Debord is uncompromising in his critique of
society and its insistent, almost compulsive, drive towards commodification. He
uses the explosion of spectacle to analyse the way that societal processes have
embraced commodity production. He observes that this act unifies the society in
the 'work' of consuming, but, at the same time, separates and isolates. While
he does not specifically mention the construction of the self as spectacle, he
is relentless in his denunciation that the individual is powerless in the
onslaught of the spectacular with its grounding in capitalist power and
ideology.
Using a Marxian framework, Debord shows
that society is increasingly imbued with 'an immense accumulation of
spectacles', constructed though a mediated cultural hegemony, so much so that
the spectacle becomes 'a social relationship between people that is mediated by
images'. He sees this process as creating an Adorno and Horkheimer-like
passivity in those bound up in this socially mediated existence. Within his
perspective, individuals are no longer autonomous thinkers but pawns in a
system that Debord sees as alienating, where an 'individual's own gestures are
no longer his [her] own, but rather those of someone else who represents them
to him.' Thus, no longer can the individual construct an authentic self, even
one's own sense of authenticity is moulded by outside forces.
This is not to say that the society of the
spectacle is a society of puppetry. What Debord exemplifies, but does not
engage much within this critical text, is the potentiality for active
engagement, both political and, to my mind, religious. While Debord views
religion as 'a vestige of moral repression', aspects of religion in
contemporary society can be imagined as 'spectacled' (or spectacular), mediated
and commodified. But does this mean that the religious self then becomes an inauthentic self?
Religion, through its practices, rituals and symbols, is itself a spectacle, and one that creates meaning and purpose for individual adherents and religious communities. However, these sacred processes too are critiqued as being commodified and thus rendered desacralised.
Religion, through its practices, rituals and symbols, is itself a spectacle, and one that creates meaning and purpose for individual adherents and religious communities. However, these sacred processes too are critiqued as being commodified and thus rendered desacralised.
In his article 'The Morality and Politics
of Consumer Religion: How Consumer Religion Fuels the Culture Wars in the
United States', author Scott Kline (2007) laments the shifts in contemporary
religion saying:
'we live in a world of commodities where
religious symbols and practices have been detached from their historical and
cultural foundations, and where consumers tend to value "tradition"
only inasmuch as it fulfills specific immediate desires. The fragmentation
between historical-cultural foundations and the lives of modern consumers has
enabled the commodity producers to promote religious products to consumers
hungry for enhancement and university, transcendent truth.'
His view, like Debord's, is that
commodification has disenchanted, even disheartened religious practitioners, as
they see their sacred practices being mediated, commodified, and transformed
into 'profaned' objects of fashion and passion.
I want to question this perspective and
look to the work of Guy Debord and Douglas Kellner's (nd) Media Culture and the
Triumph of the Spectacle, but not via their critique of commodified
cultural constructions under capitalism. I argue instead that there can be a
moving away from their one-way assessment towards embracing the notion of
spectacle as counter-hegemonic - as a celebration of contemporary forms of
religious practice (in its broadest sense) and a relational process of meaning
making. Rather than censuring spectacle
culture, could one not endorse it in an outpouring of collective effervescence,
where the individual is active and engaged in spectacular acts of worship - whether religious, spiritual
or even sportive?
This fervency can be seen in the increasing
interest in religious tourism and pilgrimage, in the spontaneous
eruption of a flashmob, in the celebration of joy at World Youth Day
events, in the excitement of an Olympics opening, or in a rally for peace, justice
and equity.
According to Best and Kellner (nd), the
spectacle, for Debord, 'is a tool of pacification and depoliticization' but
could it be upturned and appropriated, or culture jammed, to a spectacular
event of 'vibe and energy'? (Leichty 2010). While Best and Kellner focus on the
overpowering role of media, advertising and infotainment, they also propose
that 'cyberdemocracy and technopolitics' could
provide an avenue for 'the sort of subversive politics and the use of the
tools of the spectacle against the capitalist spectacle that Debord promoted.'
Taking heart in the possibility of jamming
the spectacle, religious and spiritual practices are increasingly adopting the
spectacle (or did they always do this in various forms of ritual and sensation?).
From events such as the magical and fiery Edinburgh Fire Festival, to television advertisements
promoting religion (such as the 'I'm a Mormon' campaign with practitioners like
The Killers' Brandon Flowers), as well as religious activism and prayer
services at the various 'Occupy Movement' rallies, the spectacle can become a
counter-hegemonic practice of celebration and/or protest action.
