1-15
16-34
35-53
Chapter 3:
Unity and Division Within Appearances
“A lively new polemic about the concepts ‘one divides into two’ and ‘two fuse into one’ is unfolding on the philosophical front in this country. This debate is a struggle between those who are for and those who are against the materialist dialectic, a struggle between two conceptions of the world: the proletarian conception and the bourgeois conception. Those who maintain that ‘one divides into two’ is the fundamental law of things are on the side of the materialist dialectic; those who maintain that the fundamental law of things is that ‘two fuse into one’ are against the materialist dialectic. The two sides have drawn a clear line of demarcation between them, and their arguments are diametrically opposed. This polemic is a reflection, on the ideological level, of the acute and complex class struggle taking place in China and in the world.”
—Red Flag (Beijing), 21 September 1964
54
The spectacle, like modern society itself, is at once united and divided. The unity of each is based on violent divisions. But when this contradiction emerges in the spectacle, it is itself contradicted by a reversal of its meaning: the division it presents is unitary, while the unity it presents is divided.
55
Although the struggles between different powers for control of the same socio-economic system are officially presented as irreconcilable antagonisms, they actually reflect that system’s fundamental unity, both internationally and within each nation.
56
The sham spectacular struggles between rival forms of separate power are at the same time real, in that they express the system’s uneven and conflictual development and the more or less contradictory interests of the classes or sections of classes that accept that system and strive to carve out a role for themselves within it. Just as the development of the most advanced economies involves clashes between different priorities, totalitarian state-bureaucratic forms of economic management and countries under colonialism or semicolonialism also exhibit highly divergent types of production and power. By invoking any number of different criteria, the spectacle can present these oppositions as totally distinct social systems. But in reality they are nothing but particular sectors whose fundamental essence lies in the global system that contains them, the single movement that has turned the whole planet into its field of operation: capitalism.
57
The society that bears the spectacle does not dominate underdeveloped regions solely by its economic hegemony. It also dominates them as the society of the spectacle. Even where the material base is still absent, modern society has already used the spectacle to invade the social surface of every continent. It sets the stage for the formation of indigenous ruling classes and frames their agendas. Just as it presents pseudogoods to be coveted, it offers false models of revolution to local revolutionaries. The bureaucratic regimes in power in certain industrialized countries have their own particular type of spectacle, but it is an integral part of the total spectacle, serving as its pseudo-opposition and actual support. Even if local manifestations of the spectacle include certain totalitarian specializations of communication and control, from the standpoint of the overall functioning of the system those specializations are simply playing their allotted role within a global division of spectacular tasks.
58
Although this division of spectacular tasks preserves the existing order as a whole, it is primarily oriented toward protecting its dominant pole of development. The spectacle is rooted in the economy of abundance, and the products of that economy ultimately tend to dominate the spectacular market and override the ideological or police-state protectionist barriers set up by local spectacles with pretensions of independence.
59
Behind the glitter of spectacular distractions, a tendency toward banalization dominates modern society the world over, even where the more advanced forms of commodity consumption have seemingly multiplied the variety of roles and objects to choose from. The vestiges of religion and of the family (the latter is still the primary mechanism for transferring class power from one generation to the next), along with the vestiges of moral repression imposed by those two institutions, can be blended with ostentatious pretensions of worldly gratification precisely because life in this particular world remains repressive and offers nothing but pseudo-gratifications. Complacent acceptance of the status quo may also coexist with purely spectacular rebelliousness — dissatisfaction itself becomes a commodity as soon as the economy of abundance develops the capacity to process that particular raw material.
60
Stars — spectacular representations of living human beings — project this general banality into images of permitted roles. As specialists of apparent life, stars serve as superficial objects that people can identify with in order to compensate for the fragmented productive specializations that they actually live. The function of these celebrities is to act out various lifestyles or sociopolitical viewpoints in a full, totally free manner. They embody the inaccessible results of social labor by dramatizing the by-products of that labor which are magically projected above it as its ultimate goals: power and vacations — the decisionmaking and consumption that are at the beginning and the end of a process that is never questioned. On one hand, a governmental power may personalize itself as a pseudostar; on the other, a star of consumption may campaign for recognition as a pseudopower over life. But the activities of these stars are not really free, and they offer no real choices.
61
The agent of the spectacle who is put on stage as a star is the opposite of an individual; he is as clearly the enemy of his own individuality as of the individuality of others. Entering the spectacle as a model to be identified with, he renounces all autonomous qualities in order to identify himself with the general law of obedience to the succession of things. The stars of consumption, though outwardly representing different personality types, actually show each of these types enjoying equal access to, and deriving equal happiness from, the entire realm of consumption. The stars of decisionmaking must possess the full range of admired human qualities; official differences between them are thus canceled out by the official similarity implied by their supposed excellence in every field of endeavor. As head of state, Khrushchev retrospectively became a general so as to take credit for the victory of the battle of Kursk twenty years after it happened. And Kennedy survived as an orator to the point of delivering his own funeral oration, since Theodore Sorenson continued to write speeches for his successor in the same style that had contributed so much toward the dead man’s public persona. The admirable people who personify the system are well known for not being what they seem; they attain greatness by stooping below the reality of the most insignificant individual life, and everyone knows it.
62
The false choices offered by spectacular abundance — choices based on the juxtaposition of competing yet mutually reinforcing spectacles and of distinct yet interconnected roles (signified and embodied primarily by objects) — develop into struggles between illusory qualities designed to generate fervent allegiance to quantitative trivialities. Fallacious archaic oppositions are revived — regionalisms and racisms which serve to endow mundane rankings in the hierarchies of consumption with a magical ontological superiority — and pseudoplayful enthusiasms are aroused by an endless succession of ludicrous competitions, from sports to elections. Wherever abundant consumption is established, one particular spectacular opposition is always in the forefront of illusory roles: the antagonism between youth and adults. But real adults — people who are masters of their own lives — are in fact nowhere to be found. And a youthful transformation of what exists is in no way characteristic of those who are now young; it is present solely in the economic system, in the dynamism of capitalism. It is things that rule and that are young, vying with each other and constantly replacing each another.
63
Spectacular oppositions conceal the unity of poverty. If different forms of the same alienation struggle against each other in the guise of irreconcilable antagonisms, this is because they are all based on real contradictions that are repressed. The spectacle exists in a concentrated form and a diffuse form, depending on the requirements of the particular stage of poverty it denies and supports. In both cases it is nothing more than an image of happy harmony surrounded by desolation and horror, at the calm center of misery.
64
The concentrated spectacle is primarily associated with bureaucratic capitalism, though it may also be imported as a technique for reinforcing state power in more backward mixed economies or even adopted by advanced capitalism during certain moments of crisis. Bureaucratic property is itself concentrated, in that the individual bureaucrat takes part in the ownership of the entire economy only through his membership in the community of bureaucrats. And since commodity production is less developed under bureaucratic capitalism, it too takes on a concentrated form: the commodity the bureaucracy appropriates is the total social labor, and what it sells back to the society is that society’s wholesale survival. The dictatorship of the bureaucratic economy cannot leave the exploited masses any significant margin of choice because it has had to make all the choices itself, and any choice made independently of it, whether regarding food or music or anything else, thus amounts to a declaration of war against it. This dictatorship must be enforced by permanent violence. Its spectacle imposes an image of the good which subsumes everything that officially exists, an image which is usually concentrated in a single individual, the guarantor of the system’s totalitarian cohesion. Everyone must magically identify with this absolute star or disappear. This master of everyone else’s nonconsumption is the heroic image that disguises the absolute exploitation entailed by the system of primitive accumulation accelerated by terror. If the entire Chinese population has to study Mao to the point of identifying with Mao, this is because there is nothing else they can be. The dominion of the concentrated spectacle is a police state.
65
The diffuse spectacle is associated with commodity abundance, with the undisturbed development of modern capitalism. Here each individual commodity is justified in the name of the grandeur of the total commodity production, of which the spectacle is a laudatory catalog. Irreconcilable claims jockey for position on the stage of the affluent economy’s unified spectacle, and different star commodities simultaneously promote conflicting social policies. The automobile spectacle, for example, strives for a perfect traffic flow entailing the destruction of old urban districts, while the city spectacle wants to preserve those districts as tourist attractions. The already dubious satisfaction alleged to be obtained from the consumption of the whole is thus constantly being disappointed because the actual consumer can directly access only a succession of fragments of this commodity heaven, fragments which invariably lack the quality attributed to the whole.
66
Each individual commodity fights for itself. It avoids acknowledging the others and strives to impose itself everywhere as if it were the only one in existence. The spectacle is the epic poem of this struggle, a struggle that no fall of Troy can bring to an end. The spectacle does not sing of men and their arms, but of commodities and their passions. In this blind struggle each commodity, by pursuing its own passion, unconsciously generates something beyond itself: the globalization of the commodity (which also amounts to the commodification of the globe). Thus, as a result of the cunning of the commodity, while each particular manifestation of the commodity eventually falls in battle, the general commodity-form continues onward toward its absolute realization.
67
The satisfaction that no longer comes from using the commodities produced in abundance is now sought through recognition of their value as commodities. Consumers are filled with religious fervor for the sovereign freedom of commodities whose use has become an end in itself. Waves of enthusiasm for particular products are propagated by all the communications media. A film sparks a fashion craze; a magazine publicizes night spots which in turn spin off different lines of products. The proliferation of faddish gadgets reflects the fact that as the mass of commodities becomes increasingly absurd, absurdity itself becomes a commodity. Trinkets such as key chains which come as free bonuses with the purchase of some luxury product, but which end up being traded back and forth as valued collectibles in their own right, reflect a mystical self-abandonment to commodity transcendence. Those who collect the trinkets that have been manufactured for the sole purpose of being collected are accumulating commodity indulgences — glorious tokens of the commodity’s real presence among the faithful. Reified people proudly display the proofs of their intimacy with the commodity. Like the old religious fetishism, with its convulsionary raptures and miraculous cures, the fetishism of commodities generates its own moments of fervent exaltation. All this is useful for only one purpose: producing habitual submission.
68
The pseudoneeds imposed by modern consumerism cannot be opposed by any genuine needs or desires that are not themselves also shaped by society and its history. But commodity abundance represents a total break in the organic development of social needs. Its mechanical accumulation unleashes an unlimited artificiality which overpowers any living desire. The cumulative power of this autonomous artificiality ends up by falsifying all social life.
69
The image of blissful social unification through consumption merely postpones the consumer’s awareness of the actual divisions until his next disillusionment with some particular commodity. Each new product is ceremoniously acclaimed as a unique creation offering a dramatic shortcut to the promised land of total consummation. But as with the fashionable adoption of seemingly aristocratic first names which end up being given to virtually all individuals of the same age, the objects that promise uniqueness can be offered up for mass consumption only if they have been mass-produced. The prestigiousness of mediocre objects of this kind is solely due to the fact that they have been placed, however briefly, at the center of social life and hailed as a revelation of the unfathomable purposes of production. But the object that was prestigious in the spectacle becomes mundane as soon as it is taken home by its consumer — and by all its other consumers. Too late, it reveals its essential poverty, a poverty that inevitably reflects the poverty of its production. Meanwhile, some other object is already replacing it as representative of the system and demanding its own moment of acclaim.
