Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

[Cross posted at Reading the Spectacle]

The internet is a medium of the spectacle. When you read Reading the Spectacle you are, in a sense, literally reading the spectacle.

“In analyzing the spectacle we are obliged to a certain extent to use the spectacle’s own language, in the sense that we have to operate on the methodological terrain of the society that expresses itself in the spectacle. For the spectacle is both the meaning and the agenda of our particular socio-economic formation. It is the historical moment in which we are caught.”

One might say the internet is a less alienated form of communication, in that amateur creators of free content are afforded the freedom to publish their work in a free to inexpensive forum, relatively free from the constraints of commercial and/or political interests, (though this doesn’t mean entities like Google or deviantART or YouTube won’t exploit the display of such work for spectacular commerce with context-sensitive smart advertising.) Even so, the internet isn’t going to remain as free as it is forever.

[Cross posted at Reading the Spectacle]

“Did you see Idol last night?” … “Can you believe the Pats went for it on 4th and 2?” … “It turns out Lost jumped the shark in season one, but none of us noticed!” … Small talk and Monday morning quaterbacking around the water cooler are hardly human interaction. Although an utterance of, “There was nothing good on TV last night so I read this book in which the author says we no longer directly live, but experience a false representation of life through an endless succession of spectacles,” might be met with a slightly more authentic form of human contact: the blank stare.*

“The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.”

* The Blank Stare, once the weapon of sardons and malcontented comedians, (see: Bill Hicks,) has matriculated into common use and been commodified by the spectacle to punctuate and soften irony. A goofy “just kidding!” sung after every “insult,” (see: Jon Stewart.)

[Cross-posted at Reading the Spectacle]

This child is not making a soccer ball for himself. He is making a commodity of a thousand soccer balls. Somewhere along the line he may have the opportunity to own or play with one of these balls, but he only benefits from a very small portion of the value of his surplus production. Most of these soccer balls will be utilized by the children of other alienated workers in far away lands.

“[A]lienated consumption has become just as much a duty for the masses as alienated production. The society’s entire sold labor has become a total commodity whose constant turnover must be maintained at all cost. To accomplish this, this total commodity has to be returned in fragmented form to fragmented individuals who are completely cut off from the overall operation of the productive forces.”

[Cross posted. Check out Reading the Spectacle]

Home buyers expect an updated kitchen with stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops. And a master suite with plenty of space. And a tiled bathroom. And don’t cheap out on the fixtures!

“The spectacle … is the omnipresent affirmation of the choices that have already been made in the sphere of production and in the consumption implied by that production.”

Books that Changed Me: The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord.

Voices From The Grave! Guy Debord changed my life. Well, he at least provided a framework and language to think about certain truths I’d had some nagging sense of, yet until now, would have struggled to express. Though the edition pictured above is the book I read, for cutting and pasting purposes, the excerpts in the article below come from a different translation that I found online.

WHAT IS the spectacle? Debord puts forth the proposition that we people of the modern age do not directly live, but rather experience a representation of life through an endless succession of spectacles.

In all of its particular manifestations — news, propaganda, advertising, entertainment — the spectacle represents the dominant model of life. It is the omnipresent affirmation of the choices that have already been made in the sphere of production and in the consumption implied by that production. In both form and content the spectacle serves as a total justification of the conditions and goals of the existing system. [Debord, #6]

That sense of dissonance we experience, in quiet moments of clarity, between the world we plainly perceive, and the world as it is presented to us, is born of our alienation from an unreal version of ourselves which is a construct of our all-too-real societal (spectacular) institutions.

Spectacular society is uncompromisingly divided into a small elite ruling class and everybody else, whose value stems from their productivity. The spectacle’s greatest strength is in it’s ability to create and perpetuate an image, an alternate version, representing the “truth” of these opposing classes.

Wait, when the fuck did all of this happen?

The historical moment when Bolshevism triumphed for itself in Russia and social democracy fought victoriously for the old world marks the inauguration of the state of affairs that is at the heart of the modern spectacle’s domination: the representation of the working class has become an enemy of the working class. [Debord, #100]

This representation of the working class is still at work today. It could be witnessed recently, when we saw the vilification of autoworkers as they made efforts to ensure the pensions and retirement health benefits owed them as a term of their employment would continue to be honored, even as the auto companies were facing bankruptcy. It can be seen in the vilification of migrant workers, even as they harvest our food! It cannot be said that that work isn’t valuable to society, but these are some of the most hated people in this country.

This sort of domination through false representation and alienation isn’t limited to workers. The portrayal of women, minorities, young people, the handicapped, in no way reflects the true nature of particular individuals or their aspirations. The spectacle thrives by creating these groups and categorizing people by association, and then championing or dispatching whatever group’s concerns as determined by political utility.

The spectacle is a potent servant of power.

Debord’s chapter 6, Spectacular Time is one that really sings. Especially to one experiencing the constant sense of loss brought on by an obsessive preoccupation with the inexorable passage of time. (more…)