Quotes from Guy Debord

Here, in order to remain human, men must remain the same.

El espectáculo en general, como inversión concreta de la vida, es el movimiento autónomo de lo no viviente

On ne peut opposer absraitement le spectacle et l'activité sociale effective.

In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles.

Le but n'est rien, le développement est tout. Le spectacle ne veut en venir à rien d'autre qu'à lui-même.

Le spectacle est la principale production de la société actuelle.

Dont tout «avoir» effectif doit tirer son prestige immédiat et sa fonction dernière.

Il est ce qui échappe à l'activité des hommes, à la reconsidération et à la correction de leur Å"uvre.

The society of the spectacle began everywhere in coercion, deceit and blood, but it promised a happy path. It believed itself to be loved. Now it no longer says "What appears is good; what is good appears"; now it says simply "It is so".[

But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence . . . truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness." —Feuerbach, Preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity

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 present phase of total occupation of social life by the accumulated results of the economy leads to a generalized sliding of having into appearing, from which all actual "having" must draw its immediate prestige and its ultimate function.

The spectacle does not realize philosophy, it philosophizes reality.

The need to imitate that the consumer experiences is truly an infantile need, one determined by every aspect of his fundamental disposession. In terms used by Gabel to describe quite another level of pathology, the abnormal need for representation here compensates for a torturing feeling of being at the margin of existence.

Con la massa degli oggetti cresce ... il regno degli enti estranei a cui l'uomo è soggiogato. E' lo stadio supremo di un'espansione che ha ritorto il bisogno contro la vita. Il bisogno di denaro è quindi l'unico bisogno prodotto dall'economia politica, e il solo che esso produca.

The language of the spectacle consists of signs of the dominant system of production — signs which are at the same time the ultimate end-products of that system.

Les force qu'elle a déchaînées suppriment la nécessité economique qui a été la base immuable des sociétés anciennes. Quand elle la remplace par la nécessité du développement economique infini, elle ne peut que remplacer la satisfatction des premiers besoins humains sommairement reconnus, par une fabrication ininterrompue de pseudo-besoins qui se ramènent au seul pseudo-besoin du maintien de son règne.

When art becomes independent and paints its world in dazzling colors, a moment of life has grown old. Such a moment cannot be rejuvenated by dazzling colors, it can only be evoked in memory. The greatness of art only emerges at the dusk of life.

The spectacle does not realize philosophy, it philosophizes reality, reducing everyone's concrete life to a universe of speculation.

A lie that can no longer be challenged becomes insane.

Though separated from what they produce, people nevertheless produce every detail of their world with ever-increasing power. They thus also find themselves increasingly separated from that world. The closer their life comes to being their own creation, the more they are excluded from that life.

Conversely, real life is materially invaded by the contemplation of the spectacle, and ends up absorbing it and aligning itself with it.

A medida que a necessidade se encontra socialmente sonhada, o sonho se torna necessário. O espetáculo é o sonho mau da sociedade aprisionada, que só expressa afinal o seu desejo de dormir. O espetáculo é o guarda desse sono.

The spectacle is a permanent opium war designed to force people to equate goods with commodities and to equate satisfaction with a survival that expands according to its own laws. Consumable survival must constantly expand because it never ceases to include privation . If augmented survival never comes to a resolution, if there is no point where it might stop expanding this is because it is itself stuck in the realm of privation. It may gild poverty, but it cannot transcend it.