70
The fraudulence of the satisfactions offered by the system is exposed by this continual replacement of products and of general conditions of production. In both the diffuse and the concentrated spectacle, entities that have brazenly asserted their definitive perfection nevertheless end up changing, and only the system endures. Stalin, like any other outmoded commodity, is denounced by the very forces that originally promoted him. Each new lie of the advertising industry is an admission of its previous lie. And with each downfall of a personification of totalitarian power, the illusory community that had unanimously approved him is exposed as nothing but a coalition of loners without illusions.
71
The things the spectacle presents as eternal are based on change, and must change as their foundations change. The spectacle is totally dogmatic, yet it is incapable of arriving at any really solid dogma. Nothing stands still for it. This instability is the spectacle’s natural condition, but it is completely contrary to its natural inclination.
72
The unreal unity proclaimed by the spectacle masks the class division underlying the real unity of the capitalist mode of production. What obliges the producers to participate in the construction of the world is also what excludes them from it. What brings people into relation with each other by liberating them from their local and national limitations is also what keeps them apart. What requires increased rationality is also what nourishes the irrationality of hierarchical exploitation and repression. What produces society’s abstract power also produces its concrete lack of freedom.
Friday, April 01, 2005
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
NTGNTP (6th Draft): CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE Part 1.1.8
Personal and family preparation is the first and longest step. Premature formal organization could eventually lead to a purge. The public eye is best avoided. Informal arrangements are another matter, and draw less attention. The individual has no place in this system other than choosing brands. A private arsenal could be quietly amassed before the complete abolition of the second amendment by well intentioned, weepy left-wing fascists. Common caliber rifles will be unnoticed and ammunition readily obtained.[15] Shotguns were outlawed by warfare convention for a messy reason. The average citizen can become a major irritant with hunting weapons. A cache containing camping equipment, and canned goods may be leisurely gathered over the decades. Allies may be gathered more slowly, based on long-term association, including police, active and former military personal, or government officials. Many shared sympathies are unseen due to social isolation caused by a technological society. Stop watching television, and talk to people. The aim is preparedness after a collapse, not immediate armed rebellion. The system is seen by many to be rightly superior to collapse. Once the checks start bouncing, many loyalties will be redirected on that day. Bigotry and classification are products of instilled propaganda. Those notions are best forgotten. Inbreeding leads to stagnation. The police and military are an extension of official policy. Many have only truly seen the situation while performing their duties -- not all are over-socialized swine. The usual justifying rhetoric is predictable, and offers nothing new. It plays right into the hands of the propagandist.
[15] An old M1-style peep sight may improve rate of fire over conventional modern sighting equipment. A miss is more easily, and quickly compensated by this World War I sniper technique. Any competent gunsmith can perform the necessary modification, or better learn that useful skill.
[15] An old M1-style peep sight may improve rate of fire over conventional modern sighting equipment. A miss is more easily, and quickly compensated by this World War I sniper technique. Any competent gunsmith can perform the necessary modification, or better learn that useful skill.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
The Society of the Spectacle 35-53
1-15
16-34
Chapter 2:
The Commodity as Spectacle
“The commodity can be understood in its undistorted essence only when it becomes the universal category of society as a whole. Only in this context does the reification produced by commodity relations assume decisive importance both for the objective evolution of society and for the attitudes that people adopt toward it, as it subjugates their consciousness to the forms in which this reification finds expression. . . . As labor is increasingly rationalized and mechanized, this subjugation is reinforced by the fact that people’s activity becomes less and less active and more and more contemplative.”
—Lukács, History and Class Consciousness
35
In the spectacle’s basic practice of incorporating into itself all the fluid aspects of human activity so as to possess them in a congealed form, and of inverting living values into purely abstract values, we recognize our old enemy the commodity, which seems at first glance so trivial and obvious, yet which is actually so complex and full of metaphysical subtleties.
36
The fetishism of the commodity — the domination of society by “intangible as well as tangible things” — attains its ultimate fulfillment in the spectacle, where the real world is replaced by a selection of images which are projected above it, yet which at the same time succeed in making themselves regarded as the epitome of reality.
37
The world at once present and absent that the spectacle holds up to view is the world of the commodity dominating all living experience. The world of the commodity is thus shown for what it is, because its development is identical to people’s estrangement from each other and from everything they produce.
38
The loss of quality that is so evident at every level of spectacular language, from the objects it glorifies to the behavior it regulates, stems from the basic nature of a production system that shuns reality. The commodity form reduces everything to quantitative equivalence. The quantitative is what it develops, and it can develop only within the quantitative.
39
Despite the fact that this development excludes the qualitative, it is itself subject to qualitative change. The spectacle reflects the fact that this development has crossed the threshold of its own abundance. Although this qualitative change has as yet taken place only partially in a few local areas, it is already implicit at the universal level that was the commodity’s original standard — a standard that the commodity has lived up to by turning the whole planet into a single world market.
40
The development of productive forces is the unconscious history that has actually created and altered the living conditions of human groups — the conditions enabling them to survive and the expansion of those conditions. It has been the economic basis of all human undertakings. Within natural economies, the emergence of a commodity sector represented a surplus survival. Commodity production, which implies the exchange of varied products between independent producers, tended for a long time to retain its small-scale craft aspects, relegated as it was to a marginal economic role where its quantitative reality was still hidden. But whenever it encountered the social conditions of large-scale commerce and capital accumulation, it took total control of the economy. The entire economy then became what the commodity had already shown itself to be in the course of this conquest: a process of quantitative development. This constant expansion of economic power in the form of commodities transformed human labor itself into a commodity, into wage labor, and ultimately produced a level of abundance sufficient to solve the initial problem of survival — but only in such a way that the same problem is continually being regenerated at a higher level. Economic growth has liberated societies from the natural pressures that forced them into an immediate struggle for survival; but they have not yet been liberated from their liberator. The commodity’s independence has spread to the entire economy it now dominates. This economy has transformed the world, but it has merely transformed it into a world dominated by the economy. The pseudonature within which human labor has become alienated demands that such labor remain forever in its service; and since this demand is formulated by and answerable only to itself, it in fact ends up channeling all socially permitted projects and endeavors into its own reinforcement. The abundance of commodities — that is, the abundance of commodity relations — amounts to nothing more than an augmented survival.
41
As long as the economy’s role as material basis of social life was neither noticed nor understood (remaining unknown precisely because it was so familiar), the commodity’s dominion over the economy was exerted in a covert manner. In societies where actual commodities were few and far between, money was the apparent master, serving as plenipotentiary representative of the greater power that remained unknown. With the Industrial Revolution’s manufactural division of labor and mass production for a global market, the commodity finally became fully visible as a power that was colonizing all social life. It was at that point that political economy established itself as the dominant science, and as the science of domination.
42
The spectacle is the stage at which the commodity has succeeded in totally colonizing social life. Commodification is not only visible, we no longer see anything else; the world we see is the world of the commodity. Modern economic production extends its dictatorship both extensively and intensively. In the less industrialized regions, its reign is already manifested by the presence of a few star commodities and by the imperialist domination imposed by the more industrially advanced regions. In the latter, social space is blanketed with ever-new layers of commodities. With the “second industrial revolution,” alienated consumption has become just as much a duty for the masses as alienated production. The society’s entire sold labor has become a total commodity whose constant turnover must be maintained at all cost. To accomplish this, this total commodity has to be returned in fragmented form to fragmented individuals who are completely cut off from the overall operation of the productive forces. To this end the specialized science of domination is broken down into further specialties such as sociology, applied psychology, cybernetics, and semiology, which oversee the self-regulation of every phase of the process.
43
Whereas during the primitive stage of capitalist accumulation “political economy considers the proletarian only as a worker,” who only needs to be allotted the indispensable minimum for maintaining his labor power, and never considers him “in his leisure and humanity,” this ruling-class perspective is revised as soon as commodity abundance reaches a level that requires an additional collaboration from him. Once his workday is over, the worker is suddenly redeemed from the total contempt toward him that is so clearly implied by every aspect of the organization and surveillance of production, and finds himself seemingly treated like a grownup, with a great show of politeness, in his new role as a consumer. At this point the humanism of the commodity takes charge of the worker’s “leisure and humanity” simply because political economy now can and must dominate those spheres as political economy. The “perfected denial of man” has thus taken charge of all human existence.
44
The spectacle is a permanent opium war designed to force people to equate goods with commodities and to equate satisfaction with a survival that expands according to its own laws. Consumable survival must constantly expand because it never ceases to include privation. If augmented survival never comes to a resolution, if there is no point where it might stop expanding, this is because it is itself stuck in the realm of privation. It may gild poverty, but it cannot transcend it.
45
Automation, which is both the most advanced sector of modern industry and the epitome of its practice, obliges the commodity system to resolve the following contradiction: The technological developments that objectively tend to eliminate work must at the same time preserve labor as a commodity, because labor is the only creator of commodities. The only way to prevent automation (or any other less extreme method of increasing labor productivity) from reducing society’s total necessary labor time is to create new jobs. To this end the reserve army of the unemployed is enlisted into the tertiary or “service” sector, reinforcing the troops responsible for distributing and glorifying the latest commodities; and in this it is serving a real need, in the sense that increasingly extensive campaigns are necessary to convince people to buy increasingly unnecessary commodities.
46
Exchange value could arise only as a representative of use value, but the victory it eventually won with its own weapons created the conditions for its own autonomous power. By mobilizing all human use value and monopolizing its fulfillment, exchange value ultimately succeeded in controlling use. Usefulness has come to be seen purely in terms of exchange value, and is now completely at its mercy. Starting out like a condottiere in the service of use value, exchange value has ended up waging the war for its own sake.
47
The constant decline of use value that has always characterized the capitalist economy has given rise to a new form of poverty within the realm of augmented survival — alongside the old poverty which still persists, since the vast majority of people are still forced to take part as wage workers in the unending pursuit of the system’s ends and each of them knows that he must submit or die. The reality of this blackmail — the fact that even in its most impoverished forms (food, shelter) use value now has no existence outside the illusory riches of augmented survival — accounts for the general acceptance of the illusions of modern commodity consumption. The real consumer has become a consumer of illusions. The commodity is this materialized illusion, and the spectacle is its general expression.
48
Use value was formerly understood as an implicit aspect of exchange value. Now, however, within the upside-down world of the spectacle, it must be explicitly proclaimed, both because its actual reality has been eroded by the overdeveloped commodity economy and because it serves as a necessary pseudo-justification for a counterfeit life.
49
The spectacle is the flip side of money. It, too, is an abstract general equivalent of all commodities. But whereas money has dominated society as the representation of universal equivalence — the exchangeability of different goods whose uses remain uncomparable — the spectacle is the modern complement of money: a representation of the commodity world as a whole which serves as a general equivalent for what the entire society can be and can do. The spectacle is money one can only look at, because in it all use has already been exchanged for the totality of abstract representation. The spectacle is not just a servant of pseudo-use, it is already in itself a pseudo-use of life.
