Society of the Spectacle brygeogbrygeog的奇观社会.net.pptVIP

* The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a means of unification. Debord is actually telling us how he is using the word “spectacle”—sort of like a grammar teacher might tell us whether a word is functioning as a noun, a verb, etc. He says here that the spectacle “presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as part of society, and as a means of unification.” That’s kind of interesting when you think about it—that A = B and A is a subset of B, at the same time. It defies logic. The spectacle defies logic in some ways, but the spectacle is both part of society and society itself. It unifies us. Think football game. How does that unify us? Is it part of society or is it society itself? Sometimes hard to tell. As a part of society, it is the focal point of all vision and all consciousness. But due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is in reality the domain of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of universal separation. Back to the irony (as in #2). Even though this stream of images is totally separate from us and fragments us so that we can’t feel unity, it APPEARS to be unifying us because it’s a spectacle that we share as society. So, it’s cruel in this way. It is “false consciousness.” * * * * * * Bill Gates has so much money that he has to give it away, while he was sued for slavery of his own workers (the Microsurfs). “It’s nothing other than the economy developing for itself.” Profit for the sake of profit. “The spectacle is able to subject human beings to itself because the economy has already totally subjugated them.” And this is true not only of workers, but of affluent people as well, with their own narratives of desperation. A friend of mine who often buys very expensive clothes, once said, “I don’t buy them by choice or because these clothes are what I want to wear—I buy them because they’re all that’s t