11/08/2025
“Gi Deborovo 'Društvo spektakla' je jedan od ključnih tekstova za razumijevanje psihologije modernog društva.
Debor prati razvoj modernog društva u kojem je autentični društveni život zamijenjen njegovom reprezentacijom: 'Sve što se nekada direktno živjelo postalo je puka reprezentacija.' On tvrdi da se istorija društvenog života može shvatiti kao 'propadanje bića u imanje i imanje u puko prikazivanje.' Ovo stanje, prema Deboru, je 'istorijski trenutak u kojem roba dovršava svoju kolonizaciju društvenog života.'
Spektakl je obrnuta slika društva u kojem su odnosi između roba zamijenili odnose među ljudima, u kojem 'pasivna identifikacija sa spektaklom zamjenjuje istinsku aktivnost'. 'Spektakl nije skup slika', piše Debor, 'već je to društveni odnos među ljudima, posredovan slikama.'
U svojoj analizi spektakularnog društva, Debor primjećuje da je kvalitet života osiromašen, s takvim nedostatkom autentičnosti da je pogođena ljudska percepcija; i prateća degradacija znanja, što zauzvrat ometa kritičko mišljenje. Debor analizira korištenje znanja za ublažavanje stvarnosti: spektakl zamagljuje prošlost, implodirajući je s budućnošću u nediferenciranu masu, vrstu beskrajne sadašnjosti. Na taj način spektakl sprječava pojedince da shvate da je društvo spektakla samo trenutak u istoriji, onaj koji se može srušiti revolucijom.
Sljedeće podcaste smatram vrlo korisnima za sticanje šireg razumijevanja što sve ovo danas podrazumijeva za nas. Ovaj, s fokusom na to kako su danas „slike najvažnija roba“ - stoga u suštini živimo, u potpunom „Šou biznisu”(ova objava na Facebooku je stoga sama po sebi neizbježno dio toga - sve što se može učiniti, kao što je slučaj s taoističkim riječima, jest koristiti slike kako bi se poremetio tok spektakla i ukazalo nam na izlaz iz njega - ono što je Debor nazvao „détournement“): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CTf4myAa9k
I ovaj, u kojem su vizualni elementi - možda prikladno - izuzetno dobri i stvarno pomažu razjasniti kako sve te slike čine cijeli isprepleteni sistem, u kojem smo okruženi, pa čak i zarobljeni: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0blWjssVoUQ
Guy Debord's 'The Society of the Spectacle' is one of the key texts with which to understand the psychology of modern society.
Debord traces the development of a modern society in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation: 'All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.' He argues that the history of social life can be understood as 'the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing.' This condition, according to Debord, is the 'historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life.'
The spectacle is the inverted image of society in which relations between commodities have supplanted relations between people, in which 'passive identification with the spectacle supplants genuine activity'. 'The spectacle is not a collection of images,' Debord writes, 'rather, it is a social relation among people, mediated by images.'
In his analysis of the spectacular society, Debord notes that the quality of life is impoverished, with such a lack of authenticity that human perceptions are affected; and an attendant degradation of knowledge, which in turn hinders critical thought. Debord analyzes the use of knowledge to assuage reality: the spectacle obfuscates the past, imploding it with the future into an undifferentiated mass, a type of never-ending present. In this way, the spectacle prevents individuals from realizing that the society of spectacle is only a moment in history, one that can be overturned through revolution.
I found the following podcasts very helpful in getting a broader sense of what this all entails for us today. This one, focusing on how today ‘images are the most important commodity’ - hence we are living in, essentially, a whole ‘Show Business’ (this Facebook post is therefore itself inevitably part of it - all one can do, as with Taoist words, is to use images to disrupt the flow of the spectacle and point us out of it - what Debord called 'détournement'): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CTf4myAa9k
And this one, in which the visuals are - perhaps appropriately - extremely good and really help clarify how all these images constitute a whole interlocked system, in which we're effectively surrounded and indeed imprisoned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0blWjssVoUQ
