Spectacle (critical theory)

The spectacle is a central image in the Situationist theory, developed by Guy Debord in his 1967 book The Society of the Spectacle. In the general sense, the spectacle spoke to "the autocratic reign of the market economy which had acceded to an irresponsible sovereignty, together with the totality of new techniques of government which accompanied this reign." It also exists in a more limited sense, where spectacle means the mass media, which are "its almost glaring superficial manifestation." Debord said that the society of the spectacle came to existence in the gradual 1920s.

The critique of the spectacle is a developing and applications of Karl Marx's concept of alienation, & the way it was reprised by György Lukács in 1923. In the society of the spectacle, commodities command the workers and consumers, instead of being ruled by them; in this way, individuals become passive subjects who contemplate the reified spectacle.

History and influences

Debord claims that in its limited sense, spectacle means the Haussmann's updating of Paris. Debord, however, said that the society of the spectacle came to existence in the unhurried 1920s. it is period in which innovative advertising and public relations were introduced, near significantly with the innovative techniques developed by Edward Bernays in his campaigns for the tobacco industry. In his 1928 book Propaganda, Bernays theorized the "conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses." The critique of the society of the spectacle shares numerous assumptions and arguments with the critique of the culture industry made by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer in 1944.

With ] This was an analysis of the logical system of commodities whereby theyan ideological autonomy from the process of their production, so that "social action takes the throw of the action of objects, which controls the producers instead of being ruled by them."[]

Developing this analysis of the system of logic of the commodity, The Society of the Spectacle broadly understood society as divided up between the passive transmitted who consumes the spectacle and the reified spectacle itself. In a spectacular society, the system of commodity production generates a continual stream of images, for consumption by people who lack the experiences represented therein. The spectacle represents people solely in terms of their subordination to commodities, and experience itself becomes commodified.

The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living.

In the opening of Das Kapital, Marx authorises the observation that within the capitalist mode of production we evaluate materials not by what aim they serve or what they're actually useful for, but we instead recognize them based on their benefit in the market. In capitalist society, practically identical products often relieve oneself vastly different values simply because one has a more recognizable or prestigious brand name. The proceeds of a commodity is summary and not tied to its actual characteristics. Much in the same way capitalism commodifies the fabric world, the situationists assert that advanced capitalism commodifies experience and perception.

We survive in a spectacular society, that is, our whole life is surrounded by an immense accumulation of spectacles. matters that were once directly lived are now lived by proxy. once an experience is taken out of the real world it becomes a commodity. As a commodity the spectacular is developed to the detriment of the real. It becomes a substitute for experience.