50
With the achievement of economic abundance, the concentrated result of social labor becomes visible, subjecting all reality to the appearances that are now that labor’s primary product. Capital is no longer the invisible center governing the production process; as it accumulates, it spreads to the ends of the earth in the form of tangible objects. The entire expanse of society is its portrait.
51
The economy’s triumph as an independent power at the same time spells its own doom, because the forces it has unleashed have eliminated the economic necessity that was the unchanging basis of earlier societies. Replacing that necessity with a necessity for boundless economic development can only mean replacing the satisfaction of primary human needs (now scarcely met) with an incessant fabrication of pseudoneeds, all of which ultimately come down to the single pseudoneed of maintaining the reign of the autonomous economy. But that economy loses all connection with authentic needs insofar as it emerges from the social unconscious that unknowingly depended on it. “Whatever is conscious wears out. What is unconscious remains unalterable. But once it is freed, it too falls to ruin” (Freud).
52
Once society discovers that it depends on the economy, the economy in fact depends on the society. When the subterranean power of the economy grew to the point of visible domination, it lost its power. The economic Id must be replaced by the I. This subject can only arise out of society, that is, out of the struggle within society. Its existence depends on the outcome of the class struggle that is both product and producer of the economic foundation of history.
53
Consciousness of desire and desire for consciousness are the same project, the project that in its negative form seeks the abolition of classes and the workers’ direct possession of every aspect of their activity. The opposite of this project is the society of the spectacle, where the commodity contemplates itself in a world of its own making.
16-34
Chapter 2:
The Commodity as Spectacle
“The commodity can be understood in its undistorted essence only when it becomes the universal category of society as a whole. Only in this context does the reification produced by commodity relations assume decisive importance both for the objective evolution of society and for the attitudes that people adopt toward it, as it subjugates their consciousness to the forms in which this reification finds expression. . . . As labor is increasingly rationalized and mechanized, this subjugation is reinforced by the fact that people’s activity becomes less and less active and more and more contemplative.”
—Lukács, History and Class Consciousness
35
In the spectacle’s basic practice of incorporating into itself all the fluid aspects of human activity so as to possess them in a congealed form, and of inverting living values into purely abstract values, we recognize our old enemy the commodity, which seems at first glance so trivial and obvious, yet which is actually so complex and full of metaphysical subtleties.
36
The fetishism of the commodity — the domination of society by “intangible as well as tangible things” — attains its ultimate fulfillment in the spectacle, where the real world is replaced by a selection of images which are projected above it, yet which at the same time succeed in making themselves regarded as the epitome of reality.
37
The world at once present and absent that the spectacle holds up to view is the world of the commodity dominating all living experience. The world of the commodity is thus shown for what it is, because its development is identical to people’s estrangement from each other and from everything they produce.
38
The loss of quality that is so evident at every level of spectacular language, from the objects it glorifies to the behavior it regulates, stems from the basic nature of a production system that shuns reality. The commodity form reduces everything to quantitative equivalence. The quantitative is what it develops, and it can develop only within the quantitative.
39
Despite the fact that this development excludes the qualitative, it is itself subject to qualitative change. The spectacle reflects the fact that this development has crossed the threshold of its own abundance. Although this qualitative change has as yet taken place only partially in a few local areas, it is already implicit at the universal level that was the commodity’s original standard — a standard that the commodity has lived up to by turning the whole planet into a single world market.
40
The development of productive forces is the unconscious history that has actually created and altered the living conditions of human groups — the conditions enabling them to survive and the expansion of those conditions. It has been the economic basis of all human undertakings. Within natural economies, the emergence of a commodity sector represented a surplus survival. Commodity production, which implies the exchange of varied products between independent producers, tended for a long time to retain its small-scale craft aspects, relegated as it was to a marginal economic role where its quantitative reality was still hidden. But whenever it encountered the social conditions of large-scale commerce and capital accumulation, it took total control of the economy. The entire economy then became what the commodity had already shown itself to be in the course of this conquest: a process of quantitative development. This constant expansion of economic power in the form of commodities transformed human labor itself into a commodity, into wage labor, and ultimately produced a level of abundance sufficient to solve the initial problem of survival — but only in such a way that the same problem is continually being regenerated at a higher level. Economic growth has liberated societies from the natural pressures that forced them into an immediate struggle for survival; but they have not yet been liberated from their liberator. The commodity’s independence has spread to the entire economy it now dominates. This economy has transformed the world, but it has merely transformed it into a world dominated by the economy. The pseudonature within which human labor has become alienated demands that such labor remain forever in its service; and since this demand is formulated by and answerable only to itself, it in fact ends up channeling all socially permitted projects and endeavors into its own reinforcement. The abundance of commodities — that is, the abundance of commodity relations — amounts to nothing more than an augmented survival.
41
As long as the economy’s role as material basis of social life was neither noticed nor understood (remaining unknown precisely because it was so familiar), the commodity’s dominion over the economy was exerted in a covert manner. In societies where actual commodities were few and far between, money was the apparent master, serving as plenipotentiary representative of the greater power that remained unknown. With the Industrial Revolution’s manufactural division of labor and mass production for a global market, the commodity finally became fully visible as a power that was colonizing all social life. It was at that point that political economy established itself as the dominant science, and as the science of domination.
42
The spectacle is the stage at which the commodity has succeeded in totally colonizing social life. Commodification is not only visible, we no longer see anything else; the world we see is the world of the commodity. Modern economic production extends its dictatorship both extensively and intensively. In the less industrialized regions, its reign is already manifested by the presence of a few star commodities and by the imperialist domination imposed by the more industrially advanced regions. In the latter, social space is blanketed with ever-new layers of commodities. With the “second industrial revolution,” alienated consumption has become just as much a duty for the masses as alienated production. The society’s entire sold labor has become a total commodity whose constant turnover must be maintained at all cost. To accomplish this, this total commodity has to be returned in fragmented form to fragmented individuals who are completely cut off from the overall operation of the productive forces. To this end the specialized science of domination is broken down into further specialties such as sociology, applied psychology, cybernetics, and semiology, which oversee the self-regulation of every phase of the process.
43
Whereas during the primitive stage of capitalist accumulation “political economy considers the proletarian only as a worker,” who only needs to be allotted the indispensable minimum for maintaining his labor power, and never considers him “in his leisure and humanity,” this ruling-class perspective is revised as soon as commodity abundance reaches a level that requires an additional collaboration from him. Once his workday is over, the worker is suddenly redeemed from the total contempt toward him that is so clearly implied by every aspect of the organization and surveillance of production, and finds himself seemingly treated like a grownup, with a great show of politeness, in his new role as a consumer. At this point the humanism of the commodity takes charge of the worker’s “leisure and humanity” simply because political economy now can and must dominate those spheres as political economy. The “perfected denial of man” has thus taken charge of all human existence.
44
The spectacle is a permanent opium war designed to force people to equate goods with commodities and to equate satisfaction with a survival that expands according to its own laws. Consumable survival must constantly expand because it never ceases to include privation. If augmented survival never comes to a resolution, if there is no point where it might stop expanding, this is because it is itself stuck in the realm of privation. It may gild poverty, but it cannot transcend it.
45
Automation, which is both the most advanced sector of modern industry and the epitome of its practice, obliges the commodity system to resolve the following contradiction: The technological developments that objectively tend to eliminate work must at the same time preserve labor as a commodity, because labor is the only creator of commodities. The only way to prevent automation (or any other less extreme method of increasing labor productivity) from reducing society’s total necessary labor time is to create new jobs. To this end the reserve army of the unemployed is enlisted into the tertiary or “service” sector, reinforcing the troops responsible for distributing and glorifying the latest commodities; and in this it is serving a real need, in the sense that increasingly extensive campaigns are necessary to convince people to buy increasingly unnecessary commodities.
46
Exchange value could arise only as a representative of use value, but the victory it eventually won with its own weapons created the conditions for its own autonomous power. By mobilizing all human use value and monopolizing its fulfillment, exchange value ultimately succeeded in controlling use. Usefulness has come to be seen purely in terms of exchange value, and is now completely at its mercy. Starting out like a condottiere in the service of use value, exchange value has ended up waging the war for its own sake.
47
The constant decline of use value that has always characterized the capitalist economy has given rise to a new form of poverty within the realm of augmented survival — alongside the old poverty which still persists, since the vast majority of people are still forced to take part as wage workers in the unending pursuit of the system’s ends and each of them knows that he must submit or die. The reality of this blackmail — the fact that even in its most impoverished forms (food, shelter) use value now has no existence outside the illusory riches of augmented survival — accounts for the general acceptance of the illusions of modern commodity consumption. The real consumer has become a consumer of illusions. The commodity is this materialized illusion, and the spectacle is its general expression.
48
Use value was formerly understood as an implicit aspect of exchange value. Now, however, within the upside-down world of the spectacle, it must be explicitly proclaimed, both because its actual reality has been eroded by the overdeveloped commodity economy and because it serves as a necessary pseudo-justification for a counterfeit life.
49
The spectacle is the flip side of money. It, too, is an abstract general equivalent of all commodities. But whereas money has dominated society as the representation of universal equivalence — the exchangeability of different goods whose uses remain uncomparable — the spectacle is the modern complement of money: a representation of the commodity world as a whole which serves as a general equivalent for what the entire society can be and can do. The spectacle is money one can only look at, because in it all use has already been exchanged for the totality of abstract representation. The spectacle is not just a servant of pseudo-use, it is already in itself a pseudo-use of life.
50
With the achievement of economic abundance, the concentrated result of social labor becomes visible, subjecting all reality to the appearances that are now that labor’s primary product. Capital is no longer the invisible center governing the production process; as it accumulates, it spreads to the ends of the earth in the form of tangible objects. The entire expanse of society is its portrait.
51
The economy’s triumph as an independent power at the same time spells its own doom, because the forces it has unleashed have eliminated the economic necessity that was the unchanging basis of earlier societies. Replacing that necessity with a necessity for boundless economic development can only mean replacing the satisfaction of primary human needs (now scarcely met) with an incessant fabrication of pseudoneeds, all of which ultimately come down to the single pseudoneed of maintaining the reign of the autonomous economy. But that economy loses all connection with authentic needs insofar as it emerges from the social unconscious that unknowingly depended on it. “Whatever is conscious wears out. What is unconscious remains unalterable. But once it is freed, it too falls to ruin” (Freud).
52
Once society discovers that it depends on the economy, the economy in fact depends on the society. When the subterranean power of the economy grew to the point of visible domination, it lost its power. The economic Id must be replaced by the I. This subject can only arise out of society, that is, out of the struggle within society. Its existence depends on the outcome of the class struggle that is both product and producer of the economic foundation of history.
