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More on the 1967 Situtationist book.
Do we buy Debord's critique? Is any merely partial critique (i.e., not calling for revolution) just more spectacle? Is technology inherently dehumanizing? Haven't some of these passivity/anti-technology arguments even been launched back in history against things like books? Could Debord's model of authenticity be mass produced, i.e., is this something that we can achieve as a society as Debord hopes, or merely as individuals (if that)?
You can read Debord's 1988 follow-up, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, here. Seth mentions this discussion of the book featuring author Will Self.
Continued from part 1, or just get the ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!
End song: "Millionaire" by The Mekons (1993), one of whom, Jon Langford, Mark interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #22.
Try blinkist.com/pel for audio condensations of non-fiction books, and try the Seriously Wrong Podcast: srslywrong.com.
John Fisher says
August 21, 2017 at 9:42 pmHey I really liked the Debord podcasts.
some points, possibly of interest.
Assert: no one, ever, who rhapsodizes about authentic labor, has ever done it.
The first spectacle was born with the first campfire ( you sorta covered this a little)
You need to include the perspective of science, to whit:
Society is an emergent concept that arises from our monkey consciousness.
Consciousness is an emergent concept which we don’t understand at all, but it seems to arise from the wet and squishy stuff.
Feedback loops are really important, and are responsible for the spectacle of advertising, and maybe all Debord’s spectacle.
Authenticity might be about quieting the brain in the Zen sense, therefore MC riding, surfing, sex all qualify.
PS Lila is much better than ZatAMM. But I don’t really believe in authenticity though I know it when I see it.
There is no such thing as unmediated experience, but then we don’t know what experience is exactly, so…?
There is something wonderful about the compulsive achievement of athletes and artists and toolmakers, never mind the spectacle or chaotic lives, I won’t apologize for it.
Alienation arises from consciousness, to be conscious is to be alienated.
cheers
David says
August 22, 2017 at 9:25 amHi Guys, I thought this was one of your best episodes.
I agree with Wes concerning the naiveté of the left. His argument that the material conditions must be ripe for revolution is prescient. However, if we are able to enslave artificially intelligent robots they will become the new proletariat and will be likely to revolt. Consequently, a new thesis and antithesis will arise a la Hegel. Hence my pessimism and my belief that history is “cyclical”.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/20/elon-musk-killer-robots-experts-outright-ban-lethal-autonomous-weapons-war
Keep up the good work.
Fredy says
August 23, 2017 at 11:22 amThis episode was particularly poignant. First things first, I definitely think you should do shows on Benjamin’ critique of mass produced art, Marcuse’ One Dimensional Man, Max Stirner’ The Ego and His Own and Fredy Perlman’ Against his-story, Against Leviathan.
Following from the above posted comment, I found myself thinking about this problem of non-mediated experience in Hegel, as Debord having quoted Hegel on the development on self-consciousness. My understanding is that, for Hegel, all experience and consciousness itself is mediated by concepts; that one cannot know ‘the world’ outside of a conceptual framework one develops vis self-consciousness imposing itself on what negates ‘it’. I assume he gets this from Fichte, the idea of the self-conscious ‘I’ which determines what is meant by the ‘external world’.
Insofar as alienation is concerned, I believe there are varying degrees of what constitutes alienation. I think there exists a distinction between self-consciousness mediating experience through concepts and being/feeling wholly removed from a or ‘the’ world itself. The former seems inevitable and inescapable. The latter is itself the product of existence and life itself and even Hegel doesn’t seem to deny Schellings account of an external, primordial, natural state which precedes the consciousness turned inward.
This appears to be better elucidated in Heidegger’ The Origin of the Work of Art; earth is the Schellingian natural system of pre-phenomenological primordiality and the world represents that immediate existential situation into which you or I are ‘thrown’.
Maybe alienation is an inevitability, however I do believe there exists a non-alienated state (technically prior to consciousness turned self-consciousness) and that this is a constantly recurring phenomena which supersedes Reason and thinking of a ‘self’.
dmf says
August 23, 2017 at 12:09 pmthe point isn’t to be pure/true but to be aware of the enabling backgrounds (like digital platforms, terms of use contracts,, building codes and the like) and to make more customized/local/diy versions with some degree of reflexivity, roughly speaking (as say Richard Sennett does) the difference between open and closed systems.
to move beyond the economics of extraction (like financialization, search Saskia Sassen) to something more peer to peer, not a chance in the world that ground-up/localized movements can compete with the resources and reach of the international corporations but then no means of organization is.
https://twitter.com/evgenymorozov
Evan Hadkins says
August 24, 2017 at 7:49 amRE class analysis. I think the Precariat is the new working class.
I don’t know why co-op’s and Mondragon don’t come up more in these kinds of conversations.
Most of our relationships work in non-Capitalism and non-Communism. Having organisations at human scale would make a difference. And isn’t terribly difficult to do.
I would have liked to hear more from Seth about advertising – there does seem to be a natural connection.
Ken says
September 6, 2017 at 2:28 pmActually, Mondragon is, or at least was, a fascist organization. It was part of Franco’s Autarky (self-sufficiency) program. A key tenant of fascism. It was intended to develope Spain’s industry so it would not be dependent on foreign sources. I never know whether to be worried or amused when my anarchist friends put it forward as a model. Some would say that it’s profit sharing and commitment to avoiding layoffs is the best system for workers. It does insolate the workers from sudden changes in the national or world economy, which benefits workers in the short term and it’s size and structure help it to dominate Spain’s industry but, it is unclear if it’s philisophical inflexibility allows it to be competative on the world market In fact, it has been forced to open factories overseas and employ non owner workers to keep afloat. To me the biggest question is whether it is actually helping or hindering Spain’s industrial developement. Spain’s future may depend on that.
charlotte steinzig says
August 24, 2017 at 4:13 pmI thought this conversation, parts I and II, was terrific — one of your best. The discussion about alienation of the worker since industrial revolution brought up a memory The Weavers (German play) and writings of Glenn Adamson re craft. Thanks for earlier Levinas (albeit rather lightly dismissive) and request for Benjamin. Many thanks, again. Your podcast is an anchor for me.
dmf says
August 24, 2017 at 9:34 pmwhat Benjamin would be good grist for the PEL mill, parts of Work of Art or Concept of History maybe?
you might like:
Graeme Alm says
September 2, 2017 at 1:42 pmI really enjoyed this conversation, and find Wes and Dylan’s comments on this type of Marxist critique quite compelling. Often, social alienation is deployed as a concept to critique a particular civilization, but seems to be a critique of the anxieties endemic to human life and the challenge of living freely and authentically. These critiques always strike me as secularized accounts of salvation from human fallenness.
I’d be interested to hear you guys do an episode on Ortega Y Gasset’s Revolt of the Masses. He was a paternalist liberal critic of 20th century “mass society,” so her mirrors many elements of the critical theory perspective on capitalism, but from a very different point of view.