Response to Guy Debord by Cesar Alvarado

In “The Society of the Spectacle”, Guy Debord shows us a broad emphasis about how our society has lost its own identity and allowed others to create it for them. He pushes his ideology further by explaining that our dreams and goals are only a byproducts of a pseudo-world. In my opinion Debord is actually uncovered what many of us already know but always avoid because we just don’t want to deal with it. We do not want to deal with the fact that our civilization has been built upon greed and wars. It has been sold to us with false hopes and motivational garbage. Everyday we hear how we must do it there way or how live a certain lifestyle. This “spectacle”, as Debord calls it, is an energy that has been brewing for centuries and it was not done over night. In the present, we are so caught up with keeping up because there is too much precious information out there for us to take in, and too worthy to let go by. Not all information is negative, but unfortunately there is always a benefactor behind a suggestion to better our lives. Why do we have to follow a certain code of life? Who is to say that we must be a certain way?

I know people that have extravagant lifestyles but do not enjoy what they have and they always end up wanting more and more – it is never enough. Reading Debord’s essay brought me back to thinking if this is all just a huge phony dream. Who are we kidding? Will we wake up one day? We saw the direct implications to change our society when Hitler took over Europe and that was done without remorse or shame. I think that was a perfect example of how easily human society can cling onto a false hope. The Nazi movement was done in a matter of years so it was noticeable by our standards, however, the Spectacle is being done subconsciously and some, like Debord, acknowledge this. There is not one man behind it, we are all in it together.