53
Consciousness of desire and desire for consciousness are the same project, the project that in its negative form seeks the abolition of classes and the workers’ direct possession of every aspect of their activity. The opposite of this project is the society of the spectacle, where the commodity contemplates itself in a world of its own making.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
NTGNTP (6th Draft): CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE Part 1.1.7
Insurrection is past its time for the current system. The machine is a deeply entrenched monstrosity that is invulnerable, short of nuclear warfare, capable of crushing any annoyances. Entropy will eventually take its toll. Any collapse will be systemically initiated via internal decay. Opposition only strengthens, by either demonstrating its benevolence or making an example of threats. All corpses decompose the same. Martyrdom is for suckers. The end can not be dramatically hastened. Patience sees few benefits in present society. Instant gratification will only frustrate. The reactionary and the radical have proven their desire for liquidation. This wish should be granted and accommodated. The alternatives are probably worse. Pronouncing their deaths is easy, and deserved. The Twentieth Century is steeped in the blood of those killed for ideals. Most would have preferred no involvement. Propaganda can supply the rationale for the herd. The individual can choose otherwise and sanely. The group has shown its inability. The herd should die with its system. The possibility can be anticipated, avoiding victimization by thugs and fascists.
Monday, March 21, 2005
The Society of the Spectacle 16-34
1-15
16
The spectacle is able to subject human beings to itself because the economy has already totally subjugated them. It is nothing other than the economy developing for itself. It is at once a faithful reflection of the production of things and a distorting objectification of the producers.
17
The first stage of the economy’s domination of social life brought about an evident degradation of being into having — human fulfillment was no longer equated with what one was, but with what one possessed. The present stage, in which social life has become completely dominated by the accumulated productions of the economy, is bringing about a general shift from having to appearing — all “having” must now derive its immediate prestige and its ultimate purpose from appearances. At the same time all individual reality has become social, in the sense that it is shaped by social forces and is directly dependent on them. Individual reality is allowed to appear only if it is not actually real.
18
When the real world is transformed into mere images, mere images become real beings — dynamic figments that provide the direct motivations for a hypnotic behavior. Since the spectacle’s job is to use various specialized mediations in order to show us a world that can no longer be directly grasped, it naturally elevates the sense of sight to the special preeminence once occupied by touch; the most abstract and easily deceived sense is the most readily adaptable to the generalized abstraction of present-day society. But the spectacle is not merely a matter of images, nor even of images plus sounds. It is whatever escapes people’s activity, whatever eludes their practical reconsideration and correction. It is the opposite of dialogue. Wherever representation becomes independent, the spectacle regenerates itself.
19
The spectacle inherits the weakness of the Western philosophical project, which attempted to understand activity by means of the categories of vision, and it is based on the relentless development of the particular technical rationality that grew out of that form of thought. The spectacle does not realize philosophy, it philosophizes reality, reducing everyone’s concrete life to a universe of speculation.
20
Philosophy — the power of separate thought and the thought of separate power — was never by itself able to supersede theology. The spectacle is the material reconstruction of the religious illusion. Spectacular technology has not dispersed the religious mists into which human beings had projected their own alienated powers; it has merely brought those mists down to earth, to the point that even the most mundane aspects of life have become impenetrable and unbreathable. The illusory paradise that represented a total denial of earthly life is no longer projected into the heavens, it is embedded in earthly life itself. The spectacle is the technological version of the exiling of human powers into a “world beyond”; the culmination of humanity’s internal separation.
21
As long as necessity is socially dreamed, dreaming will remain a social necessity. The spectacle is the bad dream of a modern society in chains and ultimately expresses nothing more than its wish for sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of that sleep.
22
The fact that the practical power of modern society has detached itself from that society and established an independent realm in the spectacle can be explained only by the additional fact that that powerful practice continued to lack cohesion and had remained in contradiction with itself.
23
The root of the spectacle is that oldest of all social specializations, the specialization of power. The spectacle plays the specialized role of speaking in the name of all the other activities. It is hierarchical society’s ambassador to itself, delivering its official messages at a court where no one else is allowed to speak. The most modern aspect of the spectacle is thus also the most archaic.
24
The spectacle is the ruling order’s nonstop discourse about itself, its never-ending monologue of self-praise, its self-portrait at the stage of totalitarian domination of all aspects of life. The fetishistic appearance of pure objectivity in spectacular relations conceals their true character as relations between people and between classes: a second Nature, with its own inescapable laws, seems to dominate our environment. But the spectacle is not the inevitable consequence of some supposedly natural technological development. On the contrary, the society of the spectacle is a form that chooses its own technological content. If the spectacle, considered in the limited sense of the “mass media” that are its most glaring superficial manifestation, seems to be invading society in the form of a mere technical apparatus, it should be understood that this apparatus is in no way neutral and that it has been developed in accordance with the spectacle’s internal dynamics. If the social needs of the age in which such technologies are developed can be met only through their mediation, if the administration of this society and all contact between people has become totally dependent on these means of instantaneous communication, it is because this “communication” is essentially unilateral. The concentration of these media thus amounts to concentrating in the hands of the administrators of the existing system the means that enable them to carry on this particular form of administration. The social separation reflected in the spectacle is inseparable from the modern state — the product of the social division of labor that is both the chief instrument of class rule and the concentrated expression of all social divisions.
25
Separation is the alpha and omega of the spectacle. The institutionalization of the social division of labor in the form of class divisions had given rise to an earlier, religious form of contemplation: the mythical order with which every power has always camouflaged itself. Religion justified the cosmic and ontological order that corresponded to the interests of the masters, expounding and embellishing everything their societies could not deliver. In this sense, all separate power has been spectacular. But this earlier universal devotion to a fixed religious imagery was only a shared acknowledgment of loss, an imaginary compensation for the poverty of a concrete social activity that was still generally experienced as a unitary condition. In contrast, the modern spectacle depicts what society could deliver, but in so doing it rigidly separates what is possible from what is permitted. The spectacle keeps people in a state of unconsciousness as they pass through practical changes in their conditions of existence. Like a factitious god, it generates itself and makes its own rules. It reveals itself for what it is: an autonomously developing separate power, based on the increasing productivity resulting from an increasingly refined division of labor into parcelized gestures dictated by the independent movement of machines, and working for an ever-expanding market. In the course of this development, all community and all critical awareness have disintegrated; and the forces that were able to grow by separating from each other have not yet been reunited.
26
The general separation of worker and product tends to eliminate any consistent sense of accomplished activity and any direct personal communication between producers. With the increasing accumulation of separate products and the increasing concentration of the productive process, accomplishment and communication are monopolized by the managers of the system. The triumph of this separation-based economic system proletarianizes the whole world.
27
Due to the very success of this separate production of separation, the fundamental experience that in earlier societies was associated with people’s primary work is in the process of being replaced (in sectors near the cutting edge of the system’s evolution) by an identification of life with nonworking time, with inactivity. But such inactivity is in no way liberated from productive activity; it remains dependent on it, in an uneasy and admiring submission to the requirements and consequences of the production system. It is itself one of the consequences of that system. There can be no freedom apart from activity, and within the spectacle activity is nullified — all real activity having been forcibly channeled into the global construction of the spectacle. Thus, what is referred to as a “liberation from work,” namely the modern increase in leisure time, is neither a liberation of work itself nor a liberation from the world shaped by this kind of work. None of the activity stolen by work can be regained by submitting to what that work has produced.
28
The reigning economic system is a vicious circle of isolation. Its technologies are based on isolation, and they contribute to that same isolation. From cars to television, the goods that the spectacular system chooses to produce also serve it as weapons for constantly reinforcing the conditions that engender “lonely crowds.” With ever-increasing concreteness the spectacle recreates its own presuppositions.
29
The spectacle was born from the world’s loss of the unity, and the immense expansion of the modern spectacle reveals the enormity of this loss. The abstractifying of all individual labor and the general abstractness of what is produced are perfectly reflected in the spectacle, whose manner of being concrete is precisely abstraction. In the spectacle, a part of the world presents itself to the world and is superior to it. The spectacle is simply the common language of this separation. Spectators are linked solely by their one-way relationship to the very center that keeps them isolated from each other. The spectacle thus reunites the separated, but it reunites them only in their separateness.
30
The alienation of the spectator, which reinforces the contemplated objects that result from his own unconscious activity, works like this: The more he contemplates, the less he lives; the more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires. The spectacle’s estrangement from the acting subject is expressed by the fact that the individual’s gestures are no longer his own; they are the gestures of someone else who represents them to him. The spectator does not feel at home anywhere, because the spectacle is everywhere.
31
Workers do not produce themselves, they produce a power independent of themselves. The success of this production, the abundance it generates, is experienced by the producers as an abundance of dispossession. As their alienated products accumulate, all time and space become foreign to them. The spectacle is the map of this new world, a map that is identical to the territory it represents. The forces that have escaped us display themselves to us in all their power.
32
The spectacle’s social function is the concrete manufacture of alienation. Economic expansion consists primarily of the expansion of this particular sector of industrial production. The “growth” generated by an economy developing for its own sake can be nothing other than a growth of the very alienation that was at its origin.
33
Though separated from what they produce, people nevertheless produce every detail of their world with ever-increasing power. They thus also find themselves increasingly separated from that world. The closer their life comes to being their own creation, the more they are excluded from that life.
34
The spectacle is capital accumulated to the point that it becomes images.
16
The spectacle is able to subject human beings to itself because the economy has already totally subjugated them. It is nothing other than the economy developing for itself. It is at once a faithful reflection of the production of things and a distorting objectification of the producers.
17
The first stage of the economy’s domination of social life brought about an evident degradation of being into having — human fulfillment was no longer equated with what one was, but with what one possessed. The present stage, in which social life has become completely dominated by the accumulated productions of the economy, is bringing about a general shift from having to appearing — all “having” must now derive its immediate prestige and its ultimate purpose from appearances. At the same time all individual reality has become social, in the sense that it is shaped by social forces and is directly dependent on them. Individual reality is allowed to appear only if it is not actually real.
18
When the real world is transformed into mere images, mere images become real beings — dynamic figments that provide the direct motivations for a hypnotic behavior. Since the spectacle’s job is to use various specialized mediations in order to show us a world that can no longer be directly grasped, it naturally elevates the sense of sight to the special preeminence once occupied by touch; the most abstract and easily deceived sense is the most readily adaptable to the generalized abstraction of present-day society. But the spectacle is not merely a matter of images, nor even of images plus sounds. It is whatever escapes people’s activity, whatever eludes their practical reconsideration and correction. It is the opposite of dialogue. Wherever representation becomes independent, the spectacle regenerates itself.
19
The spectacle inherits the weakness of the Western philosophical project, which attempted to understand activity by means of the categories of vision, and it is based on the relentless development of the particular technical rationality that grew out of that form of thought. The spectacle does not realize philosophy, it philosophizes reality, reducing everyone’s concrete life to a universe of speculation.
20
Philosophy — the power of separate thought and the thought of separate power — was never by itself able to supersede theology. The spectacle is the material reconstruction of the religious illusion. Spectacular technology has not dispersed the religious mists into which human beings had projected their own alienated powers; it has merely brought those mists down to earth, to the point that even the most mundane aspects of life have become impenetrable and unbreathable. The illusory paradise that represented a total denial of earthly life is no longer projected into the heavens, it is embedded in earthly life itself. The spectacle is the technological version of the exiling of human powers into a “world beyond”; the culmination of humanity’s internal separation.
21
As long as necessity is socially dreamed, dreaming will remain a social necessity. The spectacle is the bad dream of a modern society in chains and ultimately expresses nothing more than its wish for sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of that sleep.