This shift in religious engagement is
highlighted well in an opinion piece in Religion Despatches on the role of religious
activists at the Occupy Wall Street encampment. Senior Minister of Judson Memorial
Church in New York City, Donna Shaper (2011) states:
'If you want to find the Occupy Movement
now, just go here: exile, diaspora, online, viral, on radio, at Thanksgiving
tables, over coffee, in Los Angeles and Poughkeepsie and Riverside and more.
Everybody wants to know where it is—and it is everywhere.'
Taking the spectacle and re-modelling it,
Shaper views this re-invigorated counter-capitalist movement as a process of
social relations - but not one that alienates as Debord suggests. Instead, she
welcomes it as a movement that conjoins people in community responsibility and
communal understanding. Through various ritual sharings and interactions, the idea
of spectacle can be, and is, incorporated as sacred practice (and sacred
service).
Other theorists, such as Meghan Sutherland (in
Walker 2012), have questioned Debord's resolve in condemning spectacle society,
commenting that: 'Any struggle for social change could never fully abolish the
spectacle.' In an article in the UK newspaper The Guardian, What Debord can
teach us about protest, Sutherland (2012) points out that an affirmation of
Debord's notion of alienation and his criticism of the role of capitalist power
relations and mediated commodification can easily become a repetition of what
is all too familiar in contemporary western society:
'The danger with this reading – the
spectacle as a retroactive name for the social alienation of modern media
culture – is that it turns Debord into a prophet who simply confirms everything
we already know and further cements its inevitability. In other words, it is to
make The Society of the Spectacle into precisely the kind of spectacle that Debord
warns us of... where he insists that the spectacle is not a simple product of
mass media, but "a weltanschauung that has been actualised, translated
into the material realm – a world view transformed into an objective force.'
Sutherland notes that rather than pushing
the spectacle aside, that Debord himself, through his films and artistic visual
collages, as well as his engagement in the radical French movement of the 1950s
and 60s, the Situationists International, actually uses the medium of spectacle
through the process termed ‘détournement’, 'an appropriation and
recontextualistion of cultural meaning' (Walker 2012). Using this notion of
subverting accepted or hegemonic meanings, Sutherland asks whether 'mass media
techniques' can be upturned, or re-used in ways that make sense of 'how to
think about
transforming social existence in an age of
mass media commerce.'
Taking her idea into a religious and
spiritual context, the use of media is already being utilised not to dilute
religious traditions but to disseminate them, creating new forms of meaning
within the spectacle of the sacred.
Questions
- How is religious ritual a spectacle?
- In what circumstances could religious
rituals be regarded as counter-hegemonic?
- Do you agree with Debord that society is
under sufferance because of the plethora of entertaining mediated spectacle
- In what ways can you take active agency
rather than passivity in light of Debord's critique?
References
Best, S. and D. Kellner. nd. Debord and the
postmodern turn: new stages
of the spectacle. Illuminations, http://www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/kell17.htm
Debord, G. 1967. Society of the spectacle. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm
Kellner, D. nd. Media culture and the triumph of the
Kellner, D. nd. Media culture and the triumph of the
spectacle. http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/mediaculturetriumphspectacle.pdf
Kline, S. 2007. The morality and politics of consumer religion: how consumer religion fuels the culture wars in the United States. Journal of
Kline, S. 2007. The morality and politics of consumer religion: how consumer religion fuels the culture wars in the United States. Journal of
Religion and Popular Culture 17, Fall, http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art17-consumerreligion.html
Leichty, JC. 2010. World Cup reflections:
religion (but mostly) conflict and peace. Journal of Religion, Conflict and Peace,
3(2) Spring,
Shaper, D. 2011. Occupy in exile: sacred
space is everywhere.
Religion Despatches, Nov 28, http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/5439/occupy_in_exile%3A_sacred_space_is_everywhere/
Sutherland, M. 2012. What Debord can teach
us about protest. The Guardian,
Walker, B. 2012. The Big Ideas podcast: Guy
Debord's 'society of the
spectacle'. The Guardian, March 28, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/audio/2012/mar/28/big-ideas-podcast-debord-society-spectacle">
Xifra, J. 2008. Soccer, civil religion, and
public relations: Devotional-promotional communication and Barcelona Football
Club. Public Relations Review 34(2): 192-198.
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