Society Of The
Spectacle is the illusion that consumer culture is the way of life. The
spectacle is made up of everything around us created by the things we see,
hear, buy, and the ways we govern ourselves. It is a spectacle we accept
because we grow up in “it” and mindlessly play along. We live in a culture that
is driven through consumerism; we need to buy in order to survive. Debord
explains the spectacle as; “a permanent opium war which aims
to make people identify goods with commodities and satisfaction with survival
that increases according to its own laws” (44). Our culture is dependent on the economy, which
is then dependent on the consumer culture to survive.
We live in a Culture were everything we need to survive can to
be purchased. Why would you grown you own food, make our own clothes, build
your own car, etc. if you can just buy them? But in order to purchase these
commodities, you must earn a wage in order purchase or exchange for commodities.
DeBord describes commodities to be anything that can be used to exchanged or
trade things with. Commodities are exchangeable goods, raging between clothes,
food, services etc.
Before currency was an exchangeable commodity, people would
exchange their commodities for someone else’s commodities. Farmer Joe who grew
fruits and vegetables would trade with Farmer Bob, who raised cattle. The
problem was what happened when you wanted some else’s commodities but they
didn’t want yours. This allowed people to meet their needs by using currency as
a platform in which they could trade commodities. People’s needs were begging
to be met, not through the consumption for their commodities, or the trade of
commodities, but through the purchase of commodities. This gave rise to the
consumer culture we live in today. A culture where people no longer grow their
own commodities; people sell their labor for a wage and then meet their needs
and desires through purchase of commodities. The crazy things is, the spectacle
seems to work, let the teacher teach, let the farmer farm and let the police
officer serve and protect. The spectacle has freed them from the limitations of
the commodities they can produce, they can now focused on one job and with the
wages earned, purchase the commodities they need and desire. . As described by
DeBord, “Money dominated society as the
representation of general equivalence, namely, of the exchangeability of
different goods whose uses could not be compared” (49),
people began to meet their needs through the purchase of commodities, which
lead to the artificial creation of needs.
Debord goes
on to explain how this consumer driven spectacle has created an economy that
continuously needs to grown and thus created insecurities, fears and mass
approval as culture norms in order to keep people consuming, “This
incessant expansion of economic power in the form of the commodity, which
transformed human labor into commodity-labor, into wage-labor, cumulatively led to an abundance in which the
primary question of survival is undoubtedly resolved, but in such a way that it
is constantly rediscovered; it is continually posed again each time at a higher
level”(40).
Economical growth is essential and is driven through
advertisement. Debord would argue that the spectacle remains alive by playing
on people’s insecurities. By creating the idea of beauty, desirability, and
likability. The image of beauty is so superficial and unattainable that people constantly
put them selves down because what they see in advertisements as beautiful does
not match what what they see in the mirror.
They never feel pretty enough; their need to be desirable and likable is
never meet. Which leads them to try and fulfill those needs through the
consumptions of commodities that are advertised as providing those qualities they
lack. This leads people to develop the habit of fulfilling uneasy/negative feelings
through the consumption of goods. Associating good and happy feelings with the
commodities they have and purchase, and negative feelings with the things they
don’t have.
No comments:
Post a Comment