Quotes from Guy Debord

Once his workday is over, the worker is suddenly redeemed from the total contempt toward him that is so clearly implied by every aspect of the organization and surveillance of production, and finds himself seemingly treated like a grownup, with a great show of politeness, in his new role as a consumer.

Fascism is technologically equipped primitivism.

With the generalized separation of the worker and his products, every unitary view of accomplished activity and all direct personal communication among producers are lost.

Jamais plus nous ne boirons si jeunes.

The pleasures of existence have recently been redefined in an authoritarian way - first in their priorities and then in their entire substance. And the authorities who redefined them could just as well decide at any moment, untroubled by other consideration, which modification might be most lucratively introduced into the techniques of their manufacture, entirely liberated from any need to play

Consciousness of desire and desire for consciousness are the same project

The Society of the Spectacle is a Marxist work. It is an extraordinary analysis of and arraignment of Capital and the spectacular society it has engendered. It is not, however, just an analysis - it is conceived as a weapon in the revolutionary supercession of capitalist society and its replacement by communism.

the pretensions of anarchism in its individualist variants have always been laughable

the working class is also occluded from representing itself in the throng of images that make up the society of the spectacle.

The spectacle is by definition immune from human activity, inaccessible to any projected review or correction. It is the opposite of dialogue. Whenever representation takes on an independent existence, the spectacle reestablishes its rule.

The power to homogenize is the heavy artillery that has battered down all Chinese walls.

The historical moment when Bolshevism triumphed for itself in Russia and social democracy fought victoriously for the old world marks the inauguration of the state of affairs that is at the heart of the modern spectacle's domination: the representation of the working class has become an enemy of the working class.

The spectacle is the ruling order's nonstop discourse about itself, its never-ending monologue of self-praise, its self-portrait at the stage of totalitarian domination of all aspects of life.

there is no final inner cabal, no capo di tutti capi (boss of all bosses) pulling the strings: the final instance 'calling the shots' (often literally) is the market economy itself.

Within spectacular society today there is a 'holy trinity' of such roles: consumer, manager and shareholder.

That which was the economic it must become the I.

The illusory paradise that represented a total denial of earthly life is no longer projected into the heavens, it is embedded in earthly life itself.

All parties accept that companies must act in the 'interest of their stockholders' whatever the cost in alienation or exploitation.

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Build an entire city in order to make love there with only one girl for few days.

La théorie révolutionnaire est maintenant ennemie de toute idéologie révolutionnaire, et elle sait qu'elle l'est.

In a world that has REALLY been turned on its head, truth is a moment of falsehood.

In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.

In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.