Guy Debords Theory of the Spectacle
Debords Theory of the Spectacle was often downplayed as a mere reference to the tyranny of the mass media communications like the television, radio and others. But this was claimed as a limited aspect of the spectacle (Jappe, 5). Debord noted that the operation of the media perfectly expresses the entire society which they are a part of. But this is a seemingly deployment of instruments which results in the direct experience and determination of events by the individuals that consequently contemplate passively on the images produced (Jappe, 6).
Debords analysis was based on the impoverishment of life and its fragmentation into more separated spheres with disappearing unitary aspect. The spectacle is within the reunification of the separate aspects at the level of image. This means that whatever is lacking in life will be found in the spectacle, which is conceived as ensemble of independent representations. Therefore, the spectacle is like the life of celebrities such as actors and politicians who function as combined representations of human qualities, which are lacking in the actual lives of other individuals trapped in lifeless roles (Jappe, 7).
Separation is the alpha and the omega of the spectacle, as in the separated individuals, they are reunited in their separateness because the spectacle monopolizes all communication for its own advantage and makes it one way. The only message is the incessant justification of the existing society, which is the spectacle. The passivity of contemplative attitude is the only prerequisite and also the chief product of spectacle. Only the isolated individual could feel the need for the spectacle, hence it must bend every means to reinforce that isolation (Jappe, 7).
Foundations of the Spectacle
The Theory of Spectacle has two main foundations namely the incessant technological renewal and the integration of state and economy. And the most recent phase of these foundations has three consequences generalized secrecy, unanswerable lies, and an eternal present (Jappe, 7). The first foundation is presently manifested through a seemingly insatiable passion of people for better versions of every technology developed, like the cellphones, television, gadgets and other entertainment media. The second foundation is further discussed through Debords use of Marxism framework.
The spectacle is not a simple case of propaganda broadcasting through the mass media of communications but more on the generalized social activity as a whole. The scope may be from city planning to various political parties from art to science, from human passion and desires and everywhere we find reality replaced by images. And in this process, the images become real which becomes a reality transformed into images (Jappe, 7).
The distortion of these transformed images is furthered when spectacle also functions as part of the entire society operating as an instrument that dominates the whole. The spectacle organizes the images in order to benefit the interest of one part of the society while affecting the rest of the society who merely contemplates on the organized images. Every power is said to require lies in order to govern. The spectacle as a form of highly developed power falsifies reality (Jappe, 8).
The spectacle uses the sense of sight and it is believed to be the most abstract of the senses and can be easily deceived. Hence, the problem is not the image or the representation but the actual problem lies on the need of the society for such images. The images or representations achieve certain independence depending on how it was perceived by the society. And when these representations escape the control of the society, the independent images proceed to address the society in a monologue communication, therefore eliminating all possible dialogues from human beings (Jappe, 8).
The effects aforementioned are not mainly caused by technological development. The divisions and distortions in reality are caused by the divisions in the society itself. Such division is the most ancient kind among the separations which is brought about by power. This is the kind of power that gave rise to the others, which is an authority experienced by every society. And in the advent of modern era, such power accumulated is an adequate means to extend its domination and molding of the society. This achieved material production that re-created everything that the society needs, consequently promoting isolation and separation (Jappe, 9).
Debords Framework of the Theory through Marxism
Debord elaborated some fundamental ideas of Marxism on commodity, capitalism and social class. The spectacle is a commodity production-based society, which is not bound by a particular economic system. The social class responsible for the institution of spectacle is the bourgeoisie. The spectacle is both the outcome and goal of the dominant mode of production, just like the other kinds of human activities, they are organized in a manner that justifies the continuity of the reigning mode of production (Jappe, 9). Hence, the aim of the spectacle is to reproduce the condition of its own existence. Because instead of serving the desires of the human beings, the spectacle creates and manipulates needs that is reducible to that single pseudo-need so that the existing autonomous economy may continue to prevail (Jappe, 10).
The spectacle is a commodity economy that becomes autonomous and such self-sufficiency is a form of alienation, hence alienation became the chief product of the economy. The domination of the economy likewise maximizes the diffusion of alienation in the society, and this basically constitutes the existence of the spectacle (Jappe, 11).
The dominant mode of production was taken as an ordering of signs and the production of signs is the goal. The spectacle is the substitution of signs of life for the life itself, like advertising and entertainment for desire, architecture and urbanism for community, thrills and shocks for excitement and revolt. The time for the consumption of the images is also the image of the consumption of time for example, the time consumption for a foreign vacation is indistinguishable from the consumption of travelogues or holiday snaps (Ritzer, 187).
Marx identified the state and money as two other basic alienations and abstractions. With such occasions, man alienates his capacities either as a member of collective society or as a worker, in a manner that heshe is obliged to work without possessing the means of production. Therefore, what the man produced does not belong to one and the product appears as an alien and form of hostile force. The value of the work is an abstraction and money is its ultimate form. And the spectacle is a highly developed form of tendency towards abstraction (Jappe, 12).
