What can we do to defeat the Spectacle...

What can we do to defeat the Spectacle? How can we reestablish genuine human interaction when literally everything in the digital age has been made into an alienated illusion which only serves to mask the way real human interaction works? How can we stop people from growing up into totally isolated individuals who cannot even connect to their fellow man and live entirely through social media whilst trying to measure up to the fake life depicted in the media?

Other urls found in this thread:

culturaldamage.com/society-spectacle-social-media/
youtube.com/watch?v=IoUIHBSiVAY
hyperallergic.com/313435/an-illustrated-guide-to-guy-debords-the-society-of-the-spectacle/
cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/situ.html
musicchat.reocities.com/CapitolHill/6397/barsit.htm
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

"spectacle"? Could you give me a short explaination?

abolishing capitalism might be a nice start

...

They asked the same question about books
Then it was radio
Then it was television
Then it was film
Then it was video games
Then it was the internet
Then it was mobile phones
Then it was smart phones
Now its social media
Next it will be VR or something

OP, i assume you still go outside? Meet with people and friends? Even just talk to another human being every now and again? Humans require face-to-face interaction, we get dopamine kicks and better mental health because of it (not to mention all the other health benefits). This is facebook mom level anti-technology advancement posting, and its just misguided.

You say this as if societal contact has not legitimately eroded over the years, partially because of the innovations you list. You're so alienated that this state of things where you meet up with friends and family once in a while seems like the natural state of things, as opposed to the thousands of years where people lived in close-knit communities with many contacts and relationships throughout their local area. That is rare nowadays. Not to mention the alienating effect on the media, including the TV you dismiss - people base their perceptions of what is normal, what is desirable on these images presented to them. For example, previously your conception of what a romantic relationship entails would have been derived from the actual, real relationships you'd observe around you - now, you get an insanely fake image from the movies and the commercials and internalize that as the standard. How should you look growing old? Like those models on TV - better stock up on those anti-ageing products to match the fake image rather than the actual reality of human existence.

I read link related and it has me thinking that we're all fucked.
culturaldamage.com/society-spectacle-social-media/

...

god this is pretentious, im literally about to move into a flat with 9 other people but sure, im alienated. Get over yourself, if you feel alienated go outside and fuckin meet a mate, let everyone do their thing. Besides, communist theory dont stop at the world wide web, wherever technology goes it will go to. Unfortunately so will people like you OP :(

This is really bad and misunderstands Debord so badly that it becomes a caricature of the misreading of Debord that he warns against in Comments.

DUDE LYKE JUST GO OUTSIDE LMAO

I doubt we can, at least at a large enough scale to have an impact - not without the material means available to most people sharply declining.

The human mind takes to the Spectacle in a similar way that it takes to heroine, especially when it is so ubiquitously culturally accepted/reinforced and the rejection of such would require a fundamentally different approach to culture, aesthetics, human life in general, really. Where would these future thinkers even begin to reconstruct a Spectacle-less society? And who would join them, if it's easier to have a drink and sit on the couch?

What I think will inevitably ween humanity off of the glowing teet of the Spectacle will begin to come as world oil/energy supplies begin to become more scarce. When our collective capacity for continued expansion and growth has been in decline for generations and things start to become more survival-focused for more people (think tent-cities, if they keep growing at the rate they currently are, in 50 years, after a few more economic meltdowns). This might wake some people up, but more importantly, it will wake them up collectively, in a shared setting of survival-above-all, as the struggle to survive takes precedence over any gaudy attempt to cover up the reality of what life is to this larger group of people they may indeed live outside the Spectacle. That's how a culture may be born outside of the Spectacle, and they may resent this thing that keeps their (better off) countrymen stupid, which may lead to culture/theory that expresses some kind of harsh material realism as objective truth, disregarding all that would mislead them.

basement dweller detected
technology wont cease to develop alternative communication methods under communism
go outside

Debord intentionally made this so hard to read that I think Hegel might give up on it

Technology itself isn't the problem you fucking moron.

the entirety of the OP boiled alienation down to lack of human contact faggot

I actually kinda' like that aphoristic writing style . A lot of the best works from Stoicism are in a similar style (Aurelius's Meditations, Epictetus's Enchiridion), as well as some of my favorite one-offs from Nietzsche. It allows for a really rapid, diverse inspection of a subject without as much… filler, for lack of a better word, as some political/social/philosophical texts.

