Society of Spectacle | Guy Debord
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- čas přidán 16. 03. 2023
- You've come to the wrong place. This episode the book is Guy Debord's 1967 "The Society of the Spectacle" (amzn.to/4224lXK). The Spectacle might feel like everything-but it isn't. If the topic of the book interests you, my friends and I put out 10 hours of podcast episodes on Guy Debord and the Situationist International, starting with The Situationist International Theory of Revolution: • The Situationist Inter...
New content is uploaded every week to patreon: / plasticpills and it would be great to have you in there and you'd be helping me keep this up.
"Radical theory isn't a real threat, it's a spectacular one". Banger 🤝💪
Ironic that the guy who wrote a book on spectacle wears spectacles on his face which allow him to see clearly.
I guess the glasses would not be a spectacle in itself, but an spectacle's enhancer ..
Woaaahhh duuuudeee
Hopefully not sold by Spectacular Optic Inc.
I do not think you understand irony
@@robtaylor-manning4871 The spectacle is the failed love between Narcissus and Echo, being the mirror image the mediator .. the irony is that it becomes a blind spot ..
The quality of your creations have increased dramatically. Damn you for engaging me in your spectacle!
SOC and Phil professor here. When I teach this stuff like this, people get realllll shaky! I thought it was obvious to everyone when I was getting my PhD but it isn’t.
This CZcams video about a book about the spactacle certainly was a spectacular consumer experience!
This is very interesting. What stood out to me quite a lot is when you said that you go to psychologist to get ‘help’ but that the solutions and treatments they offer is individualistic. This reminds me of a book on critical psychology I’m reading (Critical psychology An Introduction edited by Dennis Fox and Isaac Prilletensky) in which the authors write about a similar problem of individualization and atomization of people and how it’s a problem in psychology. And that it began to be entrenched in institutions such as the APA in the 1980s alongside the proliferation of neoliberal ideas and politics of the Reagan and Margret Thatcher eras. By influencing these institutions, it’s makes increasing difficult to address systemic and interactional problems.
i remember when princess Diana died. People were upset. And they mourned. When the Queen of England died, people turned up to "the event" to get a selfie to show "they were there" (but not taking part). Who was it who said that modern capital is sorted by consumption, not production. (Bataille?) And then Delueuzes rhizomes and the way capital strip EVERYTHING of meaning and reduces it to banalities that can be commodified and sold. I think he even said that commerce allows for almost infinite packaging options to create endless products?I feel these are all linked somehow. And while Kenneth Copeland has nothing to do with this, i feel he has everything to do with this! (joke - perhaps schizophrenic. Its the only way to escape!)
hell yeah. I’m going to show this to my undergraduate students, I’ve been looking for a great summarization of Debord’s concept of the spectacle in terms of late-stage capital “production”, and this absolutely fits the bill. great stuff per usual my friend!
@@ssgdhgsdfff8887 I’m in a visual arts program as a graduate student, hadn’t heard or was taught Debord ever, only picked up on him through my own artistic research. I would guess that a philosophy program would be your best bet in terms of being assigned him in undergraduate classes, but I’ve only taken a single PhD level philosophy class so I’m not really sure what’s on the average undergrad philosophy syllabus
I would also recommend chapter 1 of Anselm Jappe's book on Debord. Best explanation of all the different concepts in SotS and their antecedents.
Why can't you do it yourself?
Your editing is really becoming top notch. These videos are art pieces themselves, the fantastic social critique aside
I saw that to... wonder which program he uses... gosh, I wish my teaching lessons had this spectacle so students would be with googled eyes watching and learning
The video production and editing, the effects, the cuts, they are absolutely jaw dropping. Such an incredibly well made video
Whenever I (or anyone) imagines something worthy of being called imaginative, someone rushes to make it into a commodity. As commodities go, these turn out to be enormously successful, which can make it seem as though imagination only perpetuates the hall of mirrors that is this spectacle, but I think it also clearly shows that what the society is starving for is innovation. Which means that the spectacle is having a corrosive effect, and not the kind that can persist indefinitely. The prattle that goes grinding around this cycle, like so much grist for the mill, must necessarily run dry. What will be spoken when we reach absolutely zero and there is thoroughly nothing left to be said?
Maybe we'll shut up.
It really depends on what you use these commodities for. Literature, for example, can also be turned into commodities (books), but they can create social awareness and change. Therefor, they aren't merely spectacular.
Then there's pop music. MGMT's first album, Oracular Spectacular, is incredibly catchy and pop. Their second album, Congratulations, punches alot of holes on the effects of their own success (they have said in multiple interviews that most songs of OS were written during their college years as an exercise in pop music. The music they wanted to make was scratched by the label and they were forced to create a pop record.) and even pokes fun at pop musicians who don't mind being abused by their labels (Lady Dada's Nightmare is a pun on Lady Gaga). Only their third album, the self-titled MGMT, marks the first time MGMT was given complete creative control by their label. Even then, the album cover shows the band hanging out in front of a pawn shop, being quite aware that their own sound would scare away alot of their initial "fans".
