Reality Reloaded
What you're reading is an attempt to delve deeper into the eighth aphorism featured in Guy Debord's 'The Society of the Spectacle'. If you missed the last one, you can read it here.
Here's the actual passage:
One cannot abstractly contrast the spectacle to actual social activity: such a division is itself divided. The spectacle which inverts the real is in fact produced. Lived reality is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle while simultaneously absorbing the spectacular order, giving it positive cohesiveness. Objective reality is present on both sides. Every notion fixed this way has no other basis than its passage into the opposite: reality rises up within the spectacle and the spectacle is real. This reciprocal alienation is the essence and support of the existing society.
Simply typing all of that out gave me a mild headache, I can only wonder how it would feel when one comes across something like this on LinkedIn. It perhaps explains the low impression numbers and non-existent engagement that my posts receive :D
Nevertheless, I committed to doing this and I will do it irrespective of the digital confirmation credits that I garner. This is, ultimately, an exercise in consistency and self-understanding, and I've definitely succeeded in that regard. On to the passage now.
Spectacle is no mere Doppelgänger
A picture of a crowd cannot be understood in relation to the crowd as it moves, this approach does not respect the intimate relationship between the representation and reality. The picture, as it's captured and circulated is manufactured, i.e. it was derived from the intentions of a person or a group of people.
Instead, think of the picture of the crowd as something that wills itself into reality by enforcing itself on those who behold it; all while embedding itself into actual reality by being the only means through which a vast section of the global populace interacts with it. This back-and-forth between the spectacle and reality gives it a sense of coherence that is hard to not admire.
With enough iterations of this exchange, the spectacle becomes indistinguishable from the real in terms of the objective truth that it represents. Hence, 'pics or it didn't happen'.
Reality is no longer enough
When connectivity becomes a goal in and of itself, reality has no other way to reach people's minds without being mediated through the spectacle. What happened in the Gulf War is 'real' only in the sense that it was propagated through the (American) news channels that covered it. Baudrillard's seemingly baffling 'The Gulf War did not take place is an exposition of this very phenomenon.
As reality attains the much-vaunted 'certificate of legitimacy' through the spectacle and ends up through a warped presentation to the populace, there is an inevitable alienation that arises as a result.
This alienation isn't accidental. Debord argues that it is the very foundation upon which modern society rests and is inextricably linked with the way we go about our daily lives.
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If any of this sounds relatable, please write to me. Part of the reason I write this is to seek out more people who feel the same way I do about the modern Internet.
If you enjoyed reading this, you might like my cleverly disguised rants on LinkedIn too.