>Debord traces the development of a modern society in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation: "All that once was directly lived has become mere representation."[2] Debord argues that the history of social life can be understood as "the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing."[3] This condition, according to Debord, is the "historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life."[4]
>historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life. Sounds marxish.
Brandon Brown
>Guy Louis Debord was a French Marxist theorist
Kevin Wood
Sounds trueish.
Brayden Wright
I think the first part of the quote is a decently sober observation, but I'm not on board with Marx' commodification theory.
James Morgan
It needn't be marxish really.
It is definitely the case that modern society has turned human behaviour into capital/commodities in the form of information.
Previously it was all about owning the right things. Before that it was about being the right things: your character, allegiance, tribal group(s).
Now it's about curating an appearance that is even more abstracted from the real world (social media profiles, videos, etc).
Kayden Brooks
You know, I'm past the discussion. I just agree with it. But what do we do? Should we just become luddites, stay away from social media and etc? The world is total shit, but if you don't become shit yourself, you get run over by the world. Is there something to be done individually or collectively? Maybe we just have to wait so the world is a thousand times worse and more fake than today to say "remember good old days". I'm literally expecting nuclear holocaust irl + 99% VR time fake appearances life to help us deal with it.
Sebastian Martin
>Debord traces the development of a modern society in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation: "All that once was directly lived has become mere representation."[2] Debord argues that the history of social life can be understood as "the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing."[3] This condition, according to Debord, is the "historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life."[4] OP you have to be more critical when you read. The story Debord tells here is very nicely outlined but you have to uncover the implicit value-judgements he deploys here (and inherits from marxist theory). In short, he inverts [1] the active value-judgements of the society he describes through his reaction [2] to it. For example, the natural desires to select, filter, have ownership over, and justify our experiences as aesthetic are all branded as "inauthentic". In contrast, the less selective, slavish to nature disposition of earlier men is Christened as "direct life". The acceleration of society (that today teases us with the prospect of human cloning and organ printing) through culture, technology and economy is labelled a "decline". The will-to-nothingness (nihilism) is flatteringly called "of being"; and our increased power over objects, representations, and the medium of their exchange is called "having and merely appearing". Debord feels "colonized" by products and the medium of exchange, when in fact these have undergone a liberalisation, through total exposure (the unfairly maligned globalism and telecommunications). Also not to miss his probable assumption at the end there, I bet by "social life" he has an incredibly idealistic picture that is threatened by today's reality of maximalist exchange.
If you want a tl;dr intuitive summary of all the above: just imagine an unhealthy, dweeby post-revolution frenchman drowning himself in alcohol and cigarettes while muttering obscurities concerning those healthy average girls having fun in your picture.
[1][2] Genealogy of Morality, 1887.
Isaac Gomez
wtf neolibs are trying to claim netchu now
Brayden Brooks
The theory I cited has nothing to do with specific political-economic systems.
Also from what I've read "neolib" is just a catch-all pejorative term for several distinct things that people dislike. Existing terms should be used instead.
Jonathan Johnson
> The acceleration of society (that today teases us with the prospect of human cloning and organ printing) through culture, technology and economy is labelled a "decline". The will-to-nothingness (nihilism) is flatteringly called "of being"; and our increased power over objects, representations, and the medium of their exchange is called "having and merely appearing".
I mostly agree with your claims (and I'm not OP), but I'd like to expand and discuss on these.
I believe there is a valid point to be made in criticizing the "arrow of progress" of technology, insofar as it does not free ourselves from nature per se but rather reshapes nature into another facet of it having power of ourselves. When it is said "This condition, according to Debord, is the "historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life." ", it means that we are no longer facing the problem of transforming and overcoming nature but now at the turning point (in what I would say is a feedback system) where our (now transformed) surroundings are the things which reshape ourselves. What we might really have is an illusion of increased power over representations when in reality we are so socially atomized that we can not see nor truly influence, be it as individuals or as collective, the emergent phenomena of capitalist society. To be colonized by the commodity is precisely to be totally exposed to the system, and treated in the same manner as the commodity themselves.
Whereas nothing is fully intrinsic or fully extrinsic, one might claim that conditions of social life today (thanks to technology) are far more extrinsic than intrinsic, e.g the girls in OP are, in many ways, being made to have fun, not having fun per se (which are both not absolute sentences of intrinsic and extrinsic but rather different sides of 60/40 and 40/60 relations among these two). Ironically or not, the locally-enforced communication and globally-locked market exchanges of the past, and the sense of tight-knit tribal relationships, allowed individuals more control over the influence from their collectives (of course it did too, since the emergence effects were not nearly as strong). Whether or not we are better off now, I think the girls in that pic would certainly claim we are, but I wouldn't be so fast about it.
Nolan Martinez
>But what do we do? Should we just become luddites, stay away from social media and etc? Yes. Or at least just use it for basic shit like chatting.
Grayson Reyes
sounds cool but doesn't really make sense if you look at history.
