Episode #171 - Guy Debord - The Society of the Spectacle

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Thank you for making the show possible. 🙂

[@johnoh3822]

Please make another podcast on this!

[@OneEyedBart95]

“I had to eat my pet chicken who was livin’ in my suitcase with me” 😂 this had me laughing too hard

[@pizzahuttmorelikepizzabutt2066]

Love this. Been waiting on the Guy Debord episode. Now all I'm waiting for is a Alfred Jarry episode.

[@maximedemontbron5179]

Been waiting a long time also

[@PAX---777]

The first few paragraphs of Debord's book completely relates to this modern society.....like it could have written last week....amazing. Atomized population.

[@matthewcasey4795]

More Debord, Baudrillard, Becker and Camus please. Also, Mark Fisher.

[@christinemartin63]

Just finished listening to all 171 podcasts. They were terrific (nearly all 😉)! Pretty nice of you to post these for free; they surely took a lot of time and thought. Bravo!

[@omaro_o7151]

Nobody scratches my philosophical itch better than Philosophize this!

[@danielamesquita98]

This episode was enlightening. Keep on the excellent work

[@childintime6453]

I love this book

[@LukePalmer]

More of this topic please! Fascinating but it ended way too soon!

[@issatavaziva4685]

Love this episope been rewinding for 2hours now. Please make more episodes on Guy Deboord

[@luket479]

Thanks for another. Spent many hours driving up and down the country listen to your cast.

[@dlloydy5356]

Fascinating dive into something we all take for granted for the most part. Great content.

[@papat7837]

What a great video! Good job, Stephen. Please, feel free to make longer episodes! 🙏🏿

[@noahbrown4388]

Great episode! Nothing epitomizes the society of the spectacle more in our modern age than 'social' media and the monkey wrench it has thrown into human relations. One wonders how much more grotesque it can get.. metaverse? 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@Ylemonade]

Super important episode! Thank you!

[@TheKingWhoWins]

As always, your uploads on philosophy are hugely welcomed. Thanks You 🙏🏻

[@sinqobilebandile6558]

I've listened to this about 3 times over the past 2 weeks. I can't seem to find other people speaking on this work and would love more episodes on this. Thank you for all the great work.

[@HS-ie8tj]

You can't find anyone speaking on this popular text by GUY DEBORD? You can't be looking around much at all...

[@tysonasaurus6392]

Get people to watch the movie Nope with you and then slip in Guy Debord talking points afterward

[@sinqobilebandile6558]

@@HS-ie8tj haha you're right, i just meant people who would expand on what Stephen has covered so far. Like a lecture series of some sort. Most are just 20-minute book reviews that dont have much depth.

[@sinqobilebandile6558]

@@tysonasaurus6392 😂 good idea

[@blyntzbugg1795]

​@@sinqobilebandile6558 Is this a joke? Read the damn book.

[@leeshich]

Great episode! Thank you! Would love to hear the next episode on him!

[@BarryBizarre]

What an excellent episode. Please do another on this topic

[@mlzplayer9243]

Thank you for covering Debord! I didn't very much understand commodity fetishism but Debord was able to fill this gap, in a very itch in the brain sort of way. Now how can I find a way out of this place...

[@agnostic3256]

Hello, Thanks a lot. You already made my entire week. I appreciate it.😊

[@legamaxx2752]

Just listened to this on Spotify. What a great episode. Thanks, Steven!

[@ryz177]

This is an epic content! Kudos! It deserves to be heard by the people of the entire world as it is highly relevant to what's happening around! This would even make farther reach if there is some sort of video with it! I hope you make more of Guy Debord!

[@bigstrongmansmart]

Good shit. I look forward to more.

[@a-z4886]

Am amazed, keep educating and philosophizing the great works and thoughts...

[@kiyarashreza3654]

Thank you and my thanks to you are sincere and have nothing to do with the spectacle in any way, shape, or form whatsoever!

[@goodboyrepublic2421]

TikTok and IG are good and will support any way we can. We love you!! Thank you for creating these podcasts!

[@ronrocheleau3035]

Thanks Bigtime!!!

[@maximedemontbron5179]

Thanks, contemplating the spectacle right now watching this video, but every so slightly more aware of what I'm doing than usual.

