News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
[Readers should consult Ken Knabb's Bureau of Public Secrets (http://www.bopsecrets.org/ ) for texts and translations of the Situationists -- and for Ken's own work. Both are essential reading.--DC]
http://tinyurl.com/2xf7h6 Books Features Featured Book Review: Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle By Judith Fitzgerald Mar 24, 2008, 12:52 GMT
The society whose modernisation has reached the stage of integrated spectacle is characterised by the combined effect of five principal factors: incessant technological renewal, integration of state and economy, generalised secrecy, unanswerable lies, and eternal present . . . -- Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (1967)
In December 1994, French essayist, filmmaker, and counter-celebrity nonpareil Guy Debord helped himself out of this world with a bullet. It was a direct hit proving, if nothing else, that death's one hell of a great career move.
Instantly transformed into the sacrificial punk saint of all things useless, beautiful, and free, the co-founder of the Situationist International's "anti-movement" during the riotous sixties had done the undoable: He'd wantonly traded the mystery of invisibility for the shock of notoriety by making a magnificent spectacle of himself and, in the process, he'd guaranteed his greatest contribution to civilisation, culture, and creativity, The Society of the Spectacle, did not vanish with him. That seminal volume, initially something of a sacred scripture for activists, anarchists, and maverick academics, shot to the top of the charts when publications as diverse as Le monde libertaire and The Utne Reader raced to eulogise the prophetic guy to the skies.
Here on terra firma, on the brink of our brave new nirvana six years later, Debord's integrated spectacle -- the techno-media juggernaut -- looms larger than life. Just prior to his death, the 62-year-old who drank too much and wrote too little had wryly observed, in the "Preface to the Third French Edition" of his uncannily prescient text, that the "same formidable question that has been haunting the world for two centuries is about to be posed again, everywhere: How can the poor be made to work once their illusions have been shattered and once force has been defeated?"
Positing his belief that the integrated spectacle -- his IS writ large -- comprises the material reconstruction of "the religious illusion," Debord condemned its dictatorial freedom to proclaim "the predominance of appearances" while concealing its essential character "as a visible negation of life -- and as a negation of life that has invented a visual form of itself . . . For what the spectacle expresses is the total practice of one particular economic and social formation; it is, so to speak, the formation's agenda. It is also the historical moment by which we happen to be governed . . . The spectacle is self-generated, and it makes up its own rules: It is a specious form of the sacred. . . . The spectator feels at home nowhere, for the spectacle is everywhere . . . The spectacle's function in society is the concrete manufacture of alienation . . . The spectacle is capital accumulated to the point where it becomes image."
Look no further than the ostentatious whoopla surrounding the AOL-Time-Warner megadeal last week, a nice bit of bizthness pundits predict will engender copy-cat conglomerates greedy for the greatest gains at the expense of the greatest good. Merger-mania is afoot; God is dead; no doubt, with the Western world's accelerated state of disgrace, what can only be described as cultureless utilitarianism (CU) will -- IS willing -- outlast us all.
Everybody knows we've been universally flattened by the commodification of absolutely everything; nobody quite recalls when the remote took control of our lives. But, like it or not, we've all become the contemporary anybody, the chronically frustrated voyeur of the ubiquitously visible, the itsy-bitsy teenie-weenie chip off the ol' integrated block.
Where cultureless utilitarianism rules, everything equals everything else. Its proudest contribution to our accelerated razing of civilisation lurks in its insidious derogation of the producer (either maker or creator) in favour of the shameless elevation of the product, the package, the goods. Insofar as aesthetic values, spiritual mainstays, and guiding principles provide sanctuary for the benumbed and beleaguered contemporary anybody, CU affirms that when anything goes, everything most assuredly does.
Each civilisation assesses themes, issues, images, and mythologies central to its unity and self-respect, predominantly through art and the sacral. CU's plundering of the gratuitous (or use-less) stands as the major obstacle to the emotional, psychological, and spiritual growth of individuals within the global community. Self-definition depends more upon external factors and relies less upon internal landscapes of the heart, soul, and spirit, the very things which guarantee civilisation's preservation and ability to keep barbarity at arm's length.
In this, the epoch of the triumph of CU, we are only as healthy as our bottom lines (or so the juggernautical core would have us think). Voiding our contemporary crises of faith, belief, and individual value resulting from the systematic slaughter of all things useless, beautiful, and free, the integrated spectacle's perpetual-motion machine gently soothes, lulls, and consoles us with the rather cold comfort that we -- the billions of contemporary anybodies -- are anything but alone.
Canadian poet and literary critic Judith Fitzgerald's critically acclaimed Adagios Quartet's BOOK III: Electra's Benison has just been named one of The Globe and Mail's TOP 100 BOOKS (2007).
-- Dan Clore
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_ http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page: http://tinyurl.com/292yz9 News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is in charge on this island? Professor: Why, no one. Skipper: No one? Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy! -- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"
P*@gmail.com
2008-03-25 21:22:41 EST
The Society Of The Spectacle changed my life. It is very short but quite difficult to read. One friend said, "It made me feel as though I were illiterate." >
Dan Clore
2008-03-26 19:41:14 EST
p*s@gmail.com wrote:
> The Society Of The Spectacle changed my life. It is very short but > quite difficult to read. One friend said, "It made me feel as though > I were illiterate."
"Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea." -- Isidore Ducasse (Comte de Lautréamont), _Poésies_
"Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea." -- Guy Debord, _The Society of the Spectacle_
-- Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_: http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page: http://tinyurl.com/292yz9 News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind. -- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
P*@gmail.com
2008-03-31 02:42:43 EST
On Mar 27, 7:41 am, Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote: > patmpow...@gmail.com wrote: > > The Society Of The Spectacle changed my life. It is very short but > > quite difficult to read. One friend said, "It made me feel as though > > I were illiterate." > > "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces > an author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a > false idea, and replaces it with the right idea." > -- Isidore Ducasse (Comte de Lautréamont), _Poésies_ > > "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces > an author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a > false idea, and replaces it with the right idea." > -- Guy Debord, _The Society of the Spectacle_ >
Yes, that is what makes it a difficult read. He redefines common words like "spectacle" and "commodity". So if you miss a definition then the remainder of the book makes no sense.
Big_one
2008-03-31 07:14:02 EST
On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:42:43 -0700 (PDT), patpowersspam@gmail.com wrote:
> He redefines common >words like "spectacle" and "commodity". So if you miss a definition >then the remainder of the book makes no sense.
That may be true, but it is a conversation & like a chat over a pint if you miss a reference you're lost for a while until you get back on track. However, to the uninitiated it is perhaps an easier read than wading through the texts it references may be - I'd point a naive reader curious about (for example) commodity towards Debord rather than Marx, Lukacs, Nietzsche, etc. & Debourd is clear common sense compared to his successors like Baudrillard who seem to actively refuse to clarify or even define terms.
Dan Clore
2008-04-01 00:19:32 EST
p*m@gmail.com wrote: > On Mar 27, 7:41 am, Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote: >> patmpow...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> The Society Of The Spectacle changed my life. It is very short >>> but quite difficult to read. One friend said, "It made me feel >>> as though I were illiterate."
>> "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an >> author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, >> and replaces it with the right idea." -- Isidore Ducasse (Comte de >> Lautréamont), _Poésies_ >> >> "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an >> author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, >> and replaces it with the right idea." -- Guy Debord, _The Society >> of the Spectacle_ >> > Yes, that is what makes it a difficult read. He redefines common > words like "spectacle" and "commodity". So if you miss a definition > then the remainder of the book makes no sense.
It might help to start with Ken Knabb's _Situationist International Anthology_, before proceeding to _The Society of the Spectacle_.
-- Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_: http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page: http://tinyurl.com/292yz9 News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind. -- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
P*@gmail.com
2008-04-01 04:26:35 EST
On Apr 1, 11:19 am, Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote: > patpowerss...@gmail.com wrote: > > On Mar 27, 7:41 am, Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote: > >> patmpow...@gmail.com wrote: > >>> The Society Of The Spectacle changed my life. It is very short > >>> but quite difficult to read. One friend said, "It made me feel > >>> as though I were illiterate." > >> "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an > >> author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, > >> and replaces it with the right idea." -- Isidore Ducasse (Comte de > >> Lautréamont), _Poésies_ > > >> "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an > >> author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, > >> and replaces it with the right idea." -- Guy Debord, _The Society > >> of the Spectacle_ > > > Yes, that is what makes it a difficult read. He redefines common > > words like "spectacle" and "commodity". So if you miss a definition > > then the remainder of the book makes no sense. > > It might help to start with Ken Knabb's _Situationist International > Anthology_, before proceeding to _The Society of the Spectacle_. > > -- > Dan Clore > > My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt > Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:http://tinyurl.com/292yz9 > News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo > > Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the > immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind. > -- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
What I'm trying to say is to read the Society Of The Spectacle it is necessary to understand each sentence before proceeding to the next. Take your time. So if I were to lend that book to anyone else I'd give them this advice.
Dan Clore
2008-04-01 04:50:01 EST
p*s@gmail.com wrote: > On Apr 1, 11:19 am, Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote: >> patpowerss...@gmail.com wrote: >>> On Mar 27, 7:41 am, Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote: >>>> patmpow...@gmail.com wrote: >>>>> The Society Of The Spectacle changed my life. It is very >>>>> short but quite difficult to read. One friend said, "It made >>>>> me feel as though I were illiterate." >>>> "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an >>>> author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false >>>> idea, and replaces it with the right idea." -- Isidore Ducasse >>>> (Comte de Lautréamont), _Poésies_ "Plagiarism is necessary. >>>> Progress implies it. It embraces an author's phrase, makes use >>>> of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with >>>> the right idea." -- Guy Debord, _The Society of the Spectacle_ >>> Yes, that is what makes it a difficult read. He redefines common >>> words like "spectacle" and "commodity". So if you miss a >>> definition then the remainder of the book makes no sense.
>> It might help to start with Ken Knabb's _Situationist International >> Anthology_, before proceeding to _The Society of the Spectacle_.
> What I'm trying to say is to read the Society Of The Spectacle it is > necessary to understand each sentence before proceeding to the next. > Take your time. So if I were to lend that book to anyone else I'd > give them this advice.
Yes. It's the sort of thing that you set aside a little time to read, concentrate on it, and come out changed.
-- Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_: http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page: http://tinyurl.com/292yz9 News & Views for Anarchists & Activists: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind. -- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"