4. Basic concepts of Marxism
Guy Debord’s concept of spectacle are based
on Marxist concept :
Alienation
Separation of producers, labour and products
Commodity Fetishism
Social relation between human beings and
objects
5. 1.Biography of Guy Debord
A French Marxist theorist, poet, writer, filmmaker,
hypergraphist
Founding member of the groups Lettrist International,
Situationist International
Society of the Spectacle (1967)
a major catalyst for the uprising
Writing style: metaphor
Society of the Spectacle remains one of the great theoretical
works on modern-day capital, the role of mediation in
social relationships
Led the Situationist International group which
influenced the Paris uprising of 1968
Debord committed suicide on November 30, 1994
6. 2. 1960s of France
1967
Consumer society
Urbanization
France rebuilt after world WWII
Beginning of attention to the media
Debord argued that spectacular features (mass media,
advertising) have a central role in a capitalist society
To show a fake reality in order to mask the real capitalist
degradation of human life
The Situationist International supported the May '68 revolts, and
asked the workers to occupy the factories and to run them with
direct democracy
7. 2. 1960s of France
1968
Frustration over poverty, unemployment, the
conservative government, opposition to the Vietnam war,
gave rise to a mass movement for sweeping social change
In May, workers and students took to the streets in strikes,
walkouts, demonstrations
Largest general strike that resulted in the economy coming to a
virtual standstill
Debord 1973's film, The Society of the Spectacle, dealt
with the motivations around the events of May 1968
Contains large amounts of archival footage of the events
8. 3. 1960s of France
France after WWII
France rebounded quickly
Enjoyed rapid economic growth and modernization
A period of economic prosperity in the mid 20th century
9. 3. About the film
“The Society of the Spectacle” (1973)
Debord’s film adaptation of his book Society of the Spectacle
Clips from Russian and Hollywood features, TVC,
publicity shots, soft-core porn, street scenes, news,
documentary footage
12. What is spectacle?
1. Representation
2. Representation of the unreal social life
3. One-way communication to public
4. Argument of “Seeing is Believing” statement
5. Ultimate goal of Spectacle
13. 1. Representation
#1 “Everything that was directly lived has moved away
into a representation”
#5 “The spectacle cannot be understood as an abuse of
the world of vision… It is a world vision which has
become objectified”
#6 “The spectacle’s form and content are identically the
total justification of the existing system’s
conditions and goals. The spectacle is also the
permanent presence of this justification…………”
#16 “It is the true reflection of the production of
things…”
14. 1. Representation
All things in our life are reflected in the spectacle
All images we can see through media are called as
spectacle
We are all living within the spectacle
but Debord thought that we couldn’t even notice and be aware
of its fault and influences to us
15. 2. Representation of the unreal social life
#2 “The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of
life…where the liar has lied to himself…”
#3 “It is the common ground of the deceived gaze and of
false consciousness”
#4 “The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social
relation among people mediated by images”
#6 “It is the heart of the unrealism of the real society... the
spectacle is the present model of socially dominant life”
16. 2. Representation of the unreal social life
#10 “the spectacle is affirmation of appearance and
affirmation of all human life, namely social life, as
mere appearance”
#11 “… the spectacle is nothing other than the sense of
the total practice of a social-economic formation.”
#16 “It is the true reflection of the production of things,
and the false objectification of the producers.”
#17 “…At the same time all individual reality has
become social reality directly dependent on social
power and shaped by it...”
17. 2. Representation of the unreal social life
and relations
Showing us images of unreal social life
Emphasizing the false of the spectacle
They cannot be reached easily in our real life
The life shown in spectacle are all inverted
The social relation is separated from “between people to
commodity” to “between people to images”
18. 3. One-way communication to public
#12 “The spectacle itself as something enormously
positive, indisputable and inaccessible…….that which
appears is good, that which is good appears.”
#13 “It is the sun which never sets over the empire of
modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the
world and bathes endlessly in its own glory.”
#23 “The spectacle is thus a specialized activity which
speaks for all the others. It is diplomatic
representation of hierarchic society to itself……”
19. 3. One-way communication to public
#3“it is the common ground of the deceived gaze and of false
consciousness, and the unification it achieves is nothing but an
official language of generalized separation.”
#8 “One cannot abstractly contrast the spectacle to actual
social activity: ..”
#9 “In a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is a moment
of the false.”
20. 3. One-way communication to public
People can only act passively, as the producers are hard for the public
to access
Public would no longer express themselves or have no way to express
their voice
Spectacle has its own bias, it would only show one-side information,
which is mainly positive
Spectacle has justified and analysis the information for the audiences
Public would have nonintervention but only to receive this
information passively without reaction
21. 3. One-way communication to public
Monopoly
Give confidence to public
The public got to trust the spectacle
spectacle is an ideology and also a kind of society construction.
Reality was separated because people are just focusing on the
spectacle.
Afterwards, spectacle nearly become the reality.
24. 4. Argument of “Seeing is Believing” statement
#13 “It is the sun which never sets over the empire of
modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the
world and bathes endlessly in its own glory.”