So even though their first two albums are spectacular, they educated a generation on the history of pop culture and artists that willingly dived into it with a variety of results and strategies to destroy capitalism from within (Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Nirvana,...), or to become a talking head for the industry (like Gaga), and their references to 60's (and later 80's) counterculture in both their music as well as their music videos (Time To Pretend recreates the money burning scene from Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain) generated a spectacle that warned a generation obsessed with becoming rich and famous by exploiting their misery to not jump blindly into an industry that only cares to treat you like grease to their hungry machine. If any band influenced "woke" culture in the 00's, it's definitely MGMT.
So is spectacle always bad? I dunno. Pretending to be spectacle seems to work out sometimes.
You'd think, but we do not live forever, and the old innovations can be repackaged as new for our children. I doubt there will be a day when the TV stops spitting out content.
Love your format and ability to communicate these ideas succinctly and entertainingly! Now that’s what I call a spectacle! Subbed 🎉
Thank you for creating an informative spectacle. Great to see it broken down to bits.
Him and JB are owed such an apology. The right didn’t read them and dismissed them as mad while the left attacked them as crypto fash and fatalistic. But nobody got as close and what they postulated is now tangible, observably physically real.. even down to the intangibles of behaviour and habits of thought. 100% on the money. Although I bet GD wouldn’t make JB’s mistake (imo) on 9/11.
What was JB’s mistake on 9/11? The Spirit of Terrorism is great imo
@@Jake-eu4ec ah I thought there was almost an apologetic note in that for his previous writing on terror and the gulf war articles.. been a while but doesn't he denigrate the false flag narrative (a bit tenuously) and basically argue that the towers committed suicide for architectural reasons?
Your video essays are absolute bangers and should be seen by so many more people!
How am I only finding this channel today and why don't you have like five times the subscribers you have? Thank you for the quality of content and production that you keep offering
I love your content man, really informative and almost always about the theory stuff that interests me
Absolutely great. You fit the pieces together into a coherent revolionary whole. Thank you.
I just love it when plastic pills posts a produced video essay.
Thanks. Just downloaded the pdf to read. Never heard of Debord amd have had thoughts about this spectacle-ization of life through television since my youth in the 80s, when television programming proliferated significantly.
Despite your disdain for Plato and our resulting over-reliance on the vide/vid aspect when it comes to gaining knowledge, it's a must that we acknowledge here that the visuals this time were beyond brilliant. You have definitely outdone yourself
What an excellent video! With material like this I need to watch 3-4 times to absorb and retain the ideas. The peel back to show what is under the surface noise was inspired. The iron man suit was an apposite metaphor and I like the way you drew the built environment into the picture. (The built environment in the UK towns I am familiar with is consistently awful for pedestrians/cyclists.) The overall architecture of the total system you describe has been unmolested by financial collapse, pandemic, inflation ....because each time the borrowing power of the state is used to lubricate the problematic sub-systems and keep the power intact. Keep up your good work!
Great work!
Concepts, delivery, editing… A great spectacle! 😂
Thanks a lot. You made me dust off my copy of the book, so you’ve changed my little reality… 😅
Thank you so much. This is really important work. Do not stop
Cool video! These videos are not only a lot of work, they also have a real educational value!
Just a remark:
The original Max Weber quote: "Aber aus dem Mantel ließ das Verhängnis ein stahlhartes Gehäuse werden." from: Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus
So it is "Gehäuse".
Greetings from Germany
Great video! I would love to see a comparison between DeBord and Baudrillard from you. Specifically Society of the Spectacle and Simulacra and Simulation.
Good stuff, I really liked your approach to talking about this. Very helpful!
Thank you for the precious insights. I often reflect on how I gradually slipped from maintaining a more radical adherence to my then-raw beliefs as I would do in my early 20s to indulging in detachment from a more mature set of ideas as I do now, in my mid-30s. I like the livelihood this allowed me to have, the many encounters and the hedonism. But whose is this game that I enjoy playing? Excellent work, thx
earned a sub, what a clear and easy to follow way to explain how the spectacle works. I think it was searching Aristotle's critiques of Democracy that had this recommended to me? Either way, Really great video!
I wish I knew of a salon where I could go philosophize with people such as yourself.
Best way to detourn this alienation is to get to know your neighbors well and enjoy a glass of your favorite libations with them frequently.
Y'all should just get grill pilled and we can discuss revolutionary tactics over some collard greens and pulled pork (pulled jackfruit for the vegan comrades)
New intro was a dope touch, and clever patreon messaging
I need to go out more. Loved the video
Nice spectacle. I enjoyed being mesmerized by it.