22
The fact that the practical power of modern society has detached itself from that society and established an independent realm in the spectacle can be explained only by the additional fact that that powerful practice continued to lack cohesion and had remained in contradiction with itself.
23
The root of the spectacle is that oldest of all social specializations, the specialization of power. The spectacle plays the specialized role of speaking in the name of all the other activities. It is hierarchical society’s ambassador to itself, delivering its official messages at a court where no one else is allowed to speak. The most modern aspect of the spectacle is thus also the most archaic.
24
The spectacle is the ruling order’s nonstop discourse about itself, its never-ending monologue of self-praise, its self-portrait at the stage of totalitarian domination of all aspects of life. The fetishistic appearance of pure objectivity in spectacular relations conceals their true character as relations between people and between classes: a second Nature, with its own inescapable laws, seems to dominate our environment. But the spectacle is not the inevitable consequence of some supposedly natural technological development. On the contrary, the society of the spectacle is a form that chooses its own technological content. If the spectacle, considered in the limited sense of the “mass media” that are its most glaring superficial manifestation, seems to be invading society in the form of a mere technical apparatus, it should be understood that this apparatus is in no way neutral and that it has been developed in accordance with the spectacle’s internal dynamics. If the social needs of the age in which such technologies are developed can be met only through their mediation, if the administration of this society and all contact between people has become totally dependent on these means of instantaneous communication, it is because this “communication” is essentially unilateral. The concentration of these media thus amounts to concentrating in the hands of the administrators of the existing system the means that enable them to carry on this particular form of administration. The social separation reflected in the spectacle is inseparable from the modern state — the product of the social division of labor that is both the chief instrument of class rule and the concentrated expression of all social divisions.
25
Separation is the alpha and omega of the spectacle. The institutionalization of the social division of labor in the form of class divisions had given rise to an earlier, religious form of contemplation: the mythical order with which every power has always camouflaged itself. Religion justified the cosmic and ontological order that corresponded to the interests of the masters, expounding and embellishing everything their societies could not deliver. In this sense, all separate power has been spectacular. But this earlier universal devotion to a fixed religious imagery was only a shared acknowledgment of loss, an imaginary compensation for the poverty of a concrete social activity that was still generally experienced as a unitary condition. In contrast, the modern spectacle depicts what society could deliver, but in so doing it rigidly separates what is possible from what is permitted. The spectacle keeps people in a state of unconsciousness as they pass through practical changes in their conditions of existence. Like a factitious god, it generates itself and makes its own rules. It reveals itself for what it is: an autonomously developing separate power, based on the increasing productivity resulting from an increasingly refined division of labor into parcelized gestures dictated by the independent movement of machines, and working for an ever-expanding market. In the course of this development, all community and all critical awareness have disintegrated; and the forces that were able to grow by separating from each other have not yet been reunited.
26
The general separation of worker and product tends to eliminate any consistent sense of accomplished activity and any direct personal communication between producers. With the increasing accumulation of separate products and the increasing concentration of the productive process, accomplishment and communication are monopolized by the managers of the system. The triumph of this separation-based economic system proletarianizes the whole world.
27
Due to the very success of this separate production of separation, the fundamental experience that in earlier societies was associated with people’s primary work is in the process of being replaced (in sectors near the cutting edge of the system’s evolution) by an identification of life with nonworking time, with inactivity. But such inactivity is in no way liberated from productive activity; it remains dependent on it, in an uneasy and admiring submission to the requirements and consequences of the production system. It is itself one of the consequences of that system. There can be no freedom apart from activity, and within the spectacle activity is nullified — all real activity having been forcibly channeled into the global construction of the spectacle. Thus, what is referred to as a “liberation from work,” namely the modern increase in leisure time, is neither a liberation of work itself nor a liberation from the world shaped by this kind of work. None of the activity stolen by work can be regained by submitting to what that work has produced.
28
The reigning economic system is a vicious circle of isolation. Its technologies are based on isolation, and they contribute to that same isolation. From cars to television, the goods that the spectacular system chooses to produce also serve it as weapons for constantly reinforcing the conditions that engender “lonely crowds.” With ever-increasing concreteness the spectacle recreates its own presuppositions.
29
The spectacle was born from the world’s loss of the unity, and the immense expansion of the modern spectacle reveals the enormity of this loss. The abstractifying of all individual labor and the general abstractness of what is produced are perfectly reflected in the spectacle, whose manner of being concrete is precisely abstraction. In the spectacle, a part of the world presents itself to the world and is superior to it. The spectacle is simply the common language of this separation. Spectators are linked solely by their one-way relationship to the very center that keeps them isolated from each other. The spectacle thus reunites the separated, but it reunites them only in their separateness.
30
The alienation of the spectator, which reinforces the contemplated objects that result from his own unconscious activity, works like this: The more he contemplates, the less he lives; the more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires. The spectacle’s estrangement from the acting subject is expressed by the fact that the individual’s gestures are no longer his own; they are the gestures of someone else who represents them to him. The spectator does not feel at home anywhere, because the spectacle is everywhere.
31
Workers do not produce themselves, they produce a power independent of themselves. The success of this production, the abundance it generates, is experienced by the producers as an abundance of dispossession. As their alienated products accumulate, all time and space become foreign to them. The spectacle is the map of this new world, a map that is identical to the territory it represents. The forces that have escaped us display themselves to us in all their power.
32
The spectacle’s social function is the concrete manufacture of alienation. Economic expansion consists primarily of the expansion of this particular sector of industrial production. The “growth” generated by an economy developing for its own sake can be nothing other than a growth of the very alienation that was at its origin.
33
Though separated from what they produce, people nevertheless produce every detail of their world with ever-increasing power. They thus also find themselves increasingly separated from that world. The closer their life comes to being their own creation, the more they are excluded from that life.
34
The spectacle is capital accumulated to the point that it becomes images.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
NTGNTP (6th Draft): CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE Part 1.1.6
The Oklahoma City bombing is not a blow for freedom. The Branch Davidians are not martyrs--simply dead. Information is generally not actively controlled, simply supplied at a constant accelerating rate inversely proportional to content. An exceptional memory would be required to fit many connections. The herd has no recall, and cannot admit its own faults.[13] The system is made stronger by any such acts, no matter the outcome. Optimal interpretations will follow any event. Any scapegoats will be hung out to dry, and replaced with someone essentially identical. Any opposition has been conditioned by the same system, and supports certain elements. Intellectuals are the most indoctrinated. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily a friend. Good causes are usually bad ideas. The government provides and maintains basic sanitation and infrastructure.[14] The third world is not a far step away. The government exists on many levels, and provides some benefits. Many will pragmatically support the power structure based upon this consideration alone. Its disruptions would cause massive instability. Efficiency seems preferable to most. The slow death is more desired. The official power structure may not be violently overthrown, and will crush any perceived threat like a roach. Enemies are always needed. It will decay from within, and require broadening categories of subversive. Anyone interested in personal freedom would well advised to avoid notice. Martyrs should be given their wish. Entropy will take its toll. Many potential enemies will be destroyed, and possibly weaken the greater. The thought brings a smile...
[13] Or never ceases, which is far more irritating. The constant whining and humbleness before God is my main objection to the anti-natural tenants of Christian belief. Even creation is more realistic..
[14] Reliable epidemiological surveys have demonstrated that average life expectancy has increased about 35 years from the last century. Only 6 years is attributable to medical advances. The rest is prevention. How about a heaping glass of cholera?
[13] Or never ceases, which is far more irritating. The constant whining and humbleness before God is my main objection to the anti-natural tenants of Christian belief. Even creation is more realistic..
[14] Reliable epidemiological surveys have demonstrated that average life expectancy has increased about 35 years from the last century. Only 6 years is attributable to medical advances. The rest is prevention. How about a heaping glass of cholera?
Thursday, March 17, 2005
The Society of the Spectacle 1-15
This feature will periodically post sections from The Society of the Spectacle, which is probably the most influential text of the Situationist International. "The Situationist International was a highly intellectual and imaginative leftist student movement with strong Marxist influences, located primarily in France during the 1960s. What made the Situationist International different from traditional Marxist-Leninist political parties was not only it's critique of the capitalist system in ways which kept the (intellectual) reader's attention by using more up-to-date terms and a sense of humour, but also a critique of the authoritarian "Communist" Parties (origionaly referred to by the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin as "state capitalist" in response to Karl Marx, some time before the existance of the USSR & it's Bolshevik coup.)" Although I disagree with certain points, their propaganda is interesting and masterful. They also didn't have to blow people up to be heard. In addition, I appreciate that it is directed at society as a whole.
New translation of the book by Guy Debord, Paris, 1967.
Translated by Ken Knabb.
This translation is not copyrighted.
Chapter 1:
The Culmination of Separation
“But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence . . . truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.”
—Feuerbach, Preface to the second edition
of The Essence of Christianity
1
In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.
2
The images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream in which the unity of that life can no longer be recovered. Fragmented views of reality regroup themselves into a new unity as a separate pseudoworld that can only be looked at. The specialization of images of the world evolves into a world of autonomized images where even the deceivers are deceived. The spectacle is a concrete inversion of life, an autonomous movement of the nonliving.
3
The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a means of unification. As a part of society, it is the focal point of all vision and all consciousness. But due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is in reality the domain of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of universal separation.
4
The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.
5
The spectacle cannot be understood as a mere visual deception produced by mass-media technologies. It is a worldview that has actually been materialized.
6
Understood in its totality, the spectacle is both the result and the goal of the dominant mode of production. It is not a mere decoration added to the real world. It is the very heart of this real society’s unreality. In all of its particular manifestations — news, propaganda, advertising, entertainment — the spectacle represents the dominant model of life. It is the omnipresent affirmation of the choices that have already been made in the sphere of production and in the consumption implied by that production. In both form and content the spectacle serves as a total justification of the conditions and goals of the existing system. The spectacle also represents the constant presence of this justification since it monopolizes the majority of the time spent outside the production process.
7
Separation is itself an integral part of the unity of this world, of a global social practice split into reality and image. The social practice confronted by an autonomous spectacle is at the same time the real totality which contains that spectacle. But the split within this totality mutilates it to the point that the spectacle seems to be its goal. The language of the spectacle consists of signs of the dominant system of production — signs which are at the same time the ultimate end-products of that system.
8
The spectacle cannot be abstractly contrasted to concrete social activity; each side of such a duality is itself divided. The spectacle that falsifies reality is nevertheless a real product of that reality. Conversely, real life is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle, and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it. Objective reality is present on both sides. Each concept established in this manner has no other basis than its transformation into its opposite: reality emerges within the spectacle, and the spectacle is real. This reciprocal alienation is the essence and support of the existing society.
9
In a world that is really upside down, the true is a moment of the false.
10
The concept of “the spectacle” interrelates and explains a wide range of seemingly unconnected phenomena. The apparent diversities and contrasts of these phenomena stem from the social organization of appearances, whose essential nature must itself be recognized. Considered in its own terms, the spectacle is an affirmation of appearances and an identification of all human social life with appearances. But a critique that grasps the spectacle’s essential character reveals it to be a visible negation of life — a negation that has taken on a visible form.