[@markmurex6559]

Great video!

[@aRchAng3lZz]

Thank you for this episode. More stuff on Debord will always be appreciated. I hope that one day you can cover the work of Jacques Ellul (The Technological Society/System/Bluff trilogy in particular) as his focus on technological development and its impact on our lives is very much connected (and in some ways precedes) the ideas of Debord and Baudrillard.

[@Sunder_Daseinson]

Check out technology as symptom and dream by Robert Romanyshyn!

[@kylelarson5074]

The alienation is very apparent in a company environment. Where your employer tries to limit your knowledge of the business operations to the bare minimum that the require of you to perform your defined function. This also counts for legal rights, health care benefits and even political input.

[@joeyk169]

great stuff thanks! and i love the idea of debord going on tiktok

[@queersnowflake]

Thanks mate

[@corsodejesus4101]

Listen to all of his episodes. The lastest one is just beautiful. Wish he expands on Ortega y gasset's philosophy.

[@WhyWhatHowWhere]

I would love to hear about this “not a way out but a way through” idea from Debor. Unless it was mentioned so the listener’s peaked interest would make him do his own research on the topic. Thank you for your time and skills to make this video.

[@Rexboi_71]

T

[@cam5816]

T

[@smtrm212]

C Wright Mills Elites and Imagination. :) ♡ Enjoyed this episode :)

[@George_Pags]

I love the newest modern stuff to help us understand 2023

[@mariannabeepdlue2816]

Pleaaaaaase do create another one!

[@FUMFgod]

More please

[@bigstrongmansmart]

I wonder if--like the endless stream of spectacles/illusions that consume and effectively limit so many of us these days, & increasingly so--i wonder if the most effective means of transcending the spectacle might involve our making use of tactics that likewise fail to endure, but on purpose. In other words, embracing spontaneity in a way that fights power. Foucault's "always letting each other in, whatever that looks like, even when it becomes dangerous" would probably be a good place to start. What do you think?

[@blavatovsky9553]

Oh ouhhhhh Killer bro

[@camiladellepiane6281]

Hi! I really enjoy your podcast, and I've been trying to find the page where I can sign in for the message to ger the reminder there's a new episode. I'd appreciate if you could tell me which is the link. For some reason it doesn't appear. (regards from Uruguay)

[@alex-7578]

Citation you were looking for on your breakfast example is David Harvey

[@larry3591]

Awsome

[@davidmorrison6175]

I'm very glad I heard this name earlier today. Always. better late than never

[@viathejar]

The decline of local beat reporting is another example of news becoming increasingly superficial

[@Its-Lulu]

Sweet love me some Debord

[@thedog5k]

Very bold to assume everyone is unaware and unbothered

[@Jmc401]

Hey Mr west, if you put a poster on your merch store, I would support you

[@maximedemontbron5179]

I know more today than I did yesterday, but I feel like I'm suffering a bit more. :O

[@Jmc401]

Time stamp please?

[@DHU11]

How do you apply this to things like instruments? because i think that some definitely *are* intrinsically better than others due to quality of materials and craftsman which produces better quality of sound....

[@markoslavicek]

Regarding commodity fetishism and our uncompromising participation in the spectacle, couldn't we argue that something similar took place in history? Today it's commodities, a while ago it was land ownership, prior to that maybe physical strength or fertility... It seems to me that we always fetishised _something_ and participated in some kind of social construct, whatever the form it took.

[@retlox224]

this is a really great point. i mean my perspective is that this "commodity fetishism" isnt really a modern issue. it seems to have been an issue for all (most?) of human history.

[@markoslavicek]

@@retlox224 That makes sense to me, too.

[@suicidalbomber8048]

Commodity fetishism and our participation in the spectacle are not merely historical phenomena but intrinsic to capitalist society's development. While other social constructs and forms of fetishization have indeed existed in history, the spectacle represents a qualitatively different form of alienation and domination unique to capitalism; It means a totalizing system that subsumes all other forms of social construct and fetishization. Also, the historical forms of fetishization you mention are themselves symptoms of the broader process of commodification and spectacle, i.e the fetishization of physical strength or fertility in pre-modern societies could be seen as a precursor to the commodification of the body and the emergence of the fitness industry in contemporary society. And we need to remember that Debord's concept of spectacle is not just a historical analysis but also a call to action.