3 concepts were washing around my head while ~~watching~~ consuming this
- the Carnivalesque
- an opiate for the masses
- the spectacle
The concept of Carnivalesque is a time-limited suspensions of the “real”, of the norms which make up the social realm. The concept had some similarities with “catharsis”, but was a collective suspension of reality as a subversive outlet. That desire to subvert arguably highlights a misalignment with the norms of the social realm outside of the Carnival & the underlying reality of human social needs.
The original statement on “opiate for the masses” referenced the denial of the reality of the social realm & the deferring resolution of suffering to the afterlife. It was later repurposed to refer to television’s ability to passive the populous though entertainment, which can be interpreted as consumption of simulacra to the detriment of the real, or in other words…
…the spectacle is an unending Carnival which emerges from our current structures, with the effect of pacifying its participants.
[I’m already critiquing my line of thinking above - there are echoes of “decadence”, “degeneracy” & “appeals to nature” from erm… …some genocidal philosophies/ideologies, which makes me uncomfortable.]
Why this has so few views? This was amazing in every possible way!
If i can get a job that pays enough, I'll definitely sub to your patreon! Love your content! Please keep making them x
This is probably the dumbest personal tangent I’ve ever posted here (and that’s saying a lot), but … boy, what WOULDN’T I give to have a definitive and complete ruleset for that war game Guy Debord designed. (His Debord Game, LoL.) I’ve found quite a lot of conflicting info online, and I’m surprised no one from his estate seems to have ever published an authoritative ruleset.
Quality content and a really enjoyable spectacle. I would love to learn to edit like this.
I've been waiting for this one!
Spectacular!
Great vid!
This is a great, great video. Crucial to our time. I would like to see it revisited without the spectacularity of it. Not dragged out for youtube or over layered with images and jokes. As close to the *real* thing as digitally possible.
The spectacle is the moment when the public's image of its relationship with the commodity has come to occupy the whole of social life
Thanks for that. I struggled a bit with S of the S and your treatment here has opened it up for me. I found a number of your ideas and slants on ideas very interesting and good. Keep it up! By the way ... have you done anything on Mark Fisher?
Well done. Congratulations.
I was already in the middle of reading The Society of the Spectacle, this is a great companion video. Thank you so much, keep up the great analyses!
CZcams is my library 🤩🤩🤩
As a designer these vids resonate with me
Great Work, thanks very much.
the corkboard🔥 what a clever way to summerize
don't worry about that, patreon is one aspect of the spectacle i never feed into
i do, however, support the implementation of a system in which artists and educators need not e-panhandle for their supper
Genial, como siempre.
The corkboard thing works. A good idea
Thanks for the info. I'm going to buy the book.
thank you so much for all your work ! really love this channel
Greetings from México carnal!
im from mexico too!! let's go create a situation :0
Thank you for this.
OOOOOOOOO great visuals!
This has kind of blown my fucking mind a little. That Iron Man analogy is actually insane.
We only ate white bread growing up, ‘Wonder Bread’… I’d almost describe it as the absence of flavor…
Welcome to sociology. A constantly moving target is our study. Hang on tight!
lol the spectacle....never ending....i enjoyed this spectacle
This is a fantastic video. Thank you!
It’s no wonder there’s such a preponderance of irony today. It’s difficult to respond to the world in any other way.
Respond with sincerity, mindfulness and kindness.
great video. but i would suggest that you add more suggestions to how we can overcome these structures of alienation, ideas on how to imagine an overcoming. otherwise, watching kind of ends in a depressive state, not in one where you feel like taking things into you own hand and such.
I think the praxis did not change: join a political party or organization.
Also the voice of Jarvis in the Iron man prison suit is also the voice of Vision; so this narrative evaluative filtered experience in your personal spectacular prison is given by an illusory (?) vision
Brilliant brilliant video!
Just because...be spontaneous. I like this.
Thank you so much, you present these philosophical ideas clearly and compellingly, and I love the topics you choose. You make me feel so ... disquieted...
Just a random thought.... the image of all the cutout people , the "lonely crowd" .made me think of the cover of 1967's Sgt Pepper's LONELY Hearts Club Band... Even the people featured in that cover could be thought of as the members of the Spectacle of their day.
There was a remake of the society of spectacle movie uploaded to youtube years ago, where college students had redubbed the english and re-edited it with updated clips to sorta re-affirm the point. It looks like it was deleted from youtube, does anyone still have it kicking around on a harddrive? For one thing, I found the redub a lot clearer and easier to hear than the upload of the original
commented so I can get an update on this if anyone manages to find it
Do you mean 'Can Dialectics Break Bricks?' The kung-fu movie but with the Marxist talking points?
That is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. And so smartly written too.
link: czcams.com/video/mjUNY0433Do/video.html
Aussi...