#19 “The spectacle inherits all the weaknesses of the
Western philosophical project which undertook to
comprehend activity in terms of the categories of
seeing”
#20 “The spectacle is the material reconstruction of the
religious illusion. Spectacular technology has not
dispelled the religious clouds where men had placed
their own powers detached from themselves; it has
only tied them to an earthly base.”
25. 4. Argument of
“Seeing is Believing” statement
“Seeing is believing” (John Berger)
Western Philosophy’s weakness
Explain it by the existence of Spectacle
Although something that cannot be revealed, it is still existing and happening
Spectacle is earthly base, we can’t actually see it but we are living within it
Using religious illusion as a comparison
Religious illusion is something people imagined like heaven
Spectacle is not similar to religious illusion, it is a real phenomenon we are
actually living in
26. 5. Ultimate goal of Spectacle
#2 “The specialization of images of the world is completed
in the world of autonomous image………The
spectacle…….is the autonomous movement of the non-
living”
#13 “It is the sun which never sets over the empire of
modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the
world and bathes endlessly in its own glory.”
#14 “In the spectacle, which is the image of the ruling
economy, the goal is nothing, development
everything. The spectacle aims at nothing other
than itself.”
#34 “The spectacle is capital to such a degree of
accumulation that it becomes an image.”
27. 5. Ultimate goal of Spectacle
Ultimate goal of the spectacle is only related to its own
division and development
Become a kind of capital for certain exchange ultimately
28. How does it work?
1. Mass media
2. Political Economy
3. Production and Consumption
4. Separation
a. Product and worker
b. Producer and worker
c. Leisure time and worker
29. 1. Mass Media
#6 “In all its specific forms, as information or
propaganda... the spectacle is the present model of
socially dominant life.”
Spectacle would appear in different form, such as mass
media in our daily life
In the form of entertainment, such as soap drama we enjoy
30. 2. Political Economy
#11 “…spectacle is nothing other than the sense of the
total practice of a social-economic formation, its use of time.”
#12 “that which appears is good, that which is good
appears. The attitude which it demands in principle is passive
acceptance...”
#14 “In the spectacle, which is the image of the ruling
economy”...the spectacle is the main production of present-
day society
#16 “The spectacle subjugates living men to itself to the
extent that the economy has totally subjugated them. It is no more
than the economy developing for itself. It is the true reflection of the
production of things, and the false objectification of the producers.”
31. 2. Political Economy
The good appears of the images mean they are authority and people will
realize they are reality without reconsideration
Audiences received them passively without expressing their will
Spectacle was mainly controlled by a small group of people (mainly
capitalists)
Spectacle was the means of them to earn money, especially for development
of the economy
Large group of people (workers), their identity and thinking were being
shaped
Spectacle was a monologue, one-way communication
32. 3. Production and Consumption
“The first phase of the domination of the economy over
social life brought into the definition of all human
realization the obvious degradation of being into having... At
the same time all individual reality has become social reality
directly dependent on social power ”
The view point of people is being shaped
they no longer think about what their life should be
they tried to think about what they “should have”.
people will be longing for the commodity constantly.
consume the images in order to get the experience
33. 4a.Separation
Product and worker
#25 “Separation is the alpha and omega of the spectacle.
The institutionalization of the social division of labor, the
formation of classes…”
Division of labour was practicing
It covers the separation happens in the reality:
The social development is base on the increase of the productivity, but
not the development of the people.
Increase of capital or the growth of economic are the motives of the
social activity, the existence (being) of humans are only for chasing for
the benefits.
34. 4b.Separation
Producer and worker
#26 “With the generalized separation of the worker and his
products, every unitary view of accomplished activity
and all direct personal communication among
producers are lost.”
35. 4c. Separation
Workers and their leisure times
#27 “Due to the success of separate production as production
of the separate, the fundamental experience which in primitive
societies is attached to a central task is in the process of being
displaced, at the crest of the system’s development, by non-
work, by inactivity…”
People act inactively
even they enjoy their leisure time, they can’t escape from the
spectacle
37. 1. No freedom
#27 “There can be no freedom outside of activity, and in the context
of the spectacle all activity is negated. just as real activity has been
captured in its entirety for the global construction of this result.
Thus the present “liberation from labor” the increase of leisure, is in
no way a liberation within labor, nor a liberation from the world
shaped by this labor. None of the activity lost in labor can be
regained in the submission to its result.”
38. 2. Unity and separation
#29The spectacle originates in the loss of the unity of the world,
spectacle had separated people apart, which is a long distance.
it also unifies people, commodities and images.
escapes reconsideration and correction by their work
the leisure time is occupied by entertainment provided/designed by the capitalist
people can hardly contrast the spectacle to actual social activity.
Debord thinks that the world is topsy-turvy
men’s desire is being suppressed.
39. 3. BeingHavingAppearing
#21 To the extent that necessity is socially dreamed, the
dream becomes necessary.
#30 “the more he contemplates the less he lives; the more he
accepts recognizing himself in the dominant images of need,
the less he understands his own existence and his own
desires.
#33“The more his life is now his product, the more he is
separated from his life.”
41. 3. BeingHavingAppearing
Being to having
no longer think about the value of their existence, but they would think about what
they should have.
spectacle is present at a mediated form like mass media
fancy with the commodity.
Having to appearing
They tried to get experience from the images, but not trying to experience the
matters on their own.
