One of the most important books ever. No joke.

@EighteenYearAccount

6 жыл бұрын

DreamFragments1 I'd say THE most important book ever, for now. I'm planning on kickin it off its spot, combining the philosophies of Debord, Marx, Freud, Deleuze, Derrida, Baudrillard, Lacan, Foucault and Marcuse into one general "Postmodern" theory.

@scottstorchfan

4 жыл бұрын

Shawn Muench I’m guessing you have a lot of brown shirts?

@MikeBohlmusic

3 жыл бұрын

Pho real

I'm surprised the critics of post-modernism aren't attacking the comment section. This book is incredibly relevant to what we see today. As technology moves forward, wedged within the realm of capitalism, the further alienated we'll become. Everything seems to be a sort of show that plays out before us. The current political landscape echoes this and is a fabrication of characters, archetypes, and images.

@thedream-workdoesnotthink4512

6 жыл бұрын

We're living at the absolute nadir of postmodernity . President Trump.... Fascists arguing for 'free speech', climate-change deniers ... Fake news. Bah Humbug!

@swr3603

6 жыл бұрын

most critics of pm don't know what it actually is and just yell it when they see blue hair or someone criticizing a bigot

@Dawuuud

4 жыл бұрын

They would have to actually engage with post-modernist writing - instead of 'Soshalizm=Bad' unreflective speakers.

It's a terrific book, and I enjoy and appreciate your long-running, wide-ranging podcast. The summary of Debord is good in most every way, but a KEY component that I think isn't stated right here is Debord's (and the Situationists') direct reliance on Marx's concept of alientaton and the commodity. Capitalism transforms the worker and his lifeworld into "an immense collection of commodities" for the understanding of which, don't forget, it makes no difference whether the need that the commodity is presumed to satisfy comes from the stomach or the imagination. There's no "necessary insertion" of commodity relations so that the worker will have something to do between working hours (which is of little or no concern to capital). It's inherent to the establishment of capitalism that life in every aspect is transformed into/ reduced to a set of quantifiable value-relations; so just as with the criticism of religion whereby humans are governed by products of their own brains, so the spectacle is that commodity relationship having penetrated to the core of all social production, such that people become deactiviated from the consciousness of making the lifeworld, and are subsumed as spectators/ observors of a world that is comprised by all of their common activities (the world as "an object of contemplation") which because of its commodified nature (turned into exchange value, reified) runs invisibly by its own mechanical logics, like a train passing by the inhabited locales along the track. The spectacle is a summing up term for those aspects of this alienation/ commodification of everyday life which are mediated by images; and for a neo Hegelian like Debord, we can't say that there are aspects of life in capitalism, in modern society more generally, that are not mediated by images. Given the sources and instrumentalities of the images we share of "everyday life' in capitalism, appearances consume reality itself, and deception is built into the construction of what to all intents and purposes is an autonomous zone of images. The spectacle, Debord wrote at the beginning of the book, is "a weltanschauung that has been actualized, translated into the material realm - a world view transformed into an objective force."

High-quality content! I'm glad I found you, guys!

This is one of your best imo.

@matthewjackson9615

6 жыл бұрын

This one was good but their other videos fell short and they subsequently lost me as a viewer. Oh what the heck, it's rare to find anything of value on the internet. All things go to hell sooner or later. I was hoping this channel would pan out into something decent and of value. Silly me.

Great discussion, fun to spend time with you gents. Someone mentioned an episode on Adorno, I’d love to hear that next but I can’t seem to locate it on your channel (?) Anyway I look forward to listening to them all, thanks~

Got a membership just so I could finish this episode without waiting.

You guys are hilarious. I love this book, and your discussion of it feels like I'm back in Lit class, but its alt and way more fun.

Amazing insight

Omg I'm such a geek. Don't be spectacle-ated . . . Be spectacular ! ! I laughed pretty loud. Strong finish.

@NatsGhost

5 жыл бұрын

Heh, I like it.

Open Campus. iPhone 8. Guy Debord. BRILLIANT!