11
In order to describe the spectacle, its formation, its functions, and the forces that work against it, it is necessary to make some artificial distinctions. In analyzing the spectacle we are obliged to a certain extent to use the spectacle’s own language, in the sense that we have to move through the methodological terrain of the society that expresses itself in the spectacle. For the spectacle is both the meaning and the agenda of our particular socio-economic formation. It is the historical moment in which we are caught.
12
The spectacle presents itself as a vast inaccessible reality that can never be questioned. Its sole message is: “What appears is good; what is good appears.” The passive acceptance it demands is already effectively imposed by its monopoly of appearances, its manner of appearing without allowing any reply.
13
The tautological character of the spectacle stems from the fact that its means and ends are identical. It is the sun that never sets over the empire of modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the globe, endlessly basking in its own glory.
14
The society based on modern industry is not accidentally or superficially spectacular, it is fundamentally spectaclist. In the spectacle — the visual reflection of the ruling economic order — goals are nothing, development is everything. The spectacle aims at nothing other than itself.
15
As indispensable embellishment of currently produced objects, as general articulation of the system’s rationales, and as advanced economic sector that directly creates an ever-increasing mass of image-objects, the spectacle is the leading production of present-day society.
New translation of the book by Guy Debord, Paris, 1967.
Translated by Ken Knabb.
This translation is not copyrighted.
Chapter 1:
The Culmination of Separation
“But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence . . . truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.”
—Feuerbach, Preface to the second edition
of The Essence of Christianity
1
In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.
2
The images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream in which the unity of that life can no longer be recovered. Fragmented views of reality regroup themselves into a new unity as a separate pseudoworld that can only be looked at. The specialization of images of the world evolves into a world of autonomized images where even the deceivers are deceived. The spectacle is a concrete inversion of life, an autonomous movement of the nonliving.
3
The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a means of unification. As a part of society, it is the focal point of all vision and all consciousness. But due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is in reality the domain of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of universal separation.
4
The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.
5
The spectacle cannot be understood as a mere visual deception produced by mass-media technologies. It is a worldview that has actually been materialized.
6
Understood in its totality, the spectacle is both the result and the goal of the dominant mode of production. It is not a mere decoration added to the real world. It is the very heart of this real society’s unreality. In all of its particular manifestations — news, propaganda, advertising, entertainment — the spectacle represents the dominant model of life. It is the omnipresent affirmation of the choices that have already been made in the sphere of production and in the consumption implied by that production. In both form and content the spectacle serves as a total justification of the conditions and goals of the existing system. The spectacle also represents the constant presence of this justification since it monopolizes the majority of the time spent outside the production process.
7
Separation is itself an integral part of the unity of this world, of a global social practice split into reality and image. The social practice confronted by an autonomous spectacle is at the same time the real totality which contains that spectacle. But the split within this totality mutilates it to the point that the spectacle seems to be its goal. The language of the spectacle consists of signs of the dominant system of production — signs which are at the same time the ultimate end-products of that system.
8
The spectacle cannot be abstractly contrasted to concrete social activity; each side of such a duality is itself divided. The spectacle that falsifies reality is nevertheless a real product of that reality. Conversely, real life is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle, and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it. Objective reality is present on both sides. Each concept established in this manner has no other basis than its transformation into its opposite: reality emerges within the spectacle, and the spectacle is real. This reciprocal alienation is the essence and support of the existing society.
9
In a world that is really upside down, the true is a moment of the false.
10
The concept of “the spectacle” interrelates and explains a wide range of seemingly unconnected phenomena. The apparent diversities and contrasts of these phenomena stem from the social organization of appearances, whose essential nature must itself be recognized. Considered in its own terms, the spectacle is an affirmation of appearances and an identification of all human social life with appearances. But a critique that grasps the spectacle’s essential character reveals it to be a visible negation of life — a negation that has taken on a visible form.
11
In order to describe the spectacle, its formation, its functions, and the forces that work against it, it is necessary to make some artificial distinctions. In analyzing the spectacle we are obliged to a certain extent to use the spectacle’s own language, in the sense that we have to move through the methodological terrain of the society that expresses itself in the spectacle. For the spectacle is both the meaning and the agenda of our particular socio-economic formation. It is the historical moment in which we are caught.
12
The spectacle presents itself as a vast inaccessible reality that can never be questioned. Its sole message is: “What appears is good; what is good appears.” The passive acceptance it demands is already effectively imposed by its monopoly of appearances, its manner of appearing without allowing any reply.
13
The tautological character of the spectacle stems from the fact that its means and ends are identical. It is the sun that never sets over the empire of modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the globe, endlessly basking in its own glory.
14
The society based on modern industry is not accidentally or superficially spectacular, it is fundamentally spectaclist. In the spectacle — the visual reflection of the ruling economic order — goals are nothing, development is everything. The spectacle aims at nothing other than itself.
15
As indispensable embellishment of currently produced objects, as general articulation of the system’s rationales, and as advanced economic sector that directly creates an ever-increasing mass of image-objects, the spectacle is the leading production of present-day society.
Monday, March 14, 2005
NTGNTP (6th Draft): CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE Part 1.1.5
The urban populations centers will continue their steady decline.[11] Public policy is most successful when directed toward that which the policy makers relate. Thus, public policy leans toward the interests of the suburban. Subtleties regarding urban and rural life will only be mutually grasped second hand. Hence, small towns and inner cities both slowly die, while the suburbs become the only acceptable lifestyle for many led to the conclusion. The rural has reacted with productive nihilism. The urban is fragmented, spawning unproductive nihilism via decadence.[12] Alienation has many outlets. Identification provides a sense of belonging, but these must not threaten stasis. The rural and urban regard the others turf as battlegrounds, while missing (or ignoring) their own exploitation. Common ground is never seen. This must change, or anyone capable of filling a power vacuum must be negated. The insanity produced by disorder might allow a few scores to be rectified. Unity is fascism.
[11] Gentrification creates suburbs.
[12] The nation of Islam may be the closest urban parallel. Its militancy has been focused in a similar manner, only different issues (although fundamentally economic).
[11] Gentrification creates suburbs.
[12] The nation of Islam may be the closest urban parallel. Its militancy has been focused in a similar manner, only different issues (although fundamentally economic).
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
NTGNTP (6th Draft): CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE Part 1.1.4
The militia movement has become the traitor scapegoat, similar to black panthers and anti-vietnam war advocates, for the moment. Its power is exaggerated by constant exposure. Their real firepower is minuscule compared to a massive police apparatus, and the most powerful military on the planet. Citing constitutional precedence, the militia movement is comprised of many different types of people. However, a reactionary fringe seems to continually speak for all. Access is not a guaranteed right. The lowest common denominator justifies focus toward the extreme. Ratings improve. This does have the unintended consequence of uniting the movement. However, it could never prove threatening, unless backed by sympathetic military units. This must be avoided. Tim McVey was a veteran. Shared threads must be severed. During massive internal disorder, any such potential threats must be long neutralized. Power voids may only be filled by those capable. Perhaps, this senecio is better than the alternative. Popular fascism is worse, and uglier than mediocrity. Fuel lines provide the Achilles heel for any martial law decree. Only one hundred days of fuel are kept in the national reserve. This nation is built upon cheap energy. Central command might fall, but its replacement could be far worse. The sub-urban would support anyone capable of preserving their life. Edicts could not be uncontested. A junta need only control food sources and fuel. The USSR partly fell over shortages. Real feudalism is more undesirable than bastard capitalism.
-1995
Sound Familiar? The external enemy is even better. Is history in another such cycle?
-SRL 2005
-1995
Sound Familiar? The external enemy is even better. Is history in another such cycle?
-SRL 2005
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
NTGNTP (6th Draft): CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE Part 1.1.3
1. Introduction - Part 3
The ruralite probably does not differentiate between the urban and sub-urban. The population centers are uniformly associated, and encouraged by blurring the distinction in the media. The entire area is referred by a single name: a metropolitan area. Propagandists have focused much attention on simplified inner city issues with images of welfare cheats, drug users, deviant behavior, impoverished minorities, illegal immigrants, gangs, criminals, the elusive counter-culture and other undesirable rabble. Common ground is completely lost among imagery and rhetoric. The news media concurs by appealing to the lowest-common denominator. The controlling big money interests expect returns on and off the balance sheet. National woes are set squarely on the backs of those unable to purchase access and defend themselves. Freedom of speech does not guarantee a venue. A statistical minority portrays a larger picture which projects upon everyone. Backlash is avoided by simultaneous division and unity to a higher, less tangible cause like patriotism. The federal budget deficit is attributable to valueless vermin, rather than the military industrial complex.[10] Each group realizes the falsehoods projected toward themselves, but believe the media image due to lack of fist hand experience. The information age may not prove to be so liberating, rather enslavement by incorrect false perceptions. Belief is a powerful motivator. Western culture has not progressed far beyond religious dogma. The fixations have changed. Modern man is a product of his psychology, essentially another self-fulfilling prophecy. Cause is confused and reversed with effectual relations. This spoon-fed population lacks any ability to focus. Docility is achieved through economics and entertainment. Decadent instincts are harnessed to maintain stasis. Energy is displaced toward the dangerous, violent and self-destructive. The villains created provide valuable targets to deflect mass frustrations. Real issues are obscured by emotionally charged non-issues, like school prayer, flag desecration and abortion. All issues regarding class are redirected by this technique. Television and other media delivers the message, while educational incompetence and mediocrity are never discussed. Stupid people deserve sensitivity? These sort just haven't been beaten enough. Diversions would prove less stimulating by those actually interested in learning. A thousand lies form a different untruth. All roads lead to similar places. Isolation breeds ignorance. The whole is not comprehendible due to its massive complexity, while individual threads can be followed. Popular mass psychology demands the opposite. The ego may be a false notion. Ignorance may never be admitted. The herd would die first. The omniscient delusions may be directed for maximum advantage. A war over oil becomes one fought for freedom: how reassuring! The isolation of the sub-urban is most complete. The rural and urban must deal with local matters due to proximity and necessity. Federal police must concentrate on these areas. The government outlaws all monopolies, but its own. Only corporations can steal. Those having lost most are set at each others throats as false opposites. The real enemy is common. Efficiency demands elimination of any subversive or potentially destructive elements. An opportunist will utilize these resultant opportunities, provided by the support system as paths-of-least-resistance, for maximum advantage. Vicarious and voyeuristic tendencies may be catered by propaganda.
[10] Note the complete lack of ethics possible in a moral society.
