/lit/ - Literature

Probably on account of all the doom.

Because people who like being depressed don't want to pay attention to the parts where it explains how the problem could be fixed. They just like wallowing in their misery.

because it serves as an intro to baudrillard's impregnable nihilism

It's atheory depicting the way society is organized and how social interactions can be understood as part of a great show. The word "spectacle" in french coming from the latin verb spectare which means "watch carefully", Debord use this sense to show how society moderators such as governments and people whom have the possibility to influence society relies on that sense of the word, showing how social relations are staged because of that.

If I reckon well that's the whole point

>>12529764
what solutions does it offer?

its "we live in a society" the book, pretty much. teenagers like to think that its all a sham and its all rigged from birth and debord feeds fuel to that angsty fire

>>12529826
>its all rigged from birth
when you combine genetics and class, isn't this more or less true

>>12529834
i mean, sure. but i dont like paradigms where you cant just argue your way out. like, what if you "choose" to not participate in the spectacle? what if you feel the societal pressures but choose to only partially engage to just get by, and keep some freedom for yourself? the book kinda makes it feel like there is no way out

>>12529818
Communism

>>12529878
I agree with you, anyone with enough will can enter a sort of monklike existence that will be more similar to monks of other eras than to his own contemporaries.

Though you could argue the disposition to do this is also genetic

>>12529885
I could argue that if being a literal god damn hermit is the only way out then it’s essentially inescapable.

>>12529917
if you want any sort of normal social experience then yes it's extremely hard to escape. Maybe little pockets like the Amish escape it? I have no actual clue what Amish life is like

who said it was doomer?

>>12530305
this chart

stop paying attention to memes

>>12529826
>>12529878
>>12529885
>>12529917

I'm pretty sure that this totalizing "the matrix" type notion of the spectacle is generally refuted as a poor reading of Debord's position (at least prior to his "comments on").
I'm not an expert on this particular book, or Situationism more broadly speaking, but it seems to me that it's common to find people arriving at bloated and overgeneralized understandings of conceptual terminology, e.g. "spectacle", because of a lack of historical understanding that would place these terms within a specific and historically contingent milieu. Too much reading theory books as if they're a take on the world in general, rather than on this world, at that time, in this place, with these specific political possibilities.

I'm not saying these books entirely lose their value after the time in which their written. History repeats itself and similar/comparable situations arise. But don't read marxists without at least understanding the need to historicize what you read.

>>12529931
Just to drive the point home, what you're suggesting is lifestylism, and it's nothing new. It's what happens you read a text like society of the spectacle, but lack any strong sense of real politics. Basically it's bougie privilege masquerading as radicalism. Sorry to sound very critical, but I am.

>>12530376
I don't agree with you at all, living an actual monk tier existence is not bougie. Im not talking about being a middle class 'minimalist' or something, I mean actually going to live in a monastery or being a hermit or something.

>>12530382
It's bougie because it's a lifestyle choice only afforded those who live in a bougie situation. I mean, that's an exaggeration, but for the most part it should hold. Most working class people don't have time to sit around contemplating life as a hermit, and as such don't have access to the choice. It just doesn't come up.

What I mean by lifestylism is that one mistakes the content of a certain way of living e.g. "actual monk tier existence" as a genuine "break" from some system or societal structure, when in fact it's simply a pseudo-radical reflection of that system. Even the fact that your response to the idea of the spectacle is basically individualist (what can I do to save ME from the spectacle) is just a crude reformulation of standard capitalist individualism. Anyway, I mean, it's your prerogative to think whatever way you want, but just know that there's no way Debord's intention for that book fits with your conclusions. I can assert this by simply pointing to the fact that he's a marxist.

>>12530328
those periods in my life of greatest intellectual vibrance and creativity were coeval with readings from the bloomer chart
works for life
though there should be some diderot on there

>>12530439
living like a monk costs next to nothing, any working class person in the west can do it

It's not capitalist or marxist, it doesnt care about your entire classification. Yes it's 'individualist', but it doesn't support capitalism at all

>>12530535

>living like a monk costs next to nothing, any working class person in the west can do it.

Not if they have kids. And not without the time and education to arrive at the thought.

>It's not capitalist or marxist, it doesnt care about your entire classification

This is such a backwards way to use both terms. Capitalism is a economic system, not simply an adjective you can attribute or not attribute to some (within your narrow perspective) outsider or fringe lifestyle.
Marxism, at its core, is an analysis of capitalism. It doesn't really make sense for you to say your monk larping "isn't marxist". I'm not saying it is or it isn't, I'm saying thst under a marxist reading, your hermit response to the concept of the spectacle is easy to critique as not in any way outside the system of capital, nor in any way resistant to it, and, in fact, I arguably in service of it.

>>12530646
The monk doesn't care if marxists don't approve of his lifestyle. And the assumption that only educated or rich people can decide to be monks is classist nonsense

The only sense in which he is supporting capitalism is that he isn't actively trying to start a revolution. He is not 'in service to it' because he is working either not at all, or so little, and consuming so little, as to be irrelevant.