I would love to know too.
Look up “thoughtmaybe” and “the society of the spectacle” and it should come up on your internet search engine
thanks for continuing to make content that my broken brain would have thought up were it not for the fact it was broken.
the kinda convos i would have with my friends, if i had any.
"The spectacle is money that we only look at, because in it the totality of use has already been exchanged for the totality of abstract representation. The spectacle is not only the servant of pseudo-use, it is already in itself the pseudo-use of life." 😶
L'espectacle és sovint més encisador que la realitat, i més real de vegades ...
I think if you were to parallel the "specticale" and the "spectical-ization" of everything with the concept of abstraction in computer science things would be perhaps more "granular" in a way. At any rate, great vid, I am going to have to check this guy out.
"he's one who's not great at parties"
amazing
According to that (1:15) definition it seems the flag of one's nation would be spectacle. I value going to vote because it's a social experience.
Ever read "public opinion " by Walter Lippmann? Definitely a must.
Id also recommend crowdscenes: movies and mass politics.
There are so many related books and concepts to this that come to mind; The Gutenberg Galaxy, T Filter Bubble, the 1/9/90 rule, and post-truth policis in particular.
Seems like these are natural human social dynamics that have existed for a long time, but modern technology has exposed increasingly more humans to increasingly controlled and centralized manifestations of them.
Iron man cage is such a great concept
very interesting!!
I feel like Debord would make a pretty funny villain in an episode of Captain Metaphysics
Love the clarity on the Antidote--solidarity, community, organization, collective action, revelatory history (eg Killing Hope). Disagree with D-man on order of operations--material conditions first baybeeee. And disagree with you on CIA’s opinion on radical theory--do you have any opinion on Gabriel Rockhill and the Theory Industry?
yes, the script and pics make it far more digestible than podcasts
well done
"The first phase of the domination of the economy over social life led to an obvious degradation of being into having [owning] in the definition of any human achievement.
The present phase of the total occupation of social life by the accumulated results of the economy is leading to a generalised shift from having to appearing"
All social media in a nutshell 🙃
The dude was so ahead of its time ( the book was written in 1967)
very good work! been into Situationism since the 80s :)
Nice spectacle! Well if we should try to socialize more often, as Lenin might have said: Join the fucking party!
Brilliant.
Ideas don't matter until they gain some kind of materiality through sociality. Through worship and practice we can transport an idea into reality. I ritually worship the guitar until my playing leaves the thinking mind. Worship meaning an embodied, focused attention and giving up of control to a power outside yourself, faith.
We never know what will cause the runaway positive feedback loop in systems outside of our conscious control. But fundamentally we are non-separate from material reality so have a direct sense of what is "the good". So do weird shit in public that you feel moved to do, and compel others to join you, as an act of worship.
IMO bring back the chautaqua.
Thanks!
The vast suggestible hordes are extremely susceptible to the influence of spectacle. In the the modern context it’s even more unlikely that enough of them will become sufficiently conscious to effect any significant change in the systems which oppress them.
Your essay reminds me of this lyric
"You shall remain, inside your space of ignorance".- Disciple by The Warning.
I'd be curious how Illich fits in with the structuralists. I feel like his notion of rejecting technologies beyond a certain scale (Tools for Conviviality) would cover everything from television to the internet, or at least to large, centrally-controlled social networks. And he seems to address the loneliness aspect as well, with a sort of anarcho-utopian vision of small, autonomous communities building things by hand and restoring an old-fashioned notion of hospitality and neighborliness. But I'm not very well read on modern philosophy.
This is what George Carlin said. And everybody laughed.
the concrete sociality of the underground diy rave
that bloody chimp made me say, nope! i thought peele was really on that, but then i realized, the ape's in the movie too, not just that sitcom
You say spectacle is bad, and yet you made a spectacular video. hmmm
Will you do a video about Max Stirner at some point?
Thanks
Everything about this was amazing, except for the feeling I get deep down in my soul while watching it...
But that isn't your fault!
I think this is why I love spending time in nature so much... it gives me a break from this fucking spectacle.
Nature really is the best way to heal your body and mind, yet soon this spectacle will have consumed that too.
We need to wake up before there's nothing left
Wow, you used the adjective "Rote", adjective
proceeding mechanically and repetitiously; being mechanical and repetitious in nature; routine; habitual:
rote performance;
rote implementation;
His behavior became more rote with every passing year. Nice man! You've started to get "in-touch" with the inner wordsmith. I like that especially since I as well have that Labyrinthine type of thinking along with such, being allotted an ample amount of byzantine ideas suited just for being intensely interesting while I'm trying to "kick-it" in a conversational environment, having that Word Smithian stature allows for me to chill, have a few drinks while I'm kicking it with the nerd chicks! Yeah!