Post: #1

Whilst browsing through some economics textbooks (a hobby of mine) I stumbled across this critique of advanced capitalism which I feel is both timely and accurate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Societ..._Spectacle

This 1967 work, released by Frenchman Guy Dubord, introduced the idea of the spectacle - the development of a modern society in which authentic social life has been replaced with its representation.

To quote wikipedia, The Society of the Spectacle is a critique of contemporary consumer culture and commodity fetishism, dealing with issues such as class alienation, cultural homogenization, and the mass media.

Debord's work notes that in this society, “all that was once directly lived has become mere representation,” highlighting the central importance of the image in contemporary society. Images, Debord says, have supplanted genuine human interaction (social media / internet dating, anyone?)

He argues that the history of social life can be understood as "the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing." This transformation, according to Debord, is the "historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life."

In his analysis of the spectacular society, Debord notes that quality of life is impoverished, there is a total lack of authenticity, and human perceptions are affected - in particular a degradation of knowledge, with a hindering of critical thought.

I found this work, a central text of the now-defunct Situationist movement (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationi...ernational) accurately described what feels amiss with much of the modern western world.

The Situationists "rejected the idea that advanced capitalism's apparent successes—such as technological advancement, increased income, and increased leisure—could ever outweigh the social dysfunction and degradation of everyday life that it simultaneously inflicted".

I've since ordered a copy of the work from Amazon, and am looking forward to reading more. In the meantime, I wanted to bring this to the forum as it resonated with me and arguably helps explains some of the dysfunctionality we see in modern, consumption-led societies.

Post: #2

It seems you are largely misinterpreting Marxists on this. They are equalists, are you?

For instance, Marxists see all power differentials (to be accurate, all power differentials where Marxists do not dominate) as unjust. Continue reading the Debord article and you will find he directly implicates the "remnants" of religion and the family as <I>causes</I> of the "the spectacle."

The Marxist critique diagnoses the breakdown of relationships amongst humans as a cause of dysfunction, and it prescribes egalitarianism and the destruction of humanity's ability to differentiate and judge ("repress"). Do you?