The Society Of The Spectacle, Part 3:
by Guy Debord, ed. Molly Lambert
Disclaimer: I’m not trying to push Marxism on you. I cut the bulk of the most political stuff because frankly, I’m not advocating a coup d’état. What I do advocate, however, is an overthrow of the Celebrity-Industrial complex.
Wealth is not a virtue, and neither is fame. In American culture the ruling class is depicted everywhere, like a visible aristocracy. I would like it if more people aspired to be good rather than rich. But what the hell do I know, I’m a terminally broke blogstress. And so I give you, Part 3:
The spectacle, considered as the reigning society’s method for paralyzing history and memory and for suppressing any history based on historical time, represents a false consciousness of time.
The free space of commodities is constantly being altered and redesigned in order to become ever more identical to itself, to get as close as possible to motionless monotony.
While eliminating geographical distance, this society produces a new internal distance in the form of spectacular separation.
John F. Kennedy survived as an orator to the point of delivering his own funeral oration, since Theodore Sorenson continued to write speeches for his successor in the same style that had contributed so much toward the dead man’s public persona.
Culture is the general sphere of knowledge and of representations of lived experiences within historical societies divided into classes.
It is a generalizing power which itself exists as a separate entity, as division of intellectual labor and as intellectual labor of division.
The most modern tendency of spectacular culture — which is also the one most closely linked to the repressive practice of the general organization of society,
Seeks by means of “collective projects” to construct complex neoartistic environments out of decomposed elements.
As culture becomes completely commodified it tends to become the star commodity of spectacular society.
He predicts that in the second half of this century the “knowledge industry” will become the driving force of the American economy, as was the automobile in the first half of this century and the railroad in the last half of the previous century.
Ideas improve. The meaning of words plays a role in that improvement.
Plagiarism is necessary. Progress depends on it. It sticks close to an author’s phrasing, exploits his expressions, deletes a false idea, replaces it with the right one.
The repression of practice and the antidialectical false consciousness that results from that repression are imposed at every moment of everyday life subjected to the spectacle.
A subjection that systematically destroys the “faculty of encounter” and replaces it with a social hallucination: a false consciousness of encounter, an “illusion of encounter.”
In a society where no one can any longer be recognized by others, each individual becomes incapable of recognizing his own reality.
Ideology is at home; separation has built its own world.
Imprisoned in a flattened universe bounded by the screen of the spectacle that has enthralled him.
READ THIS RECORDING, RULE THE WORLD
In This Club – Usher Ft. Young Jeezy: mp3
This Whole World – The Beach Boys: mp3
Circus World – Guided By Voices: mp3
There’s A New World Just Opening For Me – The Kinks: mp3
Get High, Rule Tha World – Lil’ Wayne: mp3
Angelina “Neocon” Jolie
Cultivation Theory kind of goes out the window when it comes to the internet. We’ll find a way to TIVO past those e-ads.
After retiring from acting, Bill Murray might be a Cubs announcer, according to actor Bill Murray.
Molly Lambert is senior editor of This Recording.
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