I think its interesting to note, spectacle in English has a different connotation than in French (the original language). While in English its some sort of grandiose display, the most common usage in French just means a "show" or "performance." Useful context when considering the ideas!

@moodist1er

4 жыл бұрын

Sounds the same to me

@alexey5481

4 жыл бұрын

@@moodist1er Its not -- a car wreck or elaborate carnival/acrobatic show may be referred to as a 'spectacle.' Whereas a simple performance in french would be called a spectacle. The connotation is not the same. You wouldn't go to a concert and call it a spectacle, maybe a show, unless they had pyrotechnics or some other elaborate display

@stevebeers9768

3 жыл бұрын

I think the point is that people in modernity become spectators - onlookers to their own life

Dear PEL just getting ready to watch, the subject is also covered by an American historian called Daniel J Boorstin who wrote "the image", that SOS seems to attempt to broaden/ relate to the development of Capital.

My favorite hip hop artist (Sole) is a big fan of this subject.

@oaxacachaka

6 жыл бұрын

Human Evolution does he give away his music?

@Human_Evolution-

6 жыл бұрын

oaxacachaka interesting question. He does put full albums online for free but not always. I've seen him live 3 times, 1 of the times was a free show at a local college on Earth day.

This is awesome! Can relate so much as a third world citizen, if you think your media and culture industries are bad, you have no idea. Cheers from the Philippines!

@Salaci

4 жыл бұрын

Kumusta pare

nice discussion in your discussions youall mentioned human nature...or i as I would rather call it human behavior as with the science of economics to be dissected in an attempt to understand it I read The Spectacle a few years ago and found an interesting parallel to Buddhism and meditation...... mediation induces one to step away from the "conscious self" or the "commodified self"

You guys mentioned the "keeping up with your neighbors" part. In the piece, was associated to having so many choices, yet still shackled by the demands of the norms established within societal living. To your example, you guys brought up the smart phone. Well in economics, we assume an absolute value of wealth - not a relative one. In other words, what you hold valuable has no relation to what others within your society holds. The reason why we do it, is because it works. Relative value really hasn't worked as a description - it falls apart under mathematical scrutiny. This is why, in economics, all wealth is accumulated via capital accumulation and technological change. If we could find a way to describe relative wealth into our models, there may be a way to establish some level of social impact on wealth accumulation - but the models, so far, don't show this. It has always been a good question to ask, but it's always come up fruitless when accompanied by tools which allow us to keep our thinking consistent and honest.

Do you think that the context in which stuff is marketed as commodity is the social aspect which is simultaneously sold? And could you say that every object and/or person that is in reality separate becomes, in the image representation, connected as one?

I don't go to resturants, i don't have a car, i don't have a smart phone, and i don't watch HBO.

CAUGHT THE TRADING PLACES REFERENCE AT 21:48 😂

"The best possible world on $24 a day," -now that's funny

@oaxacachaka

6 жыл бұрын

Adam Shaw cardboard box, water and ramen and some malt liquor.

Debord knows what's up. Full Stop.

UM IM A FAN OF JORDAN PETERMAN AND BLAH BLAH HES MY GOD SO YOURE AN ENEMY. jk this is great i just read this book and this is a great guide.

@TheAmbientWarrior

5 жыл бұрын

Shoes'n'Schnitzel lol

I had a bad time reading Society of the Spectacle at the grammar level; case relationships between nouns are explicit in French, and less so in English. I ran across enough sentences that made me think, "I could take that to mean a couple of different things", that I got uncomfortable. From a 500-foot view I could roughly see where the text was going, but the closer I payed attention the more problems I ran into. Very frustrating.

@ernststravoblofeld

5 жыл бұрын

Try reading The Ethics of Ambiguity. The French are from space.

@copsarebastards

5 жыл бұрын

Yeah i find this book extremely frustrating but hopefully i can get through it this time

@danopticon

3 жыл бұрын

Dave L. - Do you mean that you were reading an English translation which you felt didn’t adequately capture the original French text’s meaning(s)?

The Medium Is the Massage - thats correct title of the the Mcluhan & Fiore book.

@shaka994

Жыл бұрын

That's hilarious. Just read on Goodreads that the author was told it was a printing error and insisted that it be kept that way.

