>>7430 The Society of the Spectacle, The Situationists
>>9455 notes from epilogue–8
Debord writes, what seems like diversity comes from the “social
organization of appearances”. Since this world is turned upside down,
whatever is claimed to be true is actually false. Like Hegel wrote,
what is called a lie, is actually the truth. Clearly, the
spectacle applies to a “wide range of seemingly unconnected
phenomena. The spectacle claims to affirm the appearances of all human
social life, but the spectacle is a negation of life: “a negation that
has taken on a visible form.”
The Situationists had to make some "artificial distinctions" to
describe the spectacle, its formation & functions, and "the forces
that work against it", and they had to "use the spectacle’s own
language" whenever operating on the "methodological terrain of the
society that expresses itself in the spectacle". The spectacle is "the
historical moment in which we are caught", and it appears inaccessible
and beyond rebuttal, saying "What appears is good; what is good
appears." The spectacle achieves acceptance by monopolizing
appearances, and it shines a glorious light over its global empire of
passivity. The spectacle is not superficial; modern industrial society
is fundamentally spectacular.
The spectacle is the "advanced economic sector that directly creates
an ever-increasing multitude of image-objects". It is "nothing other
than the economy developing for itself" which is possible because the
economy has already "totally subjugated" human beings to
itself. Although the spectacle distorts and objectifies the producers,
it is a "faithful reflection of the production of things".