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few commodities accepts them as a social bond quite much as the metropolis does the press. Cotton and

~,like radio an_d TV, become "fixe_d charges" ?n the entire psychic life of the commumty. And this per- wslve fact creates the unique cultural flavor of any society. It pays through the nose and all its other senses for each staple that shapes its life.

That our human sen ses, of w hich all media are extensions, are also fixed charges on our personal

GUY DEBORD

THE COMMODITY AS SPECTACLE 107

energies, and that they also configure the awareness and experience of each one of us, may be perceived in another connection mentioned by the psychologist C. G. Jung:

Every Roman was surrow1ded by slaves. The slave and his psyc hology flooded ancient Italy, and every Roman became in wardly, and of course unwittingly, a slave. Because living constantly in tile atmosphere of slaves, h e became infected tllrough tile uncon - scious witll tlleir psychology. No one can shield himself from such an influence. (Contributions to Analytical Psychology, London, 1928 )

9 The Commodity as Spectacle

I

In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accu- mulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation .

2

The images detached from every aspect oflife fuse in a common strean1 in which the unity of this life can no longer be reestablished. Re ality considered partially unfolds, in its own gen eral unity, as a pseudo -world ~'an o bject of mere contemplation. The special- IZation of images of the world is completed in the world of the autonomous image, w here the liar has lied to himself. The spectacle in general, as the con - crete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement Ofille nonhvmg.

3

The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as all of society, as part of society, and as instrument of uni- fication. As a part of society it is specifically the sector which concentrates all gazing and all consciousness . Due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is the common ground of the deceived gaze and of fal se consciousness, and the unification it achieves is noth- ing but an official language of generalized separation .

4

The sp ectacle is not a collection of images, but a social ~ relation among pe~e, medJated by images.

5

The spectacle cannot be understood as an abuse of the world of vision, as a product of the techniques of mass

Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works, Second Edition. Edited by Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner. © 2012 John Wtlcy & Sons, Ltd. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This chapter has been reproduced from Guy Debord, "The commodity as spectacle." In Society of the Spectacle, paras. l - 18 and 42. Detroit: Black & Red Books, 1977 revised edition.

1 08 GUY DEBORD ,c ~ -~ ' t.

.~ 'If>" --l' dissemination of images . It is, rather, a Weltanschau- ungwhich has become actual, materially translated. It is a world vision which has become objectified.

6

The spectacle, grasped in its totality, is both the result and the project of the existing mode of production . It is no t a supplement to the real world, an additional decoration. It is the heart of the unrealism of the re~ s.QS:_iety. In ~II its specific forms, as informa?on or propaganda, as advertisement or direct entertamment consumption, the spectacle is the present model of socially dominant hfe. It 1s the omnipresent affirm- a~ of the cfio1ce already made in production and its corollary consumption. The spectacle's form and content are identically the total justification of the existing system 's conditions and goals. The spectacle is also the permanent presence of this justification, since it occupies the main part of the time lived outside of modern production.

7

Separation is itself part of the unity of the world, of the global social praxis split up into reality and image . The social practice which the autonomous spectacle confronts is also the real totality which contains the spectacle. But the split within this totality mutilates it to t he point of making the spectacle appear as its goal. The language of the spectacle consists of sitJ.ns of the ruling productton, whiCh at the same time are tne ulttmate goal of this production. - --- 8

One cannot abstractly contrast the spectacle to actual social activity: such a division is itself divided. The spectacle which inverts the real is in fact produced . Lived reality is materially invaded by the contempla- tion of the spectacle wh ile simultaneously absorbing the spectacular order, giving it positive cohesiveness. Objective reality is present on both sides. Every notion fixed this way has no other basis than its passage into t11e opposite: reality rises up within the spectacle, and the spectacle is real. This reciprocal alienation is the essence and the support of the ex- isting society.

9

In a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is a mo ment of the false.

10

The concept of "spectacle" unifies and explains a great diversity of apparent phenomena. The diver- sity and the contrasts are appearances of a socially organized appearance, the general truth of which must itself be recognized. Considered in its own terms the s ectacle is affirmation of appearance and affirmation of all human 1 e, nam'ely social life, a~earance . But the critiq:e which reaches the truth ortne-spectacle exposes it as the visible negation of life , as a negation of life whi ch has become visible.

