OBE#5
After this short but dense reading, I was confused. I think the remedy to most confusion is Google. Obviously, this reading had Marx written all over it, but a 20th century extension of Marx. After reading a little on Debord’s background, I was not surprised to find that he was a depressed alcoholic who killed himself (I would be too if I saw the world as he did in such absolute terms). He also led a movement and or group called the “Situationists International” in France who rebelled in 1968. In addition to writing “Society of the Spectacle”, he made a movie version of this book. I watched about 15 minutes of this movie (which is available on Google video in two parts), which was Debord (I think) speaking over various video and images of war, political leaders, semi-nude women, cities, and police beating citizens. The movie also had clips from old black and white films that I did not recognize and was not able to find the names of. For me, this did little in the way of clarification.
As I understood the readings, Debord is extending on Karl Marx’s ideas and theories of alienation, but Debord extends that beyond paid wage labor. As the “spectacle” is the way people socialize which is controlled by images, this extends into all aspects of life. Its modernization that is our oppressor but it controls public and private life. It also sounds as if he is against not only capitalism, but industrialism as well. He writes, “…the technical equipment which objectively eliminates labor must at the same time preserve labor as a commodity and as the only source of commodity (#45)”. From what I know, Marx saw capitalism as the main source of oppression, not industrialism. If I am correct on this (which I may very well not be), I am surprised as Debord is heavily influenced by Marx. I know that human labor became a commodity because of industrialism, but I do not think Marx directly blamed one on the other.
Debord sees the “spectacle” as all consuming power that is cyclical. It is all part of a larger and powerful picture. Moreover, I get a sense of hopelessness that society is in such a cycle and system of extreme modernization. I also think he sees capitalism as being on the same plane as a dictatorship. However, as modernity has created a society of automation, I think that pre-modernized society has too, just in the form of religion. Religion and the “spectacle” serve the same purpose, which is to have society norms and controls which keep citizens under their thumbs. They are both to keep people working and to keep the peace so to speak. I do think that today’s society has its values backward and are values are misdirected (money being our end all be all) but at the same time the spectacle serves a purpose, just as religion served the same purpose before industrialism. Our world is one that depends on commodity and the pre-modern world is one that depended on being self sufficent and religion. Furthermore, I think there are plenty of examples today of people who recognize that there are these controls and that they have negative affects on people. Not everyone accepts the abuses of human labor power and not everyone socializes in a way that is mediated by the “spectacle”. Not everyone has a cell phone or a computer, but the powers that be are making it increasingly difficult for anyone to go with out cell phones or computers. These cooperations and media have such a "purchasing" power over the public which fabricates our wants and "needs".