The monk is not living in the spectacle, which was where this dicussion began.

>>12530646
To further prove my point, you said it yourself:
>any working class person in the west can do it.
>the west

So you are capable of some form of contextualizing and historicizing the class reality of the capitalist world we live in.

The fact that you are from the west, so at worst a working class person without the struggles of say, a working class person from a far poorer region of the world, acts as the decisive factor your access to serious contemplation of becoming a monk, which as a solution to the spectacle (although I still think you're understanding this term poorly), is in its form indistinguishable from capitalist individualism.

Honestly, it's only when you start to understand a collective response, and a solution that defends and empowers your CLASS, that you're even beginning to read a text like society of the spectacle meaningfully. Although, I would wager that the style of the book could be partly to blame for your sloppy engagement with it.

>>12530720
I don't care about what Debord thought, if he didn't understand that you can leave the spectacle without being a socialist, that's his problem not mine.

Also don't be so ridiculous as to assert there are no poor people living as monks in the third world

>>12530671
>the monk doesn't care if marxists don't approve of his lifestyle
What has this got to do with anything? The business tycoon doesn't caaare what the marxist thinks about his lifestyle either. Is this supposed to be a refutation? The whole point is the critique and its validity, not how you feel about it. This angle is so patently childish, or is it like, that brand of holier-than-thou religious "wisdom" bullshit? You shouldn't take yourself seriously if this you argue along these lines.

>And the assumption that only educated or rich people can decide to be monks is classist nonsense.

It's not at all. I'm not saying that a working class person cannot become a monk (I've made this abundantly clear). I'm saying that thinking that becoming a monk is some sort of escape from capitalist spectacle is bougie nonsense. It's a symptom of neoliberal individualism. I'm not even saying you're a bad person for wanting to be a monk! Just don't equate it to a response to capital that somehow puts you outside it. Capitalism is the context out of which your decisions arise, and if you're not figuring out a collective class response to it, you're participating in it. Lifestylism is just offshore capitalism.

>The only sense in which he is supporting capitalism is that he isn't actively trying to start a revolution. He is not 'in service to it' because he is working either not at all, or so little, and consuming so little, as to be irrelevant.

You're so captivated by this notion of your individual response to capital dictating your relationship to it. You think everything is simply an attitude or lifestyle. Captialism is not some zone of activity/behaviour that you can opt in and out of, it's an economic system that underlies the world's social relations. You're making a very basic, but fundamental error.

>The monk is not living in the spectacle, which was where this dicussion began.

Even if this is the case, which I'm not able to discuss with you with any certainty because it would seem that your sense of the concept "spectacle" is both ahistorical and without a proper material basis, I would still argue it's a shit response that fits perfectly within a capitalist individualist narrative.

It's like reading a book about how third world nations are oppressed and exploited by imperialist super powers, and your take away is that you'll make sure not to avoid those shitty countries when you go on holiday.

>>12530835
The spectacle requires a spectator, if you stop looking at it, turn inward, or towards nature, you are no longer part of it

>>12530729

>I don't care about what Debord thought, if he didn't understand that you can leave the spectacle without being a socialist, that's his problem not mine.

Oh my god you would make such a shit monk

>Also don't be so ridiculous as to assert there are no poor people living as monks in the third world

Yeah but you're not a poor person from the third world are you? You're a bougie lifestylist addicted to false equivalences.

Jesus, like, you had so much opportunity here to actually discuss the ins and outs of the text, to go into details, to maybe even convince me of something! But instead you were only concerned with defending your dribbly salvation plan. I'm now very in favour of you becoming a hermit.

>>12530878
You're incapable of understanding the idea that somebody just exits the system, all you can think about is class, class, class, money, economy. The monk has abandoned all that, his mind is not controlled by spectacle, it doesn't matter if the dominant mode is capitlaism or somethig else, he's not engaged in it.

>>12530854
See, this is exactly what I meant when I said:

bloated and overgeneralized understandings of conceptual terminology, e.g. "spectacle", because of a lack of historical understanding that would place these terms within a specific and historically contingent milieu.

>looking at "it"
>turn inward
>turn towards nature

Abstractions upon abstractions. I get that these concepts require some abstract grappling with in order to develop an understanding of them, but what your doing here is turning Debord's terms into baby food to sustain the capitalist daydream you're having about "escaping the spectacle".

>>12530906
Please explain to me the reach that capitalist spectacle has on a hermit living in the woods.

You envision reality as one large social group that you want to control and change, you dont understand that some people just leave the plantation

>>12530888
Man, jesus, listen. What's the difference between a rich man giving away all his money, and a poor man who had none to begin with?

I'll leave you with that. You've got a mammoth task ahead of you dissolving that ego.

>>12530920
To the monk there is no difference at all, something I doubt youre capable of grasping, because all you care about is economy, social status

>>12530671
>The only sense in which he is supporting capitalism is that he isn't actively trying to start a revolution.

You're getting to the root of the problem. If you ever wonder why Marxist-influenced regimes result in slaughter, the answer is contained in that line.