The ruralite probably does not differentiate between the urban and sub-urban. The population centers are uniformly associated, and encouraged by blurring the distinction in the media. The entire area is referred by a single name: a metropolitan area. Propagandists have focused much attention on simplified inner city issues with images of welfare cheats, drug users, deviant behavior, impoverished minorities, illegal immigrants, gangs, criminals, the elusive counter-culture and other undesirable rabble. Common ground is completely lost among imagery and rhetoric. The news media concurs by appealing to the lowest-common denominator. The controlling big money interests expect returns on and off the balance sheet. National woes are set squarely on the backs of those unable to purchase access and defend themselves. Freedom of speech does not guarantee a venue. A statistical minority portrays a larger picture which projects upon everyone. Backlash is avoided by simultaneous division and unity to a higher, less tangible cause like patriotism. The federal budget deficit is attributable to valueless vermin, rather than the military industrial complex.[10] Each group realizes the falsehoods projected toward themselves, but believe the media image due to lack of fist hand experience. The information age may not prove to be so liberating, rather enslavement by incorrect false perceptions. Belief is a powerful motivator. Western culture has not progressed far beyond religious dogma. The fixations have changed. Modern man is a product of his psychology, essentially another self-fulfilling prophecy. Cause is confused and reversed with effectual relations. This spoon-fed population lacks any ability to focus. Docility is achieved through economics and entertainment. Decadent instincts are harnessed to maintain stasis. Energy is displaced toward the dangerous, violent and self-destructive. The villains created provide valuable targets to deflect mass frustrations. Real issues are obscured by emotionally charged non-issues, like school prayer, flag desecration and abortion. All issues regarding class are redirected by this technique. Television and other media delivers the message, while educational incompetence and mediocrity are never discussed. Stupid people deserve sensitivity? These sort just haven't been beaten enough. Diversions would prove less stimulating by those actually interested in learning. A thousand lies form a different untruth. All roads lead to similar places. Isolation breeds ignorance. The whole is not comprehendible due to its massive complexity, while individual threads can be followed. Popular mass psychology demands the opposite. The ego may be a false notion. Ignorance may never be admitted. The herd would die first. The omniscient delusions may be directed for maximum advantage. A war over oil becomes one fought for freedom: how reassuring! The isolation of the sub-urban is most complete. The rural and urban must deal with local matters due to proximity and necessity. Federal police must concentrate on these areas. The government outlaws all monopolies, but its own. Only corporations can steal. Those having lost most are set at each others throats as false opposites. The real enemy is common. Efficiency demands elimination of any subversive or potentially destructive elements. An opportunist will utilize these resultant opportunities, provided by the support system as paths-of-least-resistance, for maximum advantage. Vicarious and voyeuristic tendencies may be catered by propaganda.
[10] Note the complete lack of ethics possible in a moral society.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
NTGNTP (6th Draft): CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE Part 1.1.2
1. Introduction - Part 2
Whereas the sub-urban achieves stagnation through its particular decadence, the rural has skipped ahead to full fledged nihilism. The urban may prove more like the latter than the former. Small, relatively isolated rural communities have been hit hard by economic globalization, especially the agricultural, timber and mining sectors. Many family farms have seen generational land foreclosed to pay debt incurred recently. Timber has been curtailed due to market forces and environmental concerns.[8] Mining has given way to recreation and tourism - a poor substitute. The close-knit ruralites have witnessed economic hardship and resultant social consequences, including unemployment, displacement, and general despair. These people may not easily escape their surroundings into televised illusion and distracting decadence. The lies justifying control do not apply or relate to most ruralites; hence, less easily swallowed. Survival is more immediate. Dying small towns are difficult for the residents to ignore. An unresponsive government ignores most issues unconcerning big money, and brands the objecting ruralites as racist, redneck subversives.[9] Efficiency will tolerate no real opposition to mythical progress. The tactics are similar to those employed against the so-called left. A divide-and-conquer approach has been utilized to direct rural resentment toward the population centers, while portraying rural concerns slightly akin to criminal behavior. The dissident is always insane, and purged for the good of everyone, especially anyone so misguided to object significantly. The April, 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bomb blast was a predictable nihilistic lashing out. Each death has been distastefully exploited for maximum gain to justify a crackdown. The machine acts quickly, thereby achieving the most favorable slant for the official power structure. Law enforcement may be fully mobilized without much public opposition. Long term policy may be identified and implemented by this approach. Conspiracies are unpredictable, whereas 169 unfortunate deaths may rationalize anything by (false) logical connection. Automatic weapons may be demonized, even though no firearms were involved in the crime. Anyone or anything may be thus targeted, including constitutional rights. Hence, an important document becomes window dressing for the police state.
[9] Never mind, not all such rural folk are white. Hispanics, Anglo whites, American Indians, and blacks, among others, feel similarly. The racial politics have been emotionally charged, thus precluding any rational debate from ever occurring. Agitation propaganda may always be used for maximum advantage. It also effectively divides rural and urban interests...
Whereas the sub-urban achieves stagnation through its particular decadence, the rural has skipped ahead to full fledged nihilism. The urban may prove more like the latter than the former. Small, relatively isolated rural communities have been hit hard by economic globalization, especially the agricultural, timber and mining sectors. Many family farms have seen generational land foreclosed to pay debt incurred recently. Timber has been curtailed due to market forces and environmental concerns.[8] Mining has given way to recreation and tourism - a poor substitute. The close-knit ruralites have witnessed economic hardship and resultant social consequences, including unemployment, displacement, and general despair. These people may not easily escape their surroundings into televised illusion and distracting decadence. The lies justifying control do not apply or relate to most ruralites; hence, less easily swallowed. Survival is more immediate. Dying small towns are difficult for the residents to ignore. An unresponsive government ignores most issues unconcerning big money, and brands the objecting ruralites as racist, redneck subversives.[9] Efficiency will tolerate no real opposition to mythical progress. The tactics are similar to those employed against the so-called left. A divide-and-conquer approach has been utilized to direct rural resentment toward the population centers, while portraying rural concerns slightly akin to criminal behavior. The dissident is always insane, and purged for the good of everyone, especially anyone so misguided to object significantly. The April, 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bomb blast was a predictable nihilistic lashing out. Each death has been distastefully exploited for maximum gain to justify a crackdown. The machine acts quickly, thereby achieving the most favorable slant for the official power structure. Law enforcement may be fully mobilized without much public opposition. Long term policy may be identified and implemented by this approach. Conspiracies are unpredictable, whereas 169 unfortunate deaths may rationalize anything by (false) logical connection. Automatic weapons may be demonized, even though no firearms were involved in the crime. Anyone or anything may be thus targeted, including constitutional rights. Hence, an important document becomes window dressing for the police state.
[9] Never mind, not all such rural folk are white. Hispanics, Anglo whites, American Indians, and blacks, among others, feel similarly. The racial politics have been emotionally charged, thus precluding any rational debate from ever occurring. Agitation propaganda may always be used for maximum advantage. It also effectively divides rural and urban interests...
Sunday, February 20, 2005
NTGNTP (6th Draft): CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE Part 1.1.1
Chapter 1
CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE
1. Introduction - Part 1
No closed system is permanent. All civilizations wane over time. The Machine may be slowly winding down. Entropy demands less than absolute efficiency, despite human claims contrary to the second law of thermodynamics. This realization, especially applicable to the United States, must be faced. The ignorant will die. Massive social pressures continually threaten to burst and disrupt the machinations of a system dedicated and dependant upon technique.[1] The power structure is perhaps very vulnerable, however in respects previously unconsidered. A massive collapse, effecting the technological world, could occur before or beyond effective damage control is possible. The crisis will most certainly be economic, and precipitated by a sudden, unmitigatable world shaking event. The world monetary system has passed beyond any real control. This essay is not about prediction, rather perception. A downward spiral is simple to illustrate; the basis is another matter. For example, the current mass imprisonments of drug offenders, in response to a health crisis, embodies a conflict between competing techniques each striving for maximum advantage and efficiency. The whole is different than the sum of its parts.[2] South Africa and the USSR each incarcerated huge segments of their populations, and consequently experienced the expiration of their respective systems. The United States is unlike either, however all share the impact of removing millions from the economic sphere. Even laboring prisoners will not prove economically productive over the long term. Inmates are not consumers. Real debt levels may only rise. Accounting techniques may ease the situation for the government and multi-national corporations, however lower social classes will not enjoy this luxury. Bankruptcy and debt forfeiture measures can not be magically erased. Economic quick fixes will eventually prove worthless. How can stimulus packages benefit the entirety, when many able-bodied men are imprisoned or even lack the skills for productive work? In addition, real working wages have stagnated, and even slightly declined via inflation[3]. A feudal society may be the end result of this particular scheme, but runs afoul of consumerism. Advertising and propaganda convince the need, but fail to offer any solution other than credit for supplying the funds. Hence, greater default levels. Weed choked farmyard and decaying inner cities are typical local patterns resulting from the vicious debt cycle. Agribusiness, public assistance, and penitentiaries will ease some impact, but offer far less than previous cycles in their potential. The watch hands are winding down. Their efficiency must necessarily be less than total. The same may be evidenced on a national or even international scale. The sickness may have no systemic cure, being a by-product of itself. Presently, much popular support is derived from the sub-urbanites[4], who have managed to flee from the above extremes. Living vicariously through media, in a verbal world[5], these people devote their time away from television commuting, working and sinking further into debt. Earnings may increase, but the debt required to maintain their lifestyle actually shrinks their real income, via interest payments and planned obsolescence of "necessities," like automobiles and washing machines. Most will never actually enjoy true equity. A car is paid-off, only to break down. A new car is bought, while repair bills are still owed to a credit card company. Real estate will probably be sold before the completion of a 30 year mortgage agreement, or borrowed against. Money appears not to be regarded as a commodity, which is indeed the case since the abolition of the gold standard. Only death brings permanent relief for the individual.[6] Even bankruptcy is no solution. The individual will be forced right back onto the debt cycle due to economic reality. The sub-urbanite actually believes this state is beneficial and necessary. Any other existence is inconceivable, or hopelessly idyllic. Hence, their cars suck all life away from themselves and the planet. A collapse, and consequent lack of fuel, would be most disastrous for this sort. They would prove docile sheep for anyone who could offer to preserve their existence, and easily exploited for maximum advantage. The sub-urbanites will not even probably realize their own state as tools, having been long conditioned to be so while believing themselves free. Their perceptions have been guided by the official power structure, providing an accessible path of least resistance. Puppets can be very dangerous, especially a herd believing its own individual worth and identity. These people may be written off, but never ignored. Their particular decadence is too pervading and insidious.[7]
[1] See Jaques Ellul, The Technological Society, 1964 for a detailed discussion regarding "technique." I will generally use this Concept according to his definition. Efficiency is the main goal.
[2] A tool believes greater.
[3] i.e. entropy.
[4] Actually, an archetype...
[5] This term was first coined by J. Ellul, ibid., and elaborated upon in propaganda, 1966. It is similar to my own "virtual world" used below which includes imagery.
[6] The economy will still suffer the consequences of unpaid debt.
[7] Although, the above scenario is simplistic, a basic theme has been illustrated: the economic system is partially based upon perception and belief. Currently, the official power structures encourages stasis through stability. Other ends could possibly be achieved.
