The Society of the Spectacle

   The society of the Spectacle is a theory created by Guy Debord that suggests that people are driven by different commodities that in all reality have no value. Our culture is the society of the spectacle. Our consumer culture becomes so much of a part of our lives that we don't even realize that we are participating in it almost everyday.We buy the things that we don't need mostly because as a society we put value to it. A human's basic needs are food, water, shelter, and clothes but even within those basic needs there are different standards that are set that divides people into hierarchical classes. Such as being able to afford the house in the suburbs with the 2 door garage with the huge backyard or the 1 bedroom apartment in the city. The idea is that if you have more you are considered a part of the "elite."The spectacle plays heavily into our wants and desires. We don't need 12 bedrooms in a house for 4 people but our culture glorifies large quantities. We want these things because they are deemed important.
    People become so enthralled in these materialistic items that it turns into somewhat of a obsession such as Debord states. "The fetishism of the commodity — the domination of society by “intangible as well as tangible things” — attains its ultimate fulfillment in the spectacle, where the real world is replaced by a selection of images which are projected above it, yet which at the same time succeed in making themselves regarded as the epitome of reality." The spectacle begins to control us and the way we behave and to a certain extent it also separates us. The spectacle amazes human beings and it allows us to believe in things that aren't necessarily a part of our own realities.
     The commodity of the spectacle is something that is considered very valuable, which is essential to society. The commodity is the materialized illusion.  Money for instance has no true value, its just paper, but because society has made it valuable it is more desirable. The same thing applies to having a beautiful woman on your arm. Instead of the value being put towards a woman who has a beautiful personality and average looks, a beautiful woman is ranked as a more valuable commodity in our society. People are more obsessed with having possession than of the things itself.

     The commodity has become a large part of our culture. Being in possession of these different items that we have commodified is very important and it is sometimes determines the grade of life that we live. Debord states, "Replacing that necessity with a necessity for boundless economic development can only mean replacing the satisfaction of primary human needs (now scarcely met) with an incessant fabrication of pseudoneeds, all of which ultimately come down to the single pseudoneed of maintaining the reign of the autonomous economy. But that economy loses all connection with authentic needs insofar as it emerges from the social unconscious that unknowingly depended on it. “Whatever is conscious wears out. What is unconscious remains unalterable. But once it is freed, it too falls to ruin” (Freud). Participating in the incessant  fabrication of pseudoneeds forces a person to want more and more and that is what is going to ruin our society. Freud's quote simply means that when primary human needs are replaced by the things we think we need humans forget about how important our basic necessities are.

  The U.S for instance is driven by supply and demand and we have an over abundance of things that we in general don't really need whereas in other countries like in some parts of Africa they are mostly focusing on acquiring their basic needs for survival. Issues like obesity in children are not major in countries like Africa because their basic necessities are so scarce. Debord states, "Modern economic production extends it's dictatorship both extensively and intensively. In the less industrialized regions, its reign is already manifested by the presence of  a few star commodities and by the imperialist domination imposed by the more industrially advanced regions." I know that if I person in Africa would be able to afford certain handcrafted items those items would be considered commodities for them because everyone cant afford those items. On the other hand, this quotes suggests that if countries like Africa had more miscellaneous things commodified it would only be natural for them to eventually want more. Bottom line is: Americans are spoiled.