Remember that most of these cold war era critques of "consumer society = bad" were written to ideologically defend the Soviet Union and Warsaw Bloc over their failure to deliver consumer goods and residential housing. Fellow travellers in France and the West activated a narrative that the communist failure to produce consumer goods was actually a good thing, and that Western capitalism's economic success in raising living standards was actually a bad thing.

Note all these works come well after WW2 when the failure of Communist economics became obvious to all in comparison to the Marahall Plan countries. Prior to WW2 the Left narrative was that communism would deliver more economic output and higher consumer living standards than capitalism, comparing the stagnation of the Great Depression to the supposed success of Stalin's 30s, and that a red consumer society producing more economic goods would be a good thing. Remember Marxism is materialist, the premise is that man is an econmic unit and that economics drive history and are all that matters, the problem is workers are alienated from some of the material goods of their labor. It shares all the same values of capitalism just has different ideas of who deserves the consumer goods outputed. All Leftist ideology is in service of their contemporary politics.

>>12532100
>the supposed success of Stalin's 30s
the absolute chutzpah

>>12529878
>what if you choose to not participate in the spectacle
What if you read the book before giving your opinion on it? Debord never said the spectacle is something you "exprience" for you to simply opt out of it, the spectacle isn't something you actively take part in, its simply a description of how commodities interact with each other.

>>12532100
>Note all these works come well after WW2 when the failure of Communist economics became obvious to all in comparison to the Marahall Plan countries.
Society of spectacle came out in the 60s, communism was not seen as a failure in most of western europe, the communist party was third largest party in France and the second largest in Italy, not to mention the French riots of 68 which had 2/3 of the population partaking in it, hardly what you'd call a time of capitalist ideological superiority in Europe.
>capitalism and marxism are both materialist so they are the same
Brainet post

>>12532613
He said communism had not shown an ability to provide the material wealth of capitalism. Not that Europeans had stopped pretending it was great.


>>capitalism and marxism are both materialist so they are the same
Or you could read it as it is 'they're both materialist and have materialist values', and not add in your retarded strawman

>>12529764
didn't debord kill himself?

>>12532648
he drank himself to death

>>12530917
not the person you're replying to. Your image of a monk lying in the woods was given to you by the media you consumed and the society that bred you,

"All that was once directly lived has become mere representation,"

what was once a noble undertaking only for the most faithful of people, (directly lived) is now yet another way for bougie kids to express their individuality (mere representation)

read the book

>>12532719
The image is irrelevant. It doesn't matter what people think about it for the person who actually does it

>>12532657

wrong. he shot himself.

>>12532729
However you would agree that it matters for the person actually doing it. This image he has of himself, is not an authentic one.

>>12532100
thank god finally people are pushing back on all this whining about people enjoying consuming the fruits of capitalism, "wow look at all these poor bastards enjoying life, don't they know capitalism is miserable!"

>>12532741
His image doesn't matter either, what matters is if he leaves society and tries to find meaning in a different way. All he needs is a sense that the society is in someway wrong and the belief that something else an be found. Maybe he has a meme in his mind from some part of consumer culture, but his actual root desire for meaningful experience wasn't grafted onto him by it.

>>12532719
do you realize how much fucking propaganda was pumped out in commmunist countries? or in theocracies like iran? capitalism at least has to respond to market forces, if everyone hates the latest star wars movie, they stop making them for a while, you think they're gonna stop making kim il sung posters in north korea anytime soon?

>>12530835
it's amazing how much power you give to a system you think is so invincible

>>12532756
>his actual root desire for meaningful experience wasn't grafted onto him by it
Wasn't it? Isn't the entire premise of his endeavor defined in opposition to consumer society, and not in a genuine pursuit of enlightenment or faith.
>>12532773
Not the guy you are replying to but you really need to get over the "if you dislike capitalism you must be a gommie" mindset, it's killing the contemporary right.
And Debord isn't speaking of "Propaganda", his description of consumer society is much more abstract and rooted in the functions of capitalism regardless of market forces.

>>12532756
doubtful his experience will be a long lasting one, I think you seriously underestimate what it takes to be a monk. This wouldn't be a problem if he was guided by the same ideals the greatest monks of the past were.

>>12532773
the book also talks at length about communist societies and their spectacle. Really just read the book

>>12530835
no, renunciation is not capitalism reacting to itself, it is the world reacting to itself, and has been observed throughout history, if you can't place capitalism within a larger metaphysical context you're as much these lemmings you decry, the absolutization of economic conditions is capitalism in itself

>>12530376
hey anon, I'm very interested in the way you express yourself, any advice to express myself in that way?

Absolutely embarrassing display from monk anon tonight

>>12530535
>Ignoring the fact that monasteries were wealthy in both cash and land which allowed them to live their quiet lives
Living homeless and freezing to death on the street (which is the reality for much of society if they don't work) isn't a monk's life

>>12530328
>mfw the "bloomer" lit are all outdated BOOMourgeois rhetoric from a bygone era with no practical application for the working class in the modern techno society.

>>12529883
So it doesn't offer solutions