- Knock, knock.
- Whose there?
- Modern Electronic Media.
- *Gasp* Go away!
Honestly, the main concept of these authors is summed up in the first paragraph in Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle, when he says, “all that once was directly lived has become mere representation” (1). The idea that there was once a time when society experienced life to its fullest, and that what we currently experience is but a façade is indeed disturbing. Although I would argue that we are made of the same genetic makeup that we have been for at least the past 100,000 years and thus are subject to the same hormones and chemicals, which essentially reflects a continuous life experience. Nonetheless, biology only provides the groundwork, the environment still significantly shapes the life experience.
Debord argues on page 16 that there as been a “decline from being, into having, and having into merely appearing.” This is a critique on capitalism. At first I didn’t agree, but lets consider the example of children and video games. Playing is a very essential part in mammalian neurological development. All mammals play, whether you are an adorably ferocious lion cub or a human. Playing connects vital neural pathways that create standards for social interaction, interpersonal intelligence, etc. However, with the invention of video games, children aren’t directly interacting with each other as often as they should during this highly plastic period in their brain, which results in mild to severe antisocial behavior. As Baudrillard points out, “the reader is thereby plunged into a kind of idleness…instead of functioning himself…he is left with no more than the poor freedom either to accept or reject the text” (281). The children (or more likely their parents) must go out of their way to be exposed to social interactions because the technology isn’t going anywhere.
My point is that we lose a degree of simply living in the natural world and experiencing the life that we have been designed to live via evolution. This spectacle that Debord has been alluding to is the inverted image of society in which relations between commodities have replaced relations between people. As a result of being influenced by these images from the capitalist media, we strive to try and convince others that we are normal be appearing to have what the media tells us that we need. For example, having haircuts designated for gender roles. This can be completely unconscious (and potentially simply due to exposure), for example craving Wendy’s over McDonalds because you recently saw a commercial for it. Moreover, we consume products we are exposed to and familiar with more often than off brands (or at least I do). This I think is partially due to human nature. From an evolutionary perspective, it is safer to eat the berry we are familiar with to avoid an accidental poisoning.
There's a lot in this post I agree with. I was especially struck by your comment about progress in technology effecting our development by supplanting the kind of experiences that have been so common to thousands of years of the human race. It reminds me of the review session last Saturday in which Dr. Brewin explained to us Harold Innis's statement. "technology as extension of man". I'm reminded of that because a statement like that implies a kind of demarcation between man and technology, a relationship in which man still wields complete control over his engineered enhancements. Innis was of course colleagues with McLuhan so Debord would probably label this wild optimism as well - and in this case I think I would have to agree. The situation Debord describes with his theses on the spectacle and the media is one in which symbols and representations are valued more than the true human experience they were designed to mirror. From this perspective, media and technology are more than just extensions of man, they are intrinsic aspects of his being. And that's spooky.
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