Notes from 12/1/10
Glenwood Community Bookshop
Society of the Spectacle, Sections 1-4, Debord
Section 4: The Fetishism of Commodities, Capital Vol. I, Marx
I took these notes as people had condensed questions, critiques, or comments that were able to be transcribed amidst a broad and long conversation. Apologies for all lost subtleties and things left out entirely. Please use the comment section and new posts to update notes if you remember shit that's not on here.
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How is “the spectacle” different than the idea that all experience is “socially constructed” (through our brains, language, communication, i.e. “mediation” in general)
Transition from Industrial Capitalism to Advanced/Spectacular Capitalism?
When/how did it happen, what did/does it look like?
At what point does Spectacular Society emerge?
-mutual emergence with the acceptance or proliferation of global capital.
Evolution of advertising over the last 40 years.
Absurdity as commodity
irony > turning an image on itself to justify its circulation
Spectacle as an event (i.e. 9/11) versus spectacular consumer relations ( i.e. crustpunks.com) the commodification of resistance circulates an image of resistance that is produced and consumed by the spectator.
Spectacle vs. Symbol
spectacle - secondary or new total meditation of social relations
symbol - primary mediation of lanuage
Materialist Dialectic (Dialectical Materialism)
Proletarian Conception: “one divides into two”
Bourgeois Conception: “two fuse into one”
^This tension or historical struggle defines what is considered “history” for Marx, Debord.
Use Value: NEED. USE. Literally what it can be used for or what you think you need. Quantitative. Human labor.
Exchange Value: Abstraction of use value for its equasion with other objects (commodities)
Denail of physical property of the thing for its exchange. Qualitative. Wage labor.
“Real Activity” = Un-alienated labor
Authentic vs. Manufactured Need (pseudo needs)
Authentic- primary human needs (eat, sleep, privileging of use-value)
Manufactured- “pseudo needs,” the privileging of exchange-value, market desire, fusion of need and desire.
Spectacle creates the need to “feel authentic” and a general fixation on authenticity.
Concept of consumable survival (?)
The feeling of choice as a psychological state of the spectacle, related to the Id and the Ego (Freud), Base and Superstructure (Marx, Althusser), Need and Desire (value systems).
Sign that the Spectacle has been cracked or toppled: When the idea of needing to feel “authentic” is no longer a concept.
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End of the meeting notes: We agreed to try a closer, more thorough reading of Part 1: Separation Perfect on Saturday, 12/4, at 10am at the Bookstore.
Proposals for further readings and reading strategies:
*partnering up or breaking the reading into sections that different people would bottomline a close reading of and notes on each meeting
* going section by section and breaking it down
* continuing to pair SOTS with relevant outside readings to help contextualize or contrast.
* reading Fiction or other non-theory/dense related stuff in-between denser texts to help bounce ideas and provide some contrast.
*reading historically relevant material for SOTS and other theoretical texts.
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