the innovative techniques developed by

Edward Bernays Edward Louis Bernays ( ; ; November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995) was an American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations". While credited with advancing the profession ...

in his campaigns for the tobacco industry.Donley T. Studlar (2002
''Tobacco Control: Comparative Politics in the United States and Canada''
p.55 quotation: In his 1928 book ''

Propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...

'', Bernays theorized the "conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses." The critique of the society of the spectacle shares many assumptions and arguments with the critique of the ''

culture industry The term culture industry () was coined by the critical theorists Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), and was presented as critical vocabulary in the chapter "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception", o ...

'' made by

Theodor W. Adorno Theodor W. Adorno ( ; ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund; 11 September 1903 – 6 August 1969) was a German philosopher, musicologist, and social theorist. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose work has com ...

and

Max Horkheimer Max Horkheimer ( ; ; 14 February 1895 – 7 July 1973) was a German philosopher and sociologist best known for his role in developing critical theory as director of the Institute for Social Research, commonly associated with the Frankfurt Schoo ...

in 1944.

Marx and Lukács

With ''

'', Debord attempted to provide the Situationist International (SI) with a Marxist

critical theory Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are ...

. The concept of "the spectacle" expanded to all society the Marxist concept of reification drawn from the first section of

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

's ''Capital'', entitled ''The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof'' and developed by

in his work, ''History and Class Consciousness''. This was an analysis of the logic of commodities whereby they achieve an ideological autonomy from the process of their production, so that "social action takes the form of the action of objects, which rule the producers instead of being ruled by them." Developing this analysis of the logic of the commodity, ''The Society of the Spectacle'' generally understood society as divided between the passive subject who consumes the spectacle and the reified spectacle itself. In a spectacular society, the system of commodity production generates a continual stream of images, for consumption by people who lack the experiences represented therein. The spectacle represents people solely in terms of their subordination to commodities, and experience itself becomes commodified. In the opening of ''

Das Kapital ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' (), also known as ''Capital'' or (), is the most significant work by Karl Marx and the cornerstone of Marxian economics, published in three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination of his ...

'', Marx makes the observation that within the capitalist mode of production we evaluate materials not by what purpose they serve or what they're actually useful for, but we instead recognize them based on their value in the market.Karl Marx (1867) ''Volume I, Section 4. The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof''. Das Kapital (1867). In capitalist society, virtually identical products often have vastly different values simply because one has a more recognizable or prestigious

brand name A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

. The value of a

commodity In economics, a commodity is an economic goods, good, usually a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the Market (economics), market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to w ...

is abstract and not tied to its actual characteristics. Much in the same way capitalism commodifies the material world, the situationists assert that advanced capitalism commodifies experience and perception.

Legacy

A long tradition of work exists in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

on the "political spectacle"McLagan, Meg. "Spectacles of difference: cultural activism and the mass mediation of Tibet", ''Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain'', 2002, p.107 which started with Debord; many literary critics and

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

s in the 20th century contributed to this analysis. According to anthropologist Meg McLagan, "Debord analyzes the penetration of the commodity form into mass communication, which he argues results in the spectacle". Andrew Hussey claims in his biography of Debord that the term spectacle began life not in a Marxist context, but was first borrowed from

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...

and his concept of the mass secret. The critic Sadie Plant argues that later theories of postmodernism, particularly those of

Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard (, ; ; – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist and philosopher with an interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulat ...

and Lyotard, owe much to Debord's theory, and represent an apolitical appropriation of its criticism of the unreality of life under

late capitalism The concept of late capitalism (in German: ''Spätkapitalismus''), also known as late-stage capitalism, was first used by the German social scientist Werner Sombart (1863–1941) in 1928, to describe the new capitalist order emerging at that tim ...

. Debord was a rebel to his core and despised academic

commodification Commodification is the process of transforming inalienable, free, or gifted things (objects, services, ideas, nature, personal information, people or animals) into commodities, or objects for sale.For animals"United Nations Commodity Trade Stati ...

of his ideas and their integration into the diffuse spectacle. Throughout his life he fought to make his ideas truly revolutionary. In ''Green Illusions'', Ozzie Zehner draws largely on Debord to argue that the spectacles of solar cells, wind turbines, and other technologies have organized environmental thinking around energy-production at the expense of energy-reduction strategies.

Notes

References

*Eskilson, Stephen (2005) ''The Spectacle at the Fair'' in Deborah J. Johnson, David Ogawa, Kermit Swiler Champabr>''Seeing and Beyond: A Festschrift on Eighteenth to Twenty-First Century Art in Honor of Kermit S. Champa''
ed. Deborah J. Johnson and David Ogawa (Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt and New York: Peter Lang Verlag * Debord, Guy (1977) 967 ''

'', translation by Fredy Perlman and Jon Supak (Black & Red, 1970; rev. ed. 1977). Online a
Library.nothingness.org
and at

Wikisource Wikisource is an online wiki-based digital library of free-content source text, textual sources operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole; it is also the name for each instance of that project, one f ...