Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In 1967, Guy Debord published his landmark analysis of the “spectacle.” Building on Marxian theories of reification and alienation, the spectacle reflects the citizen's passive spectacular relation to an economic and social world that appears as an overwhelming external, law-bound natural entity. Divorced from our creative praxis in constructing our social world, the individual is reduced to consuming corporate-supplied entrancing narratives that confirm us in our passivity even as they celebrate the freedom and meaningful lives of our Hollywood celebrities and governmental leaders. This paper explicates the theory behind Debord’s concept and critically assesses its deficiencies. The most serious defect is Debord’s adoption of a mass society perspective, which sees the population as atomized and culturally denuded, divorced from community and the cultural lifeworld. In part this theoretical defect reflects his underlying Marxian conception of social action as the individual objectifying his/her ideas in the natural world, while ignoring the ways in which communicative interaction is also important in constructing our social world.