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The Society of the Spectacle

Book by Guy Debord · 21 quotes · Capitalism, Critique, Société

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AllCapitalismCritiqueSociétéClassRealitySpectacleClaimsConsumerismPowerfulWorldAchievementAlienationAspectAspects Of LifeAttributesAutonomousBad DreamBureaucracyCapitalism And DeathCelebrities

The Society of the Spectacle Quotes

“Images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream, and the former unity of life is lost forever. Apprehended in a partial way, reality unfolds in a new generality as a pseudo-world apart, solely as an object of contemplation. The tendency toward the specialization of images-of-the-world finds its highest expression in the world of the autonomous image, where deceit deceives itself. The spectacle in its generality is a concrete inversion of life, and, as such the autonomous movement of non-life.”

WorldWayRealityLife IsLostCommonForeverMovementObjectsExpressionHighestAspectUnityTendenciesFormerContemplationStreamsDeceitConcreteDeceivingDetachedPseudoAutonomousAspects Of LifeGeneralitiesSpecializationWorlds ApartInversions
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“The more powerful the class, the more it claims not to exist, and its power is employed above all to enforce this claim. It is modest only on this one point, however, because this officially nonexistent bureaucracy simultaneously attributes the crowning achievements of history to its own infallible leadership. Though its existence is everywhere in evidence, the bureaucracy must be invisible as a class. As a result, all social life becomes insane.”

SocialResultsPowerfulExistenceClassAchievementEvidenceClaimsInvisibleInsaneAttributesModestBureaucracyEmployedSocial LifeInfallible
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“The spectacle is a permanent opium war designed to force people to equate goods with commodities and to equate satisfaction with a survival that expands according to its own laws. Consumable survival must constantly expand because it never ceases to include privation. If augmented survival never comes to a resolution, if there is no point where it might stop expanding this is because it is itself stuck in the realm of privation. It may gild poverty, but it cannot transcend it.”

PovertyCapitalismConsumerism
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“The consumption celebrity superficially represents different types of personality and shows each of these types having equal access to the totality of consumption and finding similar happiness there. The decision celebrity must possess a complete stock of accepted human qualities. Official differences between stars are wiped out by the official similarity which is the presupposition of their excellence in everything.”

TheoryCapitalismConsumptionConsumerismMarxismCelebritiesSpectacleCommodity FetishismSituationism
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“Les forces qu'elle a déchaînées suppriment la nécessité économie qui a été la base immuable des sociétés anciennes. Quand elle la remplace par la nécessité du développement économie infini, elle ne peut que remplacer la satisfaction des premiers besoins humains sommairement reconnus, par une fabrication ininterrompue de pseudo-besoins qui se ramènent au seul pseudo-besoin du maintien de son règne.”

CritiqueSociétééConomie
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“Les pseudo-événements qui se pressent dans la dramatisation spectaculaire n'ont pas été vécus par ceux qui en sont informés ; et de plus ils se perdent dans l'inflation de leur remplacement précipité, à chaque pulsion de la machinerie spectaulaire. D'autre part, ce qui a été réellement vécu est sans relation avec le temps irréversible officiel de la société, et en opposition directe au rythme pseudo-cyclique du sous-produit consommable de ce temps. Ce vécu individuel de la vie quotidienne séparée reste sans langage, sans concept, sans accès critique à son propre passé qui n'est consigné nulle part. Il ne se communique pas. Il est incompris et oublié au profit de la fausse mémoire spectaculaire du non-mémorable.”

CritiqueSociété
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“The images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream in which the unity of that life can no longer be recovered. Fragmented views of reality regroup themselves into a new unity as a separate pseudoworld that can only be looked at. The specialization of images of the world evolves into a world of autonomized images where even the deceivers are deceived. The spectacle is a concrete inversion of life, an autonomous movement of the nonliving.”

RealityIllusion
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