Ouphilpo

Within societies of the modern mode of production, the spectacle has proliferated ad nauseam to the extent of this autonomous representation taking precedence over differentiation of the real, or the worldly. “The spectacle in its generality is a concrete inversion of life, and, as such, the autonomous movement of non-life” (Debord §2). Although the spectacle is the inversion of life, it is itself a product of life itself. This dialectical relationship is not an amalgamation of symbols or representations within reality, but is rather a weltanschauung actualized into the dominant operating force within society. This weltanschauung acts as the “global social praxis” that has divided the representative image from reality; however, this division unites the world in a commonality through this alienation (Debord §7). This phenomenon of a generalized separation is a unification in disunity–unified insofar as each member of society is disconnected with the worldly though the spectacular autonomous image, “the very heart of society’s real unreality” (Debord §6). This real unreality is the proclamation of appearances as the predominate form of human and social life. The singular is a debtor to society by means of expression, and these expressions are manifest as nothing short of spectacular representation. This debt is part in parcel to the spectacles “monopolization of the realm of experiences,” initiating a movement (or downgrade) from being as having and having to appearing (all products are spectacles); resulting in being as appearing, thus (Debord §12). As a result of a raison d’être through appearance, the human sense of sight has overtaken the place of touch as the most important or informative sense, despite sight’s quality as the most easily deceived and abstract sense of all. Where reality was once determined or reaffirmed by touch, it has now changed to sight, where ’seeing is believing.’ This change has resulted in a reconstruction of the religious illusion, and because the real has been replaced with or monopolized on by the spectacle, the absolute has become a worldly notion, rather than a heavenly one. Where we once strove to comprehend the heavens, the “cloud-enshrouded entities have now been brought down to earth;” the Kantian ding-an-sich has proven itself as the unattainable, rather than a higher divinely presence (Debord §20). We do not comprehend the immediate as such, rather, only in or through spectacular media.