Understanding Guy Debord's Society of Spectacle

Why do we write?

In my opinion, people who write write for three reasons. The first reason is the instinct to share the thoughts that enlighten oneself for humanity. The second reason is to help those who read to think, to help them develop the ability to compare what they think with another thought. The third reason is the desire to leave a written document for the generations that come after. This is the shortest way I can summarize in the simplest terms what I have in mind and what I have learned from my experiences so far. Now I would like to share with you some of the thoughts of Guy Debord, one of the most recent philosophers of the modern age.

Who is the writer and poet Guy Debord?

Born in Paris in 1931, Debord lost his father at an early age. He left his law education at the University of Paris and focused on art studies. Debord also published many poems and articles during this period. In the movement of the 1968 generation, he was among those who shaped both the field and the life of thought with his writings. During this period, he also focused on cinema. 

Debord, whose alcohol addiction was a constant problem in his life, could not get rid of it until the end of his life. Debord ended his life on November 30, 1994 with a gunshot to the heart. Although his body is dead, his ideas and the works he left behind are still recognized as among the most important masterpieces of his intellectual life. 

The most important work he left behind is "The Society of the Spectacle". In The Society of the Spectacle, he argued that the consumption relations shaped by capitalism create a form of spectacle regardless of country and ideology, and that this situation will inevitably result in the world becoming a single market. 

Main Theses of Guy's Society of Spectacle

Debord based this thesis on two foundations. In his first thesis, he assumed intense demonstration (in liberal governments) and in his second thesis, he assumed widespread demonstration (in totalitarian regimes). Debord argued that intense spectacle would affect a small part of society, while widespread spectacle would affect a large part of society. His thinking was influenced by Karl Marx (the founding father of socialist thought) and Georg Lukacs (the foremost exponent of democracy and capitalism). 

Guy Debord is a self-described filmmaker, a non-francist who dabbles in Marxist theory. However, with the publication of his book "The Society of the Spectacle" in 1967, which had an impact on the masses, he suddenly gained serious fame. 

Guy focused on several main issues in his book. The state as an ideological apparatus, dialectical history and the question of time and space, the destruction of culture, Marxism and finally, with the influence of Marxist theory, alienation, commodification, the proletariat and class struggle. 

The criterion he used to define the society of the spectacle was the "unreality" of the new world as a result of the transformation of the economic and cultural. He claimed that the society of the spectacle mediates in presenting unreality as the cause and consequence of economic modes of production. This is how I personally understood it. 

Our existing world has been commodified. It is an abstract world stripped of all its economic realities. What is presented to us by the organization of space as the transformation of land, by the changes in our perception of time, and by new forms of social relations as a collection of images, is exactly what the bourgeoisie wants to show us. In fact, the bourgeoisie is the only class in the world that has never been defeated and the consciousness that continues to monopolize our world is its consciousness. 

The memory of the modern world has destroyed the past and the future, and the only thing it offers us as the "memory of the present" is the "memory of the director". Therefore, in such a dominated world, even when we criticize something, we are in a sense also criticizing the criticism of that thing. Because all the concepts of the new world are empty abstract things. It is a strange order whose only function is to "make us forget". Everything we touch is a kind of image and commodity. 

The transformation of time into a consumable commodity, the transformation of spaces into places of isolation and confinement, and the fact that the existence of culture today consists of a false representation and denial seem to prove all this. 

What is the Society of the Spectacle? What is its subject, its main idea? 

Guy Debord is one of the most important figures and prophets of the second half of the 20th century, who lived his life beyond the mediatic civilization, away from everyone and in secret. He is a radical who refuses to participate in the spectacle! Debord's The Society of the Spectacle is a work that has withstood history as well as subversion. When it was published in the 70s, it caused a shock due to its extreme theses that transcended its time, and in the 80s it was accepted as a life-affirming text. 

Defining and naming the society of the spectacle, which has already established its sovereignty all over the world and passed it into everyday language, Debord said that the sovereignty of the spectacle, which he characterized as an extension of capitalist economics and commodity circulation, also exists in countries that claim to be socialist; that the world will become a single market again and that bureaucratic powers will come under the domination of the American-type spectacle. 

In his Commentaries on the Society of the Spectacle, written years later without the need to change a single word in the Society of the Spectacle, he shows how phenomena such as the mafia, terrorism and the police state have become part of the spectacle. In the society of the spectacle, promises of salvation also become part of the spectacle, they become falsified. The whole world is now the stage of the same show; we all become actors and spectators of the same show. Destroying historical knowledge, generalizing censorship under the guise of authenticity, engaging in terrorism, which is the indispensable twin of the spectacle, making truth a moment of falsehood, erasing subjectivity, all these things constitute the discourse of the society of the spectacle. This book of despair reveals that we live in a world that is a prison. 

The journey through the labyrinths of the Society of the Spectacle, from antiquity to the present day, from the concept of time to the concept of space, from urbanism to tourism and the clowning of cultural consumption, gradually turns into horror in the middle of the book: There is no way out! 

Debord is pessimistic! Like all revolutionaries living at the peak of pessimism, he is also a realist. He actually tells the truth. I would like to share with you the quotes I have chosen from this book I read:

False hope is better than no hope at all.

People are more like the times they live in than their fathers.

Hey ladies and gentlemen, life is short. And if we live, we live to trample kings.

There is no doubt that our age prefers image to object, copy to original, representation to reality, appearance to substance. 

For our age, the only thing sacred is illusion and the only thing unholy is truth. Moreover, as truth decreases and illusion increases, the value of the sacred increases in the eyes of our age, so much so that for this age, the extreme of illusion is the extreme of the sacred.

When television shows a beautiful image and interprets it with a brazen lie, fools believe that everything is self-evident.

In a truly upside-down world, right is a moment of wrongness.

No matter how dangerous your situation and circumstances, do not despair.

Conclusion;

Here, a man named Debord comes out years and years ago, when even the mass media were not being used effectively, and talks about capitalism, advertising, commoditized society and degenerating culture. This book is written in two parts. In the first part, passage by passage, the show is defined. The second part consists of the author's comments as a complement to the book, which is much easier to read than the first part. In order to understand what the book wants to say, it would be better for the reader to have a good command of the ideologies and philosophical language in the book. 

In order to understand Debord, it is necessary to travel through time and read this book with its many whys and wherefores. In my opinion, this book is a manifesto for intellectuals. After reading this book, you will be surprised to see how this book, written many years ago, expresses what is happening today. Socialism has collapsed, even though the thought structure is trying to survive today. The situation of capitalism is open to all kinds of discussions. I think it is useful for everyone to read Guy Debord's book The Society of Spectacle.