[@markoslavicek]

@@suicidalbomber8048 Well said.

[@BanColPan]

Moar ✊

[@liamplant9380]

Loved that ending, I guess I am a part of a religion and I don’t really care about that all that much.

[@PAX---777]

SPECTACLE ~~~ CLOWN SHOW [modern W. Society]

[@darkness1293]

14:00

[@derekrichardson9133]

i want chicken! now!

[@frankv7774]

I'm OT 8

[@bekocean7385]

Llamas do indeed exist

[@richardouvrier3078]

Habitus

[@richardouvrier3078]

Commodity animism in capitalist religion; diffuse spectacle.

[@durkadurka4107]

this, slavoj zizek, kaczynski, and max stirner; helped me break from leftist slave morality and hive mind

[@albertseverino5576]

The left, right, center, whatever are all the same emptiness in the contemporary lexicon

[@irpwellyn]

You should break from the idea of considering a slave morality next

[@thedog5k]

14:11 Anytime a theory requires me to have something projected onto me with lots of assumptions and no nuance allowed with lines like “Just go with it” I generally just throw it out the window Last time this happened to me someone had me read “ who moved my cheese” which was the biggest dump of a book I’ve ever touched m People are unironically handing out garbage ideas and saying “ if you don’t get it you (condescending jab to put the burden of understanding on you to mask their dogshit take)

[@aWomanFreed]

How, on earth, would consuming the “body and blood of Christ”, even symbolically, not be cannibalism? I don’t understand these cannibalistic religions.

[@antonioriondadelosreyes7523]

☹

[@benjamindover4337]

Interesting

[@skykitsu]

thank you for making this free but i would def pay like 5 bucks an ep you have a ko-fi or somethin

[@YoMan751]

Been following you for years now and still listen to every single episodes 2-3 times. Love your work. This specific episode, not my favorite, seems obvious at this point the thesis of the author and you've been eluding to it so many time. Yet, I enjoyed it.

[@retlox224]

i do not know much about the history of the world, so i may be wrong. but it seems like this "fetishization of commodities" seem to just be materialism and wanting more material objects, just put in a marxist perspective. a problem i have is the framing that this is some sort of issue within a "commodity culture" (i.e. the culture of modernity). i just see this as some notion of human habit. liking things means getting things, liking things and getting things makes people happy, so they do it. i am somewhat anti-materialistic, i dont see how material objects would bring anyone virtue or "true" happiness. i dont see the problem of fetishizing commodities as a modern issue, it is a human issue. i mean bhuddism, stoicism, and cynicism all illustrate the point that having pretty and shiny things doesnt make you happy. its weird that the argument being presented is shown as some sort of a modern issue, "this is an issue with commodity (modern) culture", what is implied is that this "culture" didnt always exist, except it seems like it has. this isnt a "culture", it is rather (seemingly) normal human modes of thought. it is interesting to see anti-materialist arguments be made through a marxism lens, i just have an issue with this issue of materialism being presented as some sort of modern issue, when it has been a human issue.

[@TennesseeJed]

Thanks for this! May the healing force of the invisible hand of the market be with you. Blessed be the whales of Wall Street for we are the krill!

[@PAX---777]

....a copy.....of a copy....of a copy

[@hidekitojo2277]

God is dead but people will always have religion be it secular or otherwise It really begs the question why you believe what you believe Can one really escape the spectacle and become an authentic human being? Do people really want freedom? I don’t think so

[@mulmeyun]

32:00 christianity isn't dualistic, that sounds more like plato

[@casudemous5105]

Soul and body if thay isnt christianity..bruuh

[@mulmeyun]

@@casudemous5105 body and soul are one that's the whole point of the resurrection of the flesh

[@madrigal1213]

So much of your program time here is spent, unfortunately probably necessarily, placating the modern distaste for religion. It's a little frustrating. We've had thousands of years of incredibly intelligent people exploring different theologies all searching for some kind of truth about the world. It's disappointing that an effect of the rise of rationalism was to discard that field of knowledge. This coming from a very atheistic atheist, just to couch any particular pro-religion bias people may think I have.

[@danilkopaskudnik3002]

ja .. ich bin driving puke-caddy muhself ..