Society of the Spectacle

Society of the Spectacle was created a Marxist theorist named Guy Debord. This text was important in the situationist movement. The article plays into the everyday life. Sociologists suggest that everyday life is not here or is open for interpretation. It could mean whatever it can mean. Here is the summary from the text:

“I have just said that the reality of an observable entity designated by the term "everyday life" stands a good chance of remaining hypothetical for many people. Indeed, the most striking feature of the present "Group for Research on Everyday Life" is obviously not the fact that it has not yet discovered anything, but the fact that the very existence of everyday life has been disputed from its very inception, and increasingly so with each new session of this conference. Most of the talks we have heard so far have been by people who are not at all convinced that everyday life exists, since they haven't encountered it anywhere. A group for research on everyday life with this attitude is comparable in every way to an expedition in search of the Yeti, which might similarly come to the conclusion that its quarry was merely a popular hoax.

To be sure, everyone agrees that certain gestures repeated every day, such as opening doors or filling glasses, are quite real; but these gestures are at such a trivial level of reality that it is rightly objected that they are not of sufficient interest to justify a new specialized branch of sociological research.” 

Another interesting quote I found is that “to fail to criticize everyday life today means accepting the prolongation of the present thoroughly rotten forms of culture and politics…” I thought this was an interesting read because prior to this reading, I never really questioned the meaning of everyday life. Now to me it can open for interpretation or hypothetical. He also makes a play at celebrities and how they are supposed to be regarded because they are a spectacular form of a human being. Pseudo-satisfaction is also something he states, which is a fleeting want or desire for something that is represented to be something meant for you but once you don’t like the product anymore, you will find something else. Reading this piece sends me a message to question everything parlayed in my “everyday life.”