According to Marx, the money accumulated at a certain threshold is transformed to capital. Debord extended this statement when he furthered that capital accumulated at a certain threshold is converted into images. The spectacle is equated to all possible forms of activity that has been commodified. Debords Marxist framework traced the theory to the doorstep of commodity which rules over all lived experience. He said that spectacle is capital accumulated to the point where it becomes image (Kibbey, 32).
The Spectacles Claim on History of Human Essence
Debords conception of human essence is identical with the historical process which is understood as mans self-creation in time. Furthermore, Debord considers historical life of man and his perceived consciousness of it as the main result of mans increasing domination of nature (Jappe, 32).
Debord believes that time is the main product of the society, like a raw material for the production of a diversity of new products. This thought is the application of Marxian economic categories that in primitive societies, power extracts temporal surplus value, the masters enjoy the private ownership of history, and that the main product transformed from luxurious rarity to a commonly consumed item was the history itself (Jappe, 34).
Conditions of Social Class in Modern Society
In Marxists concept of classes and class struggles for the workers movement, Debord based his point on central roles to play. The proletariat and the bourgeoisie were the living instruments of variable and fixed capital. However, Debord tends to waver when defining the proletariat, which he often equates with the workers and sometimes depicts as the mass of people who are deprived of everything. This hesitation was due to conflation of capitalism and its unfinished earlier forms (Jappe, 38).
The fast-paced lives in the city today allow juggling of many jobs to provide and cope with a higher standard of living. One may be a worker in a firm and simultaneously work in another company for a different position. But the only thing at stake in the economic competition is a more comfortable status in a generally alienated stature of the society (Jappe, 37).
The subject and object have been artificially separated in the spectacle but both are still matching parts of a unit and their unity controls the effects such as whatever happens to one will happen to the other. In this manner, even the rulers who seem to benefit from the spectacle are also profoundly alienated from the world they control (Cubbit, 35).
The image-based media like the computers function as a substitute for an organized flow of signs for experience and substitute for reading and dialogue. Reading demands judgment and dialogue highly encourages logic hence, substitution is a mutiny of the societys voice and this result to the rule of conformism, boredom and malicious gossip over the community (Ritzer, 188).
The world is socially constructed in a manner that appears like a mass of unconnected commodities that includes the labor as a form of commodity that we have to sell to make a living. The objects including the objectified person of a worker is a mechanical connection in a factory and a mechanical consumer of commodities at home. As a whole, the spectacle inhabits every aspect and waking moment of our lives, probably even our dreams. The extent of invasion is stealing the real experience of reality that even the subjective experiences had been turned into false imitations of real experience making the human life spectacular taking for example, an image of a wheelchair user that becomes a story of narrative tragedy or triumph over tragedy regardless of the real experience of the disabled person (Cubbit, 36).
Consumption is the initial task of the spectacle and by the time Debord came to write, people were already skilled and compulsive consumers. Hence, consumption became a compulsory trend to cope with the crisis of overproduction in capitalism. Dumping and hoarding are two ways of coping with the crisis to keep the products scarce and the prices high. But consumerism is a more regulated solution by encouraging people to buy more things even if they are not needed or wanted. It develops an attitude of throwing and buying in order to replace them with new commodities. Hence, consumerism becomes a regulated program of overconsumption to address the problem of industrial overproduction (Cubbit, 39).
Then and Now The Transformation of Shanghai
A decade ago, Shanghai was a third world backwater but now it is called the worlds most dynamic metropolis. It is sometimes called New Shanghai to distinguish it from pre-1949 Old Shanghai. The citys current resurgence is tied in complex ways to its emergence in the late 1800s and early 1900s as the premier Chinese center for international economic and cultural flows (Wasserstrom, 51).
Between the 1840s and 1940s, parts of the city were under foreign control and became the base operations of the notorious Gang of Four, one member of which was the wife of Mao Zedong. The Shanghai of 1890s and Shanghai today is a unified city completely under the control of the Communist Party. During the Jubilee days, the city was a fragmented collection of three different districts, two of which were foreign-run districts (Wasserstrom, 56).
In 1992, Deng announced that Yangzi Delta would serve as the dragons head of Chinas modernization and opening to the world. The energetic program of urban renewal and internationalization transformed Pudong from an undeveloped riverfront zone into a high-tech forest of glittering skyscrapers. This paved the way for the worlds leading 500 corporations to have branch offices in Shanghai. At the turn of millennium, around 23, 000 building sites and 20 percent of the worlds cranes were in Shanghai (Wasserstrom, 52).
In 1992, Hong Kong financiers and capitalists turned to Shanghai investors from Taiwan followed. The continuous growth of investments from two parts of Greater China and Singapore furthered the development of Shanghai (Wasserstrom, 52).