@tedbyron1499

Жыл бұрын

@@shaka994 the title does inform the primary thrust of the book

"Starbucks hasn't led to an increase in the number of philosophers, so I'll have to rethink that thesis." "Starbucks is a place of employment for philosophers." Haha. That was great!

Kids, "the medium is the message." Not vice versa. Honestly.

If a man is slaving in the forest and no-one hears him toiling, is he really slaving?

26:50 You could think of this kind of sentimental attachment to an object as another example of commodification*, right? In a noncapitalist culture, there could be the same value on the feelings you have when you think of your grandfather, or the stories that have been passed down or a poem he wrote or a place he loved instead of a thing he once owned. Maybe it's because we live in a culture that worships commodities that we cram our homes with silver sets and hutch's and old medals. Maybe those are just extensions of spectacle testifying to our worth. *Had to do a quick search to see if the word should be commodification or commoditization and think I picked the correct one.. In the course of that I stumbled on a Slate article on the subject that you might find interesting. Did I make the right choice? www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_motley_fool/1998/01/the_commoditization_conundrum.html

@jamesdoctor8079

4 жыл бұрын

Dreamingrightnow I would have to disagree. I believe commodification is the process an object goes through in becoming valuable in a market. So, in essence, commodification is the transition from object to commodity. Objects can still act as signifiers and hold meaning outside of any economy. In other words, even if there were no capitalism, I believe humans would still be sentimental towards objects as we are innately capable of rationalizing an objects significance and connection to other objects

@dreamingrightnow1174

4 жыл бұрын

​@@jamesdoctor8079 Yes, but I'm not arguing that. I think I'm actually saying the same thing. We can value a thing materially or sentimentally or both; we can spend money based on utility or in an effort to meet an emotional or social need, or because we think it's a smart market play (like pet rocks or cabbage patch dolls). We can still have sentimental attachments to objects, but whatever those are, marketers will find a way to commodify them. If our culture were rooted in utility though, Apple and Nike would be out of business. :)

Dylan was crucial for asking naïve but useful questions

“because I use the right hemisphere while they are using the left” (Marshall McLuhan)

The Situationists DESPISED the USSR btw.

"Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities." Mark Twain

This has literally the worst misunderstanding of Marx's theory of value I have ever seen. When it's said at 25:40 that "well in a market economy it's just whatever you're willing to pay for it". He is precisely wrong and as wrong as he could be. Marx did not say that things have some inherent "real value" independent of how much people want them, which is subjective and bad. Marx said that production and exchange don't have the direct aim of fulfilling people's wants, but have the aim of fulfilling people's wants as a by product of needing to be sold (he's no different in this than basically any economist here). Now the issue that Debord is bringing up is that at a certain point simply making commodities to fulfill wants that are already there and plainly evident isn't as efficient as making wants and then making commodities for the manufactured wants. That is a fine point, but has nothing to do with Marx's understanding of value. For Marx ALL desires (whether manufactured or otherwise) are use values no matter how trivial or stupid. "The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference." (literally the third sentence of Das Kapital) The exchange value of a commodity (for Marx) is the amount it can be sold for. What the speaker described is the use value of the commodity WHICH IS ALWAYS SUBJECTIVE under every form of production/exchange this has nothing to do with capitalism. Under capitalism the exchange value tends to equal the socially necessary labor time required to make/remake the commodity. Exchange value thus IS NOT "A FUNCTION OF DEMAND" for Marx, at least not directly. It is a function of productive capabilities. Only in the situation of a shortage, or a situation where production gets worse as it gets more plentiful (once all of the places where drilling for oil is easy are run out, the cost might raise etc) is demand ever a factor in price for Marx. Demand for Marx determines the amount sold more than it does the price of commodities.