I use a social network for athletes. It's a very different experience to facebook or twitter, I've actually met most of the (few) people I interact with. I'm just sorting out doing something together this weekend with one of them. So perhaps try doing some sports.

Can/should I read "Comments" before the original? Picture not related

You can but I wouldn't.

Here's the movie for those who don't want to start directly by the book :
youtube.com/watch?v=IoUIHBSiVAY

hyperallergic.com/313435/an-illustrated-guide-to-guy-debords-the-society-of-the-spectacle/

Like clockwork.

Why do you even bother to respond if you can only respond with non-arguments and platitudes? You sound like a Capitalist-apologist pretending the problem doesn't exist and it's just the individual's fault.

Really fires those neurons

There is no such thing as genuine human interaction, human experience is already marred with this alienation between man and man and man and nature, it is this alienation that gives birth to religion and mysticism as humans seek ways to overcome such alienation. Therefore alienation cannot be blamed on the spectacle, not only it predates it, but the spectacle can be said to be a lame attempt to overcome such alienation by technical means, a lame attempt that is then captured by the state and Capital to shape the rulling ideology.

Now this though is also wrong, technology isn't neutral. It is, in a first instance, Capital's means of domination over man and nature, and later as technology progresses, it merges with Capital to form a positive feedback system where Capital can now self-valorize without need for human labor, at this point the human becomes a mere appendage of Technocapital and can be dispensed with altogether.

bump

By following the immortal dialectic of 4th International Posadism-Nick Landism and destroying it all.

Did… Did you find Debord hard to read? And… hard to read compared to Hegel?

Debord has some weird turns of phrase and if you don't get what he's referencing some shit won't be very clear, but
come the fuck on

It's easier and more direct so many recommend reading it first.

Oh fuck off. Technology isn't neutral insofar as it's origin/ownership imbues it with a certain agenda but it doesn't possess some intrinsic transhistorical capitalist quality independent of whatever form of human organization it finds itself in.

...

I want Nick Land to leave

Nick Land lives within us all, my friend

McLuhan himself, the spectacle’s first apologist, who had seemed to be the most convinced imbecile of the century, changed his mind when he finally discovered in 1976 that “the pressure of the mass media leads to irrationality,” and that it was becoming urgent to modify their usage. The sage of Toronto had formerly spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a ‘global village’ instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity, in which it has become impossible to distinguish the Grimaldi-Monaco or Bourbon-Franco dynasties from those who succeeded the Stuarts. However, McLuhan’s ungrateful modern disciples are now trying to make people forget him, hoping to establish their own careers in media celebration of all these new freedoms to ‘choose’ at random from ephemera. And no doubt they will retract their claims even faster than the man who inspired them.

m8 do you even disprove the existence of software

You can't build a castle on quicksand.

not everyone is a fucking normie addicted to small talk, i don't want to interact with people because objects satisfy my needs in a better way

imagine being so alienated that you unironically believe this

Alienation of the week. I'm so sorry user.

we can start by not watching series and anime…

I wish she would hug me…

Impossible. The Spectacle can only be subverted and starved through détournement and actually living.

this picture only makes me sadder

the magazines are also a good start on the spectacle: cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/situ.html

what a pleb, I had no trouble reading Debord and I can't even understand Marx

Hello
I will give you a hug my comrade

I feel alienated from all human interaction to some degree. Every interaction feels contrived, odd and seperated from our species-essence. Going outside won't fix something inherent in capitalism

Thanks

musicchat.reocities.com/CapitolHill/6397/barsit.htm
Thoughts on this?