Tuesday, September 18, 2012

commodity as a spectacle



(People on phones)


The society of the spectacle is how we are being drawn into an alter reality through the media and propaganda. The spectacle is the flip side of money. (Debord) The spectacle is the modern equivalent to money. With it we can now have commodity.

Debord describes the spectacle as “the stage at which the commodity has succeeded in totally colonizing social life.” (Debord) The spectacle is what we see and what we believe to need in order to survive. The spectacle mostly impacted economy. Society now depends from the economy, as the economy in fact depends on the society, states Debord.

Commodity is the living experience in that other fake world that we live in. the constant need for new things because we are never satisfied with what we have. According to Debord, “automation is both the most advanced sector of modern industry and the epitome of it’s practice, obliges the commodity system to resolve the following contradiction: The technological developments that objectively tend to eliminate work must at the same time preserve labor as a commodity because labor is the only creator of commodities.” (Debord) By this, what he was trying to bring across is the fact that we work to get money and therefore buy new things and create new things that others want to buy and so on. It’s a never ending cycle which not only involves the people in the fake world, but society as a whole because we all revolve around the economy.

(Clip from the movie Wall-E of people on computer not enjoying real life)












Commodity as a spectacle from Debord’s point of view is not only visible, it’s the only thing we see. The commodity is blocking our view of the real things that matter in the rest of the world with everyday problems with little solution where commodities are few.

Finally, Debord opens our eyes to what commodity is not letting us see. He tries to show us the significant impact it’s had in our world. Society as a whole has been impacted, even those who believe to be immune to the media. In one way or another they are being victims of it too.


(Picture of iPhone models all essentially the same yet people need to have the latest one)

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