Debord is probably what every reasonably privileged suburban 16 year old needs to ornately articulate her own righteous indignation at what “goddamn phonies” all of her peers are, but he loses his charm pretty fast once you realize what a pack of condescending grumps the situationists were. And yet, in times of crushing existential heartache, Society of the Spectacle still feels like a hot water bottle to eases the crampsof ultra-civilized US society. Sometimes, nihilism is just the slice of honey pie you need.
From a grad student frustrated with the intellectual lethargy of his students, I thought this was an exceptionally well strung list of maladies:
I think what’s really depressing to me is this sense that I live in a culture that has no permanent values or reality principle. The economy is based in IOUs, the little black lie of economics, the number one export is debt that amounts to horseshit, the war is about projecting an image abroad, political discussions now just discuss the spectacle, and I feel like every other discourse amounts to a con. I can’t be the only one who is tired of constantly being marketed to by snake oil salesmen. I’m sick of living in the society of the spectacle.
The idea of a profoundly empty American economy, what we have to show for ourselves anymore at every level, is startlingly true. Industrial product has been diffused throughout foreign markets in lieu of an abstract marketplace of concepts and innovations. Only the thing is, we miscalculated our raw resources and neglected to cultivate our human crops, leaving us with a bunch of high school students (myself included, I’m sure) who ranked 17th in a report on global scientific literacy. That’s like 16 other countries who will walk on the next moon before we do. Buuuh. (I mean, not that I really care about being “top dog” like, ever, but I do enjoy sitting in a giant vibrating chair once in a while and reading a book while a very dedicated lady throws some elbow grease into grinding down the callouses on my feets.)
Thus, devoid of both industrial and intellectual capital, our major export becomes the very lack thereof, ie: debt. We’ve just witnessed an economy based on completely invented fiscal capital fall flat on its fat face, an illusive war we never see nor hear of, predicated on works of absolute fiction, appealing to new recruits by making enlisting in the military look just like testing out a hot new video game. We’ve got our most riveting and aggressive political discourse happening amongst the clenched sphincters of Barbara Walters, Sherri “is-the-world-flat?” Shepherd, and former bug-eating reality tv star Elizabeth Hasselback, and a new president-elect whose greatest gift will be a more inspiring mythological reimagining of national identity, if he can manage to spin the whole goddamn thing right.
It’s a good thing I don’t believe in cultural criticism that frames whatever is happening right now like it’s proof of our impending, tragic decline (that shit’s for old timers), because the meaninglessness of the millennium really does make a very convincing argument.
david noriega wrote a piece on his obsession with the situationists as an adolescent, i think it applies:
http://thisrecording.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/in-which-we-were-all-situationists-once/
I really liked that. It was so true (except for the “all male” part, but I recognize how that is largely the perception, and in most cases, the primary audience).
The situationists were so the lady doth protest too much-ish.
AUTHENTICITY: AS IF.