@96CAMJ

4 жыл бұрын

@lightningpuppies maybe you could elucidate me in one thing, if you don't mind. I'm trying to learn about Marx. Anselm Jappe, while studying Guy Debord, says that "the abstract labour, representend in the commodity, is totally indifferent to its effects on the plan-of-use. Its sole purpose is to produce, at the end of the cycle, a larger amount of value - in the form of money - than it had at the beginning. This means that the characteristic of capitalism is already contained in the dual nature of commodity: it is necessarily a system in permanent crisis." I'm having trouble to understand the last sentence. What he meant by "dual nature of commodity" and "a system in permanent crisis"? To capitalism is more important the "plan-of-exchange" than the "plan-of-use" since what measures the value of a commodity is abstract work, the same as saying undifferentiated without taking into account the specificities of each particular work? It is because of the main objective of capitalism is to have an increasing production of commodities that leads to the exploitation of workers. Despite exploration, does production increase and does the system have more value in the form of money?

@seanoconnor8138

2 жыл бұрын

marx was stupid and nothing he said was coherent haha

Eating out is actually cheaper. It reduces the amount of food eaten as well. Prove me wrong! lol

You were good when you explained his idea.. to a point (although you started going on about stars without mentioning all he said on the subject)but when you reflected on it you were totally banal and missed how sophisticated and classical his theory is. lots of Hegel , lots of schopenhauer pessimism, striving, some veblin etc. The theory is a little spoilt brattish though.. Marx talks about alienation from the product being produced, and Guy says, now you get to buy it but thats wrong as well.. I wonder if Marx would have been satisfied where guy finds fault? Now though this seems like a very retro philosophy, both relevant and irrelevant. the idea of consumers consuming and producing vacuously seems correct , but now true marxian or even Malthus levels of poverty are returning. The modern consumerist ethic seems to have undergone ta stalinist revolution in which we will not be happy until the people holding iphones are eating each others flesh.

You misinterpreted Debord as Baudriyard. Debord is more than commodities

how do i join this group? like y'all email me robertcorriher@gmail.com twitter; @robertcorriher i love this subject. debord's movie changed my life- thanks for being here to make sure i could hear this discussion and see that film. y'all are my heroes. expect a big announcement from north carolina next week!!

Dude, it's "The medium is the message"... get your McLuhan right, guys ... potentially way more significant than Debord in the long run.

....ok, this was what? >3yrs ago so hopefully 1 or 2 of y'all have seen "Can Dialectic(s) Break Bricks?" [']cause it's uh all over ewe teweb...[']s funny, too. ..oh yeah maynhap Big D aun[']t direckly responsible furrit....cheers...

Heidegger nostalgia for an old way of life really tells you why he was a nazi. He was a conservative that did not like modern society/capitalism, but instead of thinking of overcoming it he just wanted to regress to feudalism

Guys chill in the anti communism... Half of this episode is "omg, I'm not a communist".

blah blah blah went the pre-recorded comments..."Post-Mod is my breakfast cereal for the Society of the Spectacle!" ya hoo, I'm a sjw commodity...

When was anybody but the noble class able to have time to be interested in art and social issues in the past? That's not a product of capitalism.

Mark Fisher > Guy Debord

@doublenegation7870

4 жыл бұрын

Valorizing the copy over the original is a thoroughly spectacular gesture.

10:09 What on earth is a libertarian socialist?

Labels labels labels-- sick of 'em! Heard this stuff from the 50s onward. The rot is in mankind's heart. Excise that, then the rest takes care of itself. That's God's strategy. Oh, by definition He's perfect, & He made us. I think I'll go w/ Him. But if you'd like to butt your head against impregnable proud ignorance, be my guests. Philosophize away like my ancestors did. Got them nowhere. P.S. Capitalism simply is a formula; plunk in variables & it spits out results. It has no discernment or values. Those are exclusive to people. So, if you talk about good or bad outcomes, you need to make subcategories under capitalism that reflect the value inputs of people & groups (like corporateers & banksters). I call this, Crapitalism.

@slukky

4 жыл бұрын

Oops! I invented a label. Baaaaaaad....

So you all decided to be Americans rather than philosophers. So sad.

@ThePartiallyExaminedLife

2 жыл бұрын

Pithy yet unhelpful. You're objecting to us covering this, or not being as sympathetic to it as you feel we should be? This is not a work typically covered in American philosophy classes at all.