Well, Situationism was born out the idea that people are products of their environments. A common critism to the general theory is - “There are tons of evidence of people born into poverty and then excelling at careers,” however I think there is more to be said about these environments. Imagine we were to walk down a local street and a police siren sounded, then likely we stop and react. More on this point, we accept the idea of a credit card, yet a baby merely sees it as a plastic shape, and adults instead see a chain of processes related to the plastic. The examples I am using are neither good nor bad, but parts of it embed themselves inside our life and are attributed to the spectacle.
The spectacle came from Guy Debord directly and he asserted that the spectacle was our perception of life viewed through the eyes of marketers and products. The advanced stages, which Debord argued was already upon us, told of the media being so firmly inside the spectacle that media is not even conscious of the fact. Some example of this would be: You book a vacation and when you experience it first-hand your memories are compared to the smiling families on TV. How about people whom see themselves through the eyes of a brand, such as Apple and Sony.
All this stuff is degrading people’s quality of life and creating world alienation.
I can share more about the approaches the situationists took to combat the spectacle.
What is situationism?
Hi, glad you’re curious.
Well, Situationism was born out the idea that people are products of their environments. A common critism to the general theory is - “There are tons of evidence of people born into poverty and then excelling at careers,” however I think there is more to be said about these environments. Imagine we were to walk down a local street and a police siren sounded, then likely we stop and react. More on this point, we accept the idea of a credit card, yet a baby merely sees it as a plastic shape, and adults instead see a chain of processes related to the plastic. The examples I am using are neither good nor bad, but parts of it embed themselves inside our life and are attributed to the spectacle.
The spectacle came from Guy Debord directly and he asserted that the spectacle was our perception of life viewed through the eyes of marketers and products. The advanced stages, which Debord argued was already upon us, told of the media being so firmly inside the spectacle that media is not even conscious of the fact. Some example of this would be: You book a vacation and when you experience it first-hand your memories are compared to the smiling families on TV. How about people whom see themselves through the eyes of a brand, such as Apple and Sony.
All this stuff is degrading people’s quality of life and creating world alienation.
I can share more about the approaches the situationists took to combat the spectacle.
This seems pretty Marxian, actually.