After reading Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle, one might leave either thinking that they understood exactly what was being said, or that they couldn't understand it because they have yet to receive a PhD. This is for the latter group. It isn’t exactly a comforting start when one of the main subjects in a peace of work is described as “complex and full of metaphysical subtleties,(35)” but fear not! This essay will (make an attempt to) clearly define the three major subjects; the society, the spectacle, and the commodity, explain what Debord is talking about, and argue that perhaps the spectacle might not be as bad as it seems.
It is important to understand that, in The Society of the Spectacle, Debord is relating all of this to media. Not just media as in “the news” or “tabloids,” but ALL media, as in films, television shows, music, anything that we as a society consume (and not in the eating-food kind of way). The society is exactly what it sounds like. We are the society. The people in New Jersey, the U.S, North America, and the rest of the world, are all part of the society. So far so good. Then there is the spectacle. The spectacle, as defined by Debord, is “the stage at which the commodity has succeeded in totally colonizing social life” (42). Basically, it is the vessel in which we, as a society, use to view, or gain access to, the commodity. Television, radio, computers and cell phones are all examples of this vessel that allows access to the commodity. What is this “commodity” he speaks of? Well, my computers definition of commodity is “a useful or valuable thing, such as water or time.” That sounds pretty important! Debord’s definition on the other hand, is “the domination of society by ‘imperceptible as well as perceptible things’” (36). For anyone like me, perceptible means something that is able to be seen or noticed and imperceptible means something that can’t be. So basically, the commodity is something that is happening, and that something is us as a society being dominated by things that we notice and not notice. More specifically, because he relates this to media, we are being dominated by the want to consume media. Within the chapter, Debord creates a type of circle that keeps feeding itself. We as a society are slaves to the commodity, and the spectacle is the only way in which we can satisfy our needs. Therefore, Debord feels that we are a society of the spectacle, meaning we belong to it because it determines how we get our fix.
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| The Vicious Circle |
This sounds rather bleak, and that is because Debord is purposefully making it so. Keeping with the theme of getting ones fix, in the text he refers to this circle as a “permanent opium war,” in which our satisfaction can only be obtained by more commodity (44). He genuinely seems to look down upon it, but is the circle, or the spectacle, really so bad that it should be compared to an opium war? When Debord wrote this, television was the primary spectacle in which he was referring to, but now we have so much more than that. Television is just the tipping point. Now we have computers and tablets and cellphones that do things that a television can do and more. The technology in today’s smartphones is more advanced then what brought the astronauts to the moon. Do we act like slaves to them every once in a while? Yes. But to compare it to a drug that has ruined peoples lives seems a bit much. If it were not for our crave of newer and better spectacles to consume the commodity, technology would either seas to advance or, at the very least, slow down immensely. We wouldn’t have the smartphones we have, or the machines we use in our daily lives from health care to home care. What’s certain is that we would definitely not be where we are today, nor would the future look so prosperous in terms on what is possible. There are novels devoted to how advances in technology have changed - and will continue to change - the world for the better. Because of our demand to view the commodity through faster and better spectacles, technology, and society as a whole, has been allowed to make world changing leaps into the future. Debord should be grateful for the fact that we are a society of the spectacle. It is because of the spectacles we have today that a convergence class in a Newark university is even learning about him in the first place.
Doesn't the good outweigh the bad?
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| Fox News |
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| Hadron Collider |
Bibliography
Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone, 1994. Print.
"Debord, Guy - Anselm Jappe." Debord, Guy - Anselm Jappe. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Oct. 2015.
http://imgkid.com/fox-sports-logo-vector.shtml
"The University of Sydney - The University of Sydney." News. The University of Sydney, n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2015.
"The Vicious Cycle" image was created by myself using Microsoft Word.
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