The society of the spectacle: a reflection on postmodernity

This social and psychological phenomenon has a brutal impact on our way of understanding life.

We are currently living through convulsive we are living through convulsive times in society, politics and economics.. It is assumed that part of the global financial crisis that has plagued us for exactly ten years, but it also points to another reason, a more psychological or rather psychosocial one. A lack of understanding of the society we are and the one we want to be. "A crisis of values," say philosophers and sociologists all over the world. Economic activity in times of prosperity would have been a mirage of what we thought it was supposed to be, and now only its more kitsch.

The concept of the society of the spectacle is now more than twenty years old since it was conceived by the French author, thinker and philosopher Guy Ernest Debord (1931-1994). This author wrote a book of less than 200 pages to describe what he saw as the new deception of the 20th century. He compared the model of society, the emerging capitalist one, with what religion became in times past: a mere control of people by creating a fictitious reality that never existed, such as that of consumption.

What is the society of the spectacle?

The idea of the society of the spectacle arises from the Situationist thought of the fifties of the last century. Guy Debord was influenced by modern cinema, European lyricists and the most radical Marxist and anarchist thought. Thus, in 1952 founded in 1952 the Lettrist Internationala magazine critical of the urban model that was being forged after the World War period.

Just five years later, in 1957, the Situationist International (SI) was founded, an organization of revolutionary intellectuals and artists who were against capitalism. against the capitalism that was being that was being implemented in European society. In addition, it was a fierce claim against the class society and against the culture of Western civilization of capitalist domination. This movement was nourished by the extreme left ideologies of authors such as Georg Lukács or Rosa Luxemburg.

A decade later, the founder of the Situationist group, having collected enough information and observations of everyday life, wrote his most famous work: The Society of the Spectacle (1967). This book was a masterful thesis of critical debate against the society of modern capitalism, as well as its impact on people's identity. "Everything that was directly lived, is today moved away in a representation," the writer of the play asserted.

The values of postmodern society

The situationists of the time had great contributions to the cultural and intellectual revolts around the world, from the Western to the Eastern world, paying special attention to the Spring of 1968 (Prague Spring), opposing great resistance against the values that were instilled in modern societies. Capitalism, consumption, image, status, materialism. The aim was to break away from these predetermined and artificial values to create a more pure, sentimental and humanistic model.

For Guy Debord, the advanced capitalist production model marked our lifestyle, our way of relating to others and the acquired values based on spectacle. acquired values based on the spectacle. From spectacle, we understand as the representation of these values by the media, cinema, advertisements and banners that magnify false ideas and feelings, according to the critics.

The values of the society of the spectacle that are still present today, suggest the belief of an artificial reality as if it were our natural environment. The normalization of these precepts as a method of coexistence. The vehicle, the devices, the types of trips we make, all of them mercantile concepts that respond to an erroneous idealization of what life should be, based on the image of the image that we have. life based on the image that is given to others..

Psychogeography as a groundbreaking method

One of the keys to overcoming some of the stereotypes set by Western capitalism was what Guy called the "detour" method, a way of tracing a different direction from the one society has accustomed us to. Thus, psychogeography was a very effective experimental method that sought to mark an indefinite route by wandering through urban environments and not predetermined by the rhythm of society.

It was about walking around, generating natural situations and experiences of chance (that is why it was called Situationism). According to another expert in the field, the Spaniard Luis Navarro, a situation can be a spontaneous or a constructed moment, depending on how each person wants or needs to create his or her own reality.. From this point of view, this is one of the master lines of the society of the spectacle, that of questioning the scheme created for a society to be "functional and civilized".

Situationism today

Many social movements today are direct heirs of 20th century Situationism. The global crisis of the financial system that broke out more than a decade ago is directly a crisis of the current capitalist system (also heir to the last century). Therefore, platforms such as "Occupy Wall Street", the globally recognized website "Wikileaks" or the activist hackers of "Anonymous", are presented as tools of struggle against the culture of the establishment. tools of struggle against the culture of the established.

At the national level, in Spain it has translated into the so-called "15M Movement", peaceful protests that began in the country's large cities in protest against wage cuts, the regression of civil rights such as housing or a stable job, or the political disaffection felt by citizens against their representative leaders. Corruption has been the ultimate pillar of this phenomenon, which continues to grow stronger today.