Spectacle and Society
Within industrial and post-industrial cultural and state formations, Spectacle implies an organization of appearances that are simultaneously enticing, deceptive, distracting and superficial. Jonathan Crary: 2005
Spectacle can also refer to a society dominated by electronic media, consumption, and surveillance, reducing citizens to spectators by political neutralization. Recently the word is associated with the many ways in which a capitalist structure creates play-like celebrations of its products and leisure time consumption. Guy Debord's philosophical critique and documentary The Society of the Spectacle explores the concept.
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Famous quotes containing the words spectacle and/or society:
“Man lording it over man, man kneeling to man, is a spectacle that Gabriel might well travel hitherward to behold; for never did he behold it in heaven.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“We are seeing an increasing level of attacks on the “selfishness” of women. There are allegations that all kinds of social ills, from runaway children to the neglected elderly, are due to the fact that women have left their “rightful” place in the home. Such arguments are simplistic and wrongheaded but women are especially vulnerable to the accusation that if society has problems, it’s because women aren’t nurturing enough.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)