11

To describe the spectacle, its formation , its functi o ns and the forces which tend to dissolve it, one must artificially distinguish certain inseparable elements. When analyzing the spectacle one speaks, to some extent, the language of the spectacular itself in the sense that one moves through the methodological terrain of the very society which expresses itself in the spectacle. But the spectacle is nothing other than the sense of the total practice of a social economic forma - tion, its use of time. It is the historical movement in which we are caught.

12

The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible . It says nothing more than "that which appears is good , that which is good appears." The attitude which it demands in principle is passive acceptance which in fact it already obtained by its manner of appearing without reply, by its monopoly of appearance.

13

The basically tautological character of the spectacle flows from the simple fact that its means are simultan- eously its ends. It is the sun which never sets over the

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14

The society · accidentally ' mentally spec image of the development ing other tha

15

As the indisr duced today, ilie system, a directly shap( ilie spectacle society.

16

The spectacle extent that th It is no more It is the true and tile false

17

The first pha over social li human realiz into having. ~ social life by 1 leads to a ge1 ing, from wt immediate pr same time a! reality direct!~ by it. It is all• it is not.

y, the true is a

and explains a na. The diver- !s of a socially ruth of which ·ed in its own of appearance {ely social lifu:" which reacheS as the visible

ife which has

1, its functions : it, one must .ble elements. ~aks, to some Lr itself in the ethodological :es itself in the >ther than the nomic forma - movement in

~enormously

:says nothing that which is demands in

fact it already tout reply, by

:he spectacle ue simultan - sets over the -

14

The society which rests on modern industry is not accidentally or superficially spectacular, it is funda- mentally spectaclist. In the spectacle, which is the image of the ruling economy, the goal is nothmg, development everything. The spectacle rums at noth- ing other than itself.

15

As the indispensable decoration of the objects pro- duced today, as the general expose of the rationality of the system, as the advanced economic sector which directly shapes a growing multitude ofimage-objects, the spectacle is the main production of present-day society.

16

The spectacle subjugates living men to itself to the extent that the economy has totally subjugated them. It is no more than the economy developing for itself. It is the true reflection of the production of things, and the false objectification of the producers.

17

The first phase of the domination of the economy over social life brought into the definition of all human realization the obvious degradation of being into having. The present phase of total occupation of social life by the accumulated results of the economy leads to a generalized sliding of having into appear- ing, from which all actual " having" must draw its immediate prestige and its ultimate function. At the same time all individual reality has become social reality directly dependent on social power and shaped by it. It is allowed to appear only to the extent that it is not.

THE COMMODITY AS SPECTACLE 109

18

Where the real world changes into simple images, the simple images become real beings and effective mo- tivations of hypnotic behavior. The spectacle, as a tendency to make one see the world by means of various speciai"ized mediations (i! can no longer be grasped directly} , naturally finds vision to be the privileged human sense which the s;;:;se of touch was for other epochs; the most abstract, the most mystifi- able sense corresponds to the generalized abstraction of present-day society. But the spectacle is not iden- tifiable with mere gazing, even combined with hear- ing. It is that which escapes the activity of men, that which escapes reconsideration and correction by their work. It is the opposite of dialogue. Wherever there is independent representation, the spectacle reconsti- tutes itself. [ . . . ]

42

The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has at ined the total occu afton of socta! ltfe. Not only is the re anon to the commodity vtsible ut it is all one sees: the world one sees is its world. Modern economic production extends its dictatorship extens- ively and intensively. In the least industrialized places, its reign is already attested by a few star commodities and by the imperialist domination im- posed by regions which are ahead in the development of productivity. In the advanced regions, social space is invaded by a continuous superimposition of geo- logical layers of commodities. At this point in the "second industrial revolution," alienated consump- tion becomes for the masses a duty supplementary to alienated production . It is all the sold labor of a society which globally becomes the total commodity for which the cycle must be continued. For this to be done, the total commodity has to return as a fragment to the fragmented individual, absolutely separated from the productive forces operating as a whole. Thus it is here · that the specialized science of domination must in turn specialize: it fragments itself into soci- o logy, psychotechnics, cybernetics, semiology, etc. , watching over the self-regulation of every level of the process.