CAUSE AND CONSEQUENCE
1. Introduction - Part 1
No closed system is permanent. All civilizations wane over time. The Machine may be slowly winding down. Entropy demands less than absolute efficiency, despite human claims contrary to the second law of thermodynamics. This realization, especially applicable to the United States, must be faced. The ignorant will die. Massive social pressures continually threaten to burst and disrupt the machinations of a system dedicated and dependant upon technique.[1] The power structure is perhaps very vulnerable, however in respects previously unconsidered. A massive collapse, effecting the technological world, could occur before or beyond effective damage control is possible. The crisis will most certainly be economic, and precipitated by a sudden, unmitigatable world shaking event. The world monetary system has passed beyond any real control. This essay is not about prediction, rather perception. A downward spiral is simple to illustrate; the basis is another matter. For example, the current mass imprisonments of drug offenders, in response to a health crisis, embodies a conflict between competing techniques each striving for maximum advantage and efficiency. The whole is different than the sum of its parts.[2] South Africa and the USSR each incarcerated huge segments of their populations, and consequently experienced the expiration of their respective systems. The United States is unlike either, however all share the impact of removing millions from the economic sphere. Even laboring prisoners will not prove economically productive over the long term. Inmates are not consumers. Real debt levels may only rise. Accounting techniques may ease the situation for the government and multi-national corporations, however lower social classes will not enjoy this luxury. Bankruptcy and debt forfeiture measures can not be magically erased. Economic quick fixes will eventually prove worthless. How can stimulus packages benefit the entirety, when many able-bodied men are imprisoned or even lack the skills for productive work? In addition, real working wages have stagnated, and even slightly declined via inflation[3]. A feudal society may be the end result of this particular scheme, but runs afoul of consumerism. Advertising and propaganda convince the need, but fail to offer any solution other than credit for supplying the funds. Hence, greater default levels. Weed choked farmyard and decaying inner cities are typical local patterns resulting from the vicious debt cycle. Agribusiness, public assistance, and penitentiaries will ease some impact, but offer far less than previous cycles in their potential. The watch hands are winding down. Their efficiency must necessarily be less than total. The same may be evidenced on a national or even international scale. The sickness may have no systemic cure, being a by-product of itself. Presently, much popular support is derived from the sub-urbanites[4], who have managed to flee from the above extremes. Living vicariously through media, in a verbal world[5], these people devote their time away from television commuting, working and sinking further into debt. Earnings may increase, but the debt required to maintain their lifestyle actually shrinks their real income, via interest payments and planned obsolescence of "necessities," like automobiles and washing machines. Most will never actually enjoy true equity. A car is paid-off, only to break down. A new car is bought, while repair bills are still owed to a credit card company. Real estate will probably be sold before the completion of a 30 year mortgage agreement, or borrowed against. Money appears not to be regarded as a commodity, which is indeed the case since the abolition of the gold standard. Only death brings permanent relief for the individual.[6] Even bankruptcy is no solution. The individual will be forced right back onto the debt cycle due to economic reality. The sub-urbanite actually believes this state is beneficial and necessary. Any other existence is inconceivable, or hopelessly idyllic. Hence, their cars suck all life away from themselves and the planet. A collapse, and consequent lack of fuel, would be most disastrous for this sort. They would prove docile sheep for anyone who could offer to preserve their existence, and easily exploited for maximum advantage. The sub-urbanites will not even probably realize their own state as tools, having been long conditioned to be so while believing themselves free. Their perceptions have been guided by the official power structure, providing an accessible path of least resistance. Puppets can be very dangerous, especially a herd believing its own individual worth and identity. These people may be written off, but never ignored. Their particular decadence is too pervading and insidious.[7]
[1] See Jaques Ellul, The Technological Society, 1964 for a detailed discussion regarding "technique." I will generally use this Concept according to his definition. Efficiency is the main goal.
[2] A tool believes greater.
[3] i.e. entropy.
[4] Actually, an archetype...
[5] This term was first coined by J. Ellul, ibid., and elaborated upon in propaganda, 1966. It is similar to my own "virtual world" used below which includes imagery.
[6] The economy will still suffer the consequences of unpaid debt.
[7] Although, the above scenario is simplistic, a basic theme has been illustrated: the economic system is partially based upon perception and belief. Currently, the official power structures encourages stasis through stability. Other ends could possibly be achieved.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
NEITHER THE GOVERNMENT NOR THE POPULATION (6th Draft) - Introduction
The 6th Draft was written between April 1995 and July 1997. About 200 copies were distributed in two printings. A complete PDF copy is available upon request. I cannot say much regarding its reception, but I do know of one case where someone went to jail for possessing a copy. Perhaps, it was the Chumpfish but most likely the cause was whose copy. The police do not like to see the "O.G.s" politicized (and all along I thought it was fundamentally apolitical). Several sections were included in the Maximum Advantage Collection.
Opening:
NEITHER THE GOVERNMENT NOR THE POPULATION
A Manifesto of Fanatic Apathy?
The first Essay of a series
Sixth Draft
Dedicated to those who dare doubt.
This text is not "My Struggle," rather an expressed desire to be left alone by all systems and the herd. The real enemy is efficiency. This collection represents different roads to the same destination en extrema. The whole is different than the sum of its parts.
Opening:
NEITHER THE GOVERNMENT NOR THE POPULATION
A Manifesto of Fanatic Apathy?
The first Essay of a series
Sixth Draft
Dedicated to those who dare doubt.
This text is not "My Struggle," rather an expressed desire to be left alone by all systems and the herd. The real enemy is efficiency. This collection represents different roads to the same destination en extrema. The whole is different than the sum of its parts.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
I Drove a Taxi Cab - Part 2
Of course, since buying the cab, I had noticed an increase in aggression towards my car. I had never experienced anywhere near as much rudeness. In general, I’m far too intimidating. People would definitely go out of their way to cut me off or not let me merge. I definitely missed my old Chrysler. After 9/11, it got much worse. People starting becoming almost outright violent. One idiot in a pick-up truck (of course) made a slashing motion. It’s almost too damn bad he didn’t try anything. I would have enjoyed shooting him. Many others would stare in fear. Sometimes, they would notice that I’m basically a big redneck with a beard. The transformation was astonishing. Fear and loathing became instant acceptance. I wonder what (if anything) was going through their heads. I also noted that most, but certainly not all, were white.
In an effort at mitigation (and because I was way too cheap to paint a car I spent $600 on), I scraped-off the remaining taxi emblems. Although fewer people tried hailing me, it didn’t do much, so I slapped on “Black Flag” and an “Armed Society is a Polite Society” bumper stickers. This message was effective.
Meanwhile, my cabby friend reported being called a terrorist, and was often told that to go back where he came from. His response was to show them his Alaskan tribal identification car and told to “get the fuck out” of his cab. He did however punch out a fellow Pakistani cab driver who thought 9/11 was funny.[2] His business was basically ruined partly due to backlash against Muslims.[3].
Looking back, I can remember my contempt for the weakness of my fellow Americans. Since their hostility was directed toward anything remotely and tenuously Muslim, and I felt some of it directed toward me, I found it difficult to emphasize. They allowed the media and government to terrorize them into utter stupidity. Now, with time, I have mellowed. It’s difficult to have one’s world view shattered. I personally wonder why so many had it in the first place, or how they could still do so. Some of my middle eastern friends confided that it was natural for Americans to be a bit jumpy. However, it doesn’t excuse the racism. I’m glad honkies will be in the minority soon. The world will be a better place.
[2] A month earlier he threw someone, who had spit on him, through the front window of Bartell’s on Broadway thus severing a main artery. The police declined to press charges.
[3] I must also note that most cab drivers I met were African and Coptic Christians.
In an effort at mitigation (and because I was way too cheap to paint a car I spent $600 on), I scraped-off the remaining taxi emblems. Although fewer people tried hailing me, it didn’t do much, so I slapped on “Black Flag” and an “Armed Society is a Polite Society” bumper stickers. This message was effective.
Meanwhile, my cabby friend reported being called a terrorist, and was often told that to go back where he came from. His response was to show them his Alaskan tribal identification car and told to “get the fuck out” of his cab. He did however punch out a fellow Pakistani cab driver who thought 9/11 was funny.[2] His business was basically ruined partly due to backlash against Muslims.[3].
Looking back, I can remember my contempt for the weakness of my fellow Americans. Since their hostility was directed toward anything remotely and tenuously Muslim, and I felt some of it directed toward me, I found it difficult to emphasize. They allowed the media and government to terrorize them into utter stupidity. Now, with time, I have mellowed. It’s difficult to have one’s world view shattered. I personally wonder why so many had it in the first place, or how they could still do so. Some of my middle eastern friends confided that it was natural for Americans to be a bit jumpy. However, it doesn’t excuse the racism. I’m glad honkies will be in the minority soon. The world will be a better place.
[2] A month earlier he threw someone, who had spit on him, through the front window of Bartell’s on Broadway thus severing a main artery. The police declined to press charges.
[3] I must also note that most cab drivers I met were African and Coptic Christians.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
I Drove a Taxi Cab - Part 1
Draft 1.0
I drove a taxi cab, but I never was a cabby. Someone had hit and run my ‘76 Chrysler Newport[1], and after about 6 months the power-steering was fried. It was manual steering for right turns and wobbled all over the road. I was tiring of the constant battle, so I needed a new car pretty bad. A friend, who was a cab driver, hooked me up with a retiring ‘91 Chevy Caprice Yellow Taxi. It had “only” a quarter million miles, but Seattle requires taxis be not more that 10 years old. I got it for $600, and it was a good deal. I drove it from June 2001 until in October 20002 until it needed $1200 worth of work and I sold it for $250. The only problem I had was the window blower fan conking out. You would think I got a good deal, and I did, but there’s more to things than money.
At first, because the markings were not completely obliterated, I found it amusing that people would try to hail me. The fun soon began to get old when they sometimes acted as if I, who am white, was discriminating against them. It wasn’t as if I really was a cab driver. One thing that was fairly interesting is how well I got on with Africans, Arabs and others who are disproportionally represented in the world of cab drivers in Seattle. They figured I was part of the cab world, or at least friendly to it, and we would often strike up conversations. It definitely fit in the Central District, a very diverse neighborhood, where I had lived since 1995.
Then September 11 happened.
[1] They got much worse than they gave.
I drove a taxi cab, but I never was a cabby. Someone had hit and run my ‘76 Chrysler Newport[1], and after about 6 months the power-steering was fried. It was manual steering for right turns and wobbled all over the road. I was tiring of the constant battle, so I needed a new car pretty bad. A friend, who was a cab driver, hooked me up with a retiring ‘91 Chevy Caprice Yellow Taxi. It had “only” a quarter million miles, but Seattle requires taxis be not more that 10 years old. I got it for $600, and it was a good deal. I drove it from June 2001 until in October 20002 until it needed $1200 worth of work and I sold it for $250. The only problem I had was the window blower fan conking out. You would think I got a good deal, and I did, but there’s more to things than money.
At first, because the markings were not completely obliterated, I found it amusing that people would try to hail me. The fun soon began to get old when they sometimes acted as if I, who am white, was discriminating against them. It wasn’t as if I really was a cab driver. One thing that was fairly interesting is how well I got on with Africans, Arabs and others who are disproportionally represented in the world of cab drivers in Seattle. They figured I was part of the cab world, or at least friendly to it, and we would often strike up conversations. It definitely fit in the Central District, a very diverse neighborhood, where I had lived since 1995.
Then September 11 happened.
[1] They got much worse than they gave.
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