Leo Jenkins
>it means that we are no longer facing the problem of transforming and overcoming nature but now at the turning point (in what I would say is a feedback system) where our (now transformed) surroundings are the things which reshape ourselves So instead of being shaped by nature, we are no shaped by human society. That's progress.
>What we might really have is an illusion of increased power over representations when in reality we are so socially atomized that we can not see nor truly influence, be it as individuals or as collective, the emergent phenomena of capitalist society. But this was the exact same shit when only nature ruled over us. Biology and psychology did a lot to reveal the natural illusions we harboured.
>To be colonized by the commodity is precisely to be totally exposed to the system, and treated in the same manner as the commodity themselves. This is not a bad thing, despite the retarded loaded word 'colonized'. If you understand physics then you'd know that even basic perception is not a one-way street. Being manipulated somewhat by the product you manipulate is natural, and nothing to get hysterical over.
>e.g the girls in OP are, in many ways, being made to have fun, not having fun per se (which are both not absolute sentences of intrinsic and extrinsic but rather different sides of 60/40 and 40/60 relations among these two). Ironically or not, the locally-enforced communication and globally-locked market exchanges of the past, and the sense of tight-knit tribal relationships, allowed individuals more control over the influence from their collectives (of course it did too, since the emergence effects were not nearly as strong). All you're saying is that there are a greater myriad of things to manipulate us now, which again is obvious since we indulge in more complex and numerous apparatus. Also, again you understate just how much traditional ideas of fun were forced upon us by natural and communal forces. The cost of more complex forms is that now more things fight back.
>Whether or not we are better off now, I think the girls in that pic would certainly claim we are, but I wouldn't be so fast about it "critical" theories, making readers dumber than bimbos for centuries.
Jason Johnson
>The will-to-nothingness (nihilism) is flatteringly called "of being" Elaborate. I don't see the connection.
Mason Ward
>Elaborate. I don't see the connection. By "the decline of being into having" Debord means that in earlier centuries people were not defined by the objects they possessed, e.g. even if a peasant rode the best horse in the king's clothes, he would still be a peasant. But the erosion of social class and the rise of individualism now mean that people get defined by what they have.
So I guess Debord wouldn't have a problem with the disappearance of aristocracy, so it's probably the appearance of individualism that bugs him. So again, he is anti-progress. In the age where individualism is default, Debord wishes to return to a time before that (as if that were possible once the consciousness of individualism has come around: hence it must be a will-to-nothingness). Rather than follow the natural urge to define oneself in the space allowed, Debord would rather we went back to something we cannot go back to. Or in his own words, he wants us to long for being even though being (stability) is an illusion while the truer description of reality is becoming (and naturally, this healthy truer description grammatically aligns with "having").
Jose Stewart
Yeah, but how does that help in any way though? Do you actually think people can come out of it? And I don't mean one person not looking at a screen anymore, that can be done, but I mean to get that one person away from a world that is evolving with technology along side him.
Just like I can't say "money is wrong" and throw away my money. I wouldn't be throwing anything away, because with or without money, I still depend on money because the world around me functions like that.
I can't just ride a horse in the streets to avoid the stress of cars.
William Parker
>I can't just ride a horse in the streets to avoid the stress of cars.
but you can ride a bike, you know
Xavier Reyes
>Debord traces the development of a modern society in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation:
Not a surprising result when he has never "really" lived himself. This observation is going to be a cliche in a generation. Authenticity is void with any rigorous understanding of representation.
Ian Sullivan
>riding a bike >avoiding the stress of cars
lel
Joseph Johnson
What is 'authentic' social life?
Xavier Nguyen
>All that once was directly lived has become mere representation ok sounds like, post modernist rhetoric. Is she saying that there is no social life anymore and all that we do is just taking selfies when actually we are more and more isolated?
Andrew James
>not the webm come one people
Easton Miller
roasties got toastied by based situationists
Parker Green
Watching this makes me feel like Jane Goodall
Cooper Wilson
This webm always makes me uncomfortable
Bentley Clark
>So instead of being shaped by nature, we are no shaped by human society. That's progress.
Do you mean to say that humans, one facet of nature as a whole, a facet that has existed (depending upon your definition "human") for maybe 200.000 years("civilization", again depending upon how you define the term, for somewhere in the neighborhood of 6.000 years), knows better than nature itself, which has existed for at least 14 billion years?
to put this into a clearer perspective, 200.000 and 6.000 are about .0014% and .00004% of 14 billion
Charles Bell
>hence it must be a will-to-nothingness I'm not a Nietzsche scholar, but that feels like a mischaracterization. And I don't know if he's opposed to individualism as such, since social media/consumerism are hardly the only avenues for self expression.
Kayden Rivera
Surely a picture of a bunch of friends enjoying a baseball game wasn't the best example to use.
Christopher Roberts
He is absolutely right. I try to live my life as authentically as possible and in order to do so I had to get rid of any kind of mechanical form of socialization including cell phones and social networking site.
Hudson Clark
...and then you realized this scene is taken completely out of context and it was some kind of "take your best selfie" moment at a baseball game.
