The value of a commodity is abstract and not tied to its actual characteristics. In capitalist society, virtually identical products often have vastly different values simply because one has a more recognizable or prestigious brand name. In the opening of Das Kapital, Marx makes the observation that within the capitalist mode of production we evaluate materials not by what purpose they serve or what they're actually useful for, but we instead recognize them based on their value in the market. Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living. The spectacle represents people solely in terms of their subordination to commodities, and experience itself becomes commodified. In a spectacular society, the system of commodity production generates a continual stream of images, for consumption by people who lack the experiences represented therein. This was an analysis of the logic of commodities whereby they achieve an ideological autonomy from the process of their production, so that "social action takes the form of the action of objects, which rule the producers instead of being ruled by them." ĭeveloping this analysis of the logic of the commodity, The Society of the Spectacle generally understood society as divided between the passive subject who consumes the spectacle and the reified spectacle itself. The concept of "the spectacle" expanded to all society the Marxist concept of reification drawn from the first section of Karl Marx's Capital, entitled The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret thereof and developed by György Lukács in his work, History and Class Consciousness. With The Society of the Spectacle, Debord attempted to provide the Situationist International (SI) with a Marxist critical theory. In his 1928 book Propaganda, Bernays theorized the "conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses." The critique of the society of the spectacle shares many assumptions and arguments with the critique of the culture industry made by Theodor W. This is the period in which modern advertising and public relations were introduced, most significantly with the innovative techniques developed by Edward Bernays in his campaigns for the tobacco industry. Debord, however, said that the society of the spectacle came to existence in the late 1920s. Clark argues that the spectacle came to dominate Paris during the Second Empire thanks to Haussmann's renovation of Paris. Clark regards this as a journalistic cliché. History and influences Bernays and Adorno ĭebord claims that in its limited sense, spectacle means the mass media, which are "its most glaring superficial manifestation". In the society of the spectacle, commodities rule the workers and consumers, instead of being ruled by them in this way, individuals become passive subjects who contemplate the reified spectacle. The critique of the spectacle is a development and application of Karl Marx's concept of fetishism of commodities, reification and alienation, and the way it was reprised by György Lukács in 1923. In the general sense, the spectacle refers to "the autocratic reign of the market economy which had acceded to an irresponsible sovereignty, and the totality of new techniques of government which accompanied this reign." It also exists in a more limited sense, where spectacle means the mass media, which are "its most glaring superficial manifestation." Debord said that the society of the spectacle came to existence in the late 1920s. The spectacle is a central notion in the Situationist theory, developed by Guy Debord in his 1967 book The Society of the Spectacle.
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