In October 2001 during the APEC Summit, business tycoon like Bill Gates and prominent politicians (George W. Bush, and Vladimir Putin) visited Shanghai. The visitors heard a great deal and this added to the promising future of the city (Wasserstrom, 53).
The absence or occultation of leadership and the colonization of all areas of social life are the governing qualities of integrated spectacle. The integrated and unified state and economy accelerated the technological renewal and likewise imposed a culture of generalized secrecy and removal of possible democratic dialogues or public opinion. The fragmentation and speed of fashion and news hastens the eradication of history (Ritzer, 188). Debord maligned the commodity and the image the latter reduced to a viable instrument for the deceptions of commodity capitalism because images deceive just like the way capitalism deceives the society (Kibbey, 33).
New Shanghai Departing from Tradition
Along with the growth of investments from other cities, the increasing influence of Hong Kong culture on styles, nightlife, and fashion industry in Shanghai was intensified. The local pride is being intensified and encouraged by the newspaper headlines by proclaiming that Shanghai is a City of the Future, on its way to joining Tokyo and London among the ranks of great urban centers of the world. Also, there are billboards lining the streets which call to the world to make Shanghais wishes a reality by allowing it to host the 2010 Exposition. In 1980s, these public spaces were once reserved exclusively for advertising the glories of the Communist Party and the special characteristics of the Chinese nation (Wasserstrom, 53).
In order to create aesthetically appealing city, new parks were created but the working class housing that got in the way was destroyed. But those who were uprooted were compensated with paltry amount. They were not allowed to stay and enjoy the green space. The language of power shifted toward the creation of new jobs which are mainly aimed to produce goods without much purpose except for further consumption. Also, the rise of the environmental politics identified the degradation of urban ecology, food, air and ground water for the societys despair and impotence of the politics (Ritzer, 188).
Similarly, shopping centers were created to satisfy the cravings of Shanghais mobile professionals (Wasserstrom, 57). In June 2002, the first lavish Broadway musical, Les Miserables, came to China with its main touring company opening at Shanghais elegant new Grand Theater (Wasserstrom, 53).
The spectacle also embraces the media of fine arts and education, advertising and architecture, packaging and industrial design, fashion, sport and festivals. The result of these new forms of communication is a contemporary world doubly unreal. It was called doubly unreal because the first was when Marx noted that the scene extinguishes the creativity of those who are working in the factory system and those who live in slums. Then it becomes unreal the second time because everything around us has been coated with a false gloss of the image that reinforces the hypocritical glamour of the spectacle. The unreal realities are negative since they doubly negate the human possibilities by obstructing with exploitation and lies (Cubbit, 38).
Chinese cities of the Maoist era, including Shanghai, were the ones with people who have similar material possessions but the ethnographer Jos Gamble, noted that the frantic pace of development has led the formerly stable social stature to be undermined and reconfigured. There are many more ways to spend money in Shanghai since the establishment of Hong Kong-style shopping plazas, proliferation of advertising billboards, neon signs, restaurants filled with diners, expensive nightclubs, jewelry shops, and karaoke bars. But behind these spectacular scenes is the sizable, largely hidden underclass that is unable to participate in the commodity consumption (Wasserstrom, 57).
In the light of spectacle theory and taking into account the situation in Shanghai, Debord argued that the image is used to overwhelm the consumers in the social system of commodity capitalism. The spectacle is a visible negation of life so that the real world becomes real images, the tangible figments that are the efficient motor of trance-like behavior (Kibbey, 32). The overwhelmed consumers act as if it is a fashion trend to keep buying and that happiness is in the glittering lights and skyscrapers of the city. This is what consumerism has brought to the society of Shanghai.
But considering the contemporary society today, the conflicts of social classes pass a common necessity that is equal for all, such as money, commodity and state. And the struggle is the distribution within the social system and that social classes must become as one category among the others and be detached from empirical bearers (Jappe, 37). But as people struggle to provide for common necessities and satisfy their desires, the others can barely provide a decent living for their family.
There are migrants from the countryside streaming into Shanghai in search of work ever since the Maoist-era restrictions on rural-to-urban movement were loosened in the 1980s. The authorities have taken special actions to keep the migrants away from the view of the political leaders and international businessmen during the summit. This is linked with a form of discrimination. The police apply a different set of rules to the migrants and different rules to the real citizens (Wasserstrom, 57).
The Shanghai Illusion
The transformation of Shanghai into this magical and promising metropolis of the world poses haunting echoes of doubts from its citizens. A Shanghainese was interviewed by the ethnographer Jos Gamble, and like his fellow citizens, they are torn between excitement and concern for the changes going on in the city (Wasserstrom, 59). In Debords notion of the spectacle, the reality was always deferred, which is waiting to be realized against the deadweight of everything that denied its full potential (Cubbit, 46). The caution and concern of some citizens are beyond the bewitching effects of the skyscrapers and magnificent city-lights. They seem to refuse the effect of a spectacled city and they are probably struggling to see the real thing.
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