Justin Torres
>hasn't even glanced at the inside of the book
Bentley King
>I can't just ride a horse in the streets to avoid the stress of cars. I'll be honest, I'm not sure what situation you're describing here. Could you be more specific about how social media affects the people who don't use it?
Isaac Mitchell
>authentic social life >mere representation
can he define those things without screaming "read Hegel!!!"?
Brody Brooks
I was being ironic
Christopher Cook
roasties are always engaged in a 'take your best selfie' moments in the game of life
Bentley Lopez
One that doesn't include selfies apparently. This board is little more than /r9k/ for people who read.
Connor Wood
Still they only care about representation otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. They literally only care about their image. They don't give a shit about anything else.
Easton Cox
And?Wasnt that always important?
Tyler Torres
Before it used to be authentic. People actually socializing for the sake of having friends. Now its just egotism; "Oh I hope chad sees this cute picture of me because the only thing I care about is my social image"
Lucas Kelly
of course not, he is still longing for the old world where society tells you what to do and guides your whole life. that was fine when life was possible in the midst of nature from the start, but living among machines and crying about it is as good as nothing.
what is needed today is not some fags stating the evident in some intellectual (or artistic or religious or scientific etc) language, nor sectarian leaders to guide the lost masses, we just need to be left alone so the mind eventually becomes aware of itself so one can experience the life immanent in the living world, even if it is away from it.
cause even if you read all the books you can find, even if you go to live in some ecocommunity, without that awareness you'll do nothing. and that is something that can only happen by itself if left alone. if you just change the pressure surrounding the mind from an imposed to a chosen one it will keep blocked.
Josiah Reyes
here,
He probably can't, but why couldn't we? A mere representation of something would be something fully induced or extrinsic, such as taking a selfie inside a bathroom and mark your location in Barcelona when you're actually in Chile or something. You don't care that you don't really feel cute and that you really can't travel, as long as you can portray a representation of the whole thing, which in turn becomes "social commodity" to be exchanged over instagram or some shit like that. OP's pic obviously doesn't prescribe to "mere representation" but would be "partial representation" of actually going to a baseball game. As for authentically living that would mean a fully intrinsic experience. This is also (and perhaps more so) inconceivable in strict wording, but someone who didn't take their smartphones to a particular movie and never read reviews about a movie would at least partially have had a more intrinsic experience of thinking about the movie by oneself, likewise for them silly trips to Asia that hipster millennials love (but merely represent in their vanity fair social media profiles).
Social media did not truly affect those who did not partake on it for a long time, but nowadays? If you have spent enough time looking for a job, and in most job sectors, you'd surely have come across HR departments that use social media profiling, including penalizing for the lack of it. It is also something most people do when they want to gauge you as a potential acquaintance, and lets not even get started on how much social leverage a profile can give in dating life. If people are to become a commodity, people with no social media participation are akin to products that fell out of the shelf and no one knows if the product is bogus or OK for consumption.
I think a discussion in this will not be profitable. we recognize the influence of emergent phenomena in the same way only having a different outlook on the outcome, which I guess is a point for you since if everyone was concerned like me, we'd never even have this conversation of the internet on some anime message board.
Kevin Ramirez
do you believe that "before" (before when) people didn't make friends to improve their social status, obtain connections, influence and power?
Cameron Nelson
Not through sterile soulless ways like selfies and facebook.
Kayden Flores
Anal.
Christian Cooper
>actually going along with a take your best selfie initiative >not a dumb vapid empty shell of a whore
Chase Collins
there were no facebook or selfies when Debord wrote what he wrote
Ian Cooper
This. If anything, the fact that there is external stimuli to engage in commodity fetishism and atomize yourself and take part in an exchange of social capital only makes the point more glaring, not nullified.
Jordan Reed
This makes the point better, since the commodity fetishism of social life could be identified as far back as in early industrial revolution
Benjamin Bell
Could someone explain what commodity means in this context?
Jace Ramirez
I'm surprised no one has asked you for a source.
Jordan Wilson
you left out the jewish part
Jonathan Ramirez
Makes it even stupider that they were asked to
Alexander Butler
Of fucking course? Debord was strictly writing for a capitalist society that capitalized on this processes and behavior
Julian Gutierrez
It would have been much more appropriate to draw a link with mechanisation than representation. Too bad poor Debord was haunted with visions of spooky ghosts.
Lincoln Young
Like, could you maybe not colonize my atomized alienation with your, like, systemically appropriated phallogocentrism? Fanx, sweetie.
>implying that you're not yourself being strung into the spectacle by letting yourself become preoccupied by a picture selected out of context as a means of arousing anxiety about the society of the spectacle in alienated pseudo-intellectual young men
Jason Johnson
>Also from what I've read Read more, then. Fucking faggot
Hudson Butler
>selected out of context Stop this lie.
Tyler Bell
It's as out of context as those pictures of gaping mouthed, cartoonish muslim protesters that alt-righters love to post as a representation of all those who dare to defy the sacred West. There are always extremes to social ails, but nowadays it's all too easy to make it seem as though they're the norm.
