The Spectacle and Modern Mass Media

“In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.” Guy Debord

Writing in the late Sixties, Debord, a member of Libertarian-Marxist currents such as the Situationist International and Socialsme ou Barbarie, seemed capable of  dragging Marx (yet unfortunately not most Marxists) into the 20th century and struggle within a differing capitalist and state form.

Dismissing contemporary life as defined by representation; wherein actual social interaction, rational thought and human activity were replaced with the simple desire to be represented as such; becoming a conservative not because of ideology but because some stylistic aspect appeals to you.

When I first came across the concept of the Spectacle, I was so very enthralled I immediately wondered if I could buy a T-shirt quoting it and announcing my super-cool radical credentials. Somehow, I had rather missed the point.

It is truly exciting to apply such theories to the modern world; if all social relationships are defined by the exchange of images, what relevance does that have for massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft, surely one’s very essence in that world is made up of a commodity? One’s armour, appearance and mount are bought by one’s labour power (the means of production are, presumably, a sword. A difficult thing to collectivise, admittedly); in essence, there is even some degree of class structure within the game (‘Unionise the Unicorns!‘) and one’s own character is a commodity and an image; yet in this realm, there are social relationships (or relationships between commodities?) that have in some cases even culminated in marriage.

It is an easy idea to consider politically, too; anarchist and left-communist circles are often campiagning to differentiate themselves from what they call ‘Lifetsylists’. People who squat or steal from their local Tesco or eat out of bins; ostensibly for some revolutionary purpose but more truthfully as a social appearance they wish to express. That these activities are so removed from the Marxian subject; a Promethean working-class, is testament to their irrelevancy. The Circle-A symbol is a very popular and fashionable; equivalent to many instances of Communist Chic; Che Guevara T-shirts and hammer-and-sickle bags and loads of other things twats like me wear.  The forces designed to threaten the capitalist mode of production now function as another commodity; just as the organised forces of the political Left work most often as a bourgeois pressure group, attempting to prop-up social democratic forms using civil disobedience and mass direct action – with no revolutionary potential at all. Manipulating social desirability in some manner (the infamous working-class solidarity of the 30’s and 40’s and their entirely workerist line) could be a very powerful political tool; perhaps evidenced in modern times by the election of Barack Obama on a heavily image-based Obama-is-cool stylistic campaign.

The Spectacle is also easy to apply to Social Networking sites; a series of images and relationships to commodities are used to express a sense of individuality; “I’m a Spandau Ballet fan; I enjoy playing Call of Duty, I’m a member of the Labour party…” The concept of a ‘profile picture’ is most probably the most direct creation of a representative form via an image possible; and how often and how much do people fuss over perfecting those?

The truly interesting thing surrounding the Situationist tendencies in Philosophy is the possible advances in science and technology predicted by many Scientists. The idea of a possibly entirely-computerised existence, or of a vast expansion of conscience within machines, entirely reinvents this. Will it be the self merged with the computer or a sense of commodity preferences? We can easily understand that commodites exist within ‘virtual’ worlds; and are often exchanged for real-world capital, but would ownership of any such be possible in an essentially limitless world? Truthfully, there is no scarcity in an invented world – yet most invented worlds have engineered scarcity and high-intervention market economies – often to maximise on real-world capital as the many pedophiles and furries on Second Life will attest. What will the subject of any such world be?

I’ll give your brows a second to descend, and I’ll exit with a joke at my expense;

“Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.” Guy Debord

Extremism, Education and Idiosyncrasy

It was announced recently that our adored and fastidious government has decided that BNP teachers are entirely acceptable, deciding on a bizarre justification invoking the fundamental right to Free Expression; y’know,the right that has been resolutely and repeatedly shat upon by selfsame government whilst they’ve been in office.

The vast and often oddly-dressed milleu we occasionally refer to as the Left was uncharacteristically divided on the issue. Whilst the hardcore Leninists and populist anti-capitalists who sell me papers and shout alot were outraged by Fascists paki-bashing at the local primary school, the bleeding heart liberals, readers of Orwell and sheepish libertarians were applauding at the culture of debate in our truly, truly tolerant society.

What irked me most was the reaction of the erstwhile lunchroom demagogues of the political centre (contrary to belief, I do know the occasional moderate) whose reaction was ‘Well, I don’t want the extreme left teaching my children!’

I find this incredibly frustrating. Centrists, as ever, hold up their lack of ‘ideology’ as a shield against proper debate of any kind; whilst leftists and rightists may not teach – they are ‘authoritarian’ – it is the supposedly liberal centre that calls for these bans. Personally, I’d rather Centrists not teach my kids – I’d rather libertarian communists taught them; however, I respect their own development and freedom of choice and thus I’m more than happy for them to meet varying politicos. Unless they’re a Conservative in which case I’ll kick them out and they can ruggedly, as an individual, sort themselves out. Bastards.

For me, it highlights the authoritarianism of political moderates; essentially, you are allowed absolute political freedom insofar as it is between these two points; agitate for anything else and the state moves against you – Nick Griffin probably legitimately cares about ‘Rights for Whites’; yet he moved against an established hegemony (one useful to capitalists) and the state apparatus was used to curtail him and divide his support. Instead, Griffin and his goons get to act as a sideshow to drum up support for Afghanistan and Iraq and encourage people to vote for Labour or the Tories as a counter-balance.  Enjoy.

The whole idea of ‘extremism’ is so subjective as to be meaningless. For some people, UKIP and Micheal Foot are extremism; for others, the British National Party and Vladimir Lenin are too moderate. Its a great pejorative, yet not a great description; you don’t have to acknowledge or debate with anyone who is an extremist.

Similaraly, to quote Sean Vernell, “I can’t simply take out my socialist watch and hypnotise people into agreeing with me.” Subjects in which there can be a relevant bias only crop up beyond GCSE level (unless you’re intensely passionate about The Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar and number bonds that add up to ten) at which case you’d hope they’d be able to critically evaluate information – if not they’d fall victim to the first orator they bump into regardless.

The idea of nuetrality is nonsense; noone is entirely apolitical. I personally feel a wide range of intensely biased teachers is a great method; the education system didn’t supply me with a single far-left revolutionary brainwasher – I hardly garnered an aneamic Guardian-reader – and I turned out an intolerable ultra-leftist just the same, because I learnt things outside the system.

There’s no such thing as a lack of bias; no such thing as extremism. Let everyone teach; enough knowledge will turn anyone against fascism anyway.

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