Debord and Baudrillard

Both Debord and Baudrillard would seem to agree with McLuhan insofar as all three men believe that our modern electronic media environment has introduced a kind of radical break with the recent past. Baudrillard even cites McLuhan’s famous phrase, “the medium is the message” in his essay (although he means something quite different than what McLuhan meant by it). The big difference between the Frenchmen and McLuhan is that the former appear to be quite critical of these changes, whereas McLuhan was considerably more sanguine. What is it about the modern electronic media that so disturbs Debord and Baudrillard?

Debord was interesting because he would go from quoting to disagreeing with McLuhan and Enzensberger in the same breath. Like the previous two authors, Debord feels that previous forms of media have been less than helpful in doing anything to ease or revolutionize the class struggle. However, unlike McLuhan, Debord wants this revolution to take place and sees it is a progression towards humanity. Debord and Enzensberger share their decision to pin their hopes for true communication on the new media of their ages. The exception is that For Debord the new technological advances are of little use because they enter into the system of social and political norms. “It is a strategic illusion to have any faith in the critical reversal of the media. A comparable speech can emerge only from the destruction of media such as they are – through their deconstruction as systems of non-communication” (284). Mass media simply integrates everyone into the problematic system rather than fixing it. Therefore, we need to break the system, not add people to it. Debord hopes to see this destruction begin with graffiti. Not that writing, TV, or other form of media will disappear just because Debord’s champion graffiti has finally broke the system that regulated revolutions within just by existing. Rather, the system itself will be reformed allowing people to be “neither transmitters nor receivers, but only people responding to each other” (286).

What I am starting to find curious about all of these is their need for a revolution. This revolution is to be caused by a media that will the system, the status quo, or whatever authors to call it. Now, I really appreciate McLuhan because while he does see media and its effects on society as revolutionary and important, he doesn’t think that humanity is moving towards some revolution that needs to be won. I agree with him that we tend to think of these as linear. This makes us very cause and effect minded and we like to think that everything is progressing to a grand revolution. Maybe there are no revolution. Maybe the reversals is all there is not just disguises of a self regulated system like Debord claims.

Badrillard might see more of a continuum in our  history rather than a progression. However, he hardly sees this as an optimistic things since he believes that the entire history of human kind is a series of spectacles that are “a social relationship between people that is mediated by images” (12). These images aren’t a true representation of what is there, it is a façade of unification that is fabricated (not necessarily intentionally) out an isolated group in the society. In the modern age, the spectacle, ruled by images has been promoted itself to ever greater development “The spectacles… covers the entire globe, basking in the perpetual glow of its own glory. Because we are going moving to ever increasing consumption and ever increasing of the consumption of the appearance of things, like TV shows or fake reality TV, I could definitely see how we are now overcome by the spectacle of things. How much of our consumption is based on the appearance of something rather than any physical thing?

Both Badrlliard and  Debord who equated this with the idea that the consumer, viewer, voter etc no longer thought about the means of production but was simply idle and satisfied with the spectacle, taking no part in anything but the extremely limited choice of whether to accept or reject what was placed before them. Deobord’s system and Badrillard’s spectacle are both self sustaining, and new media has made them particularly numbing. The two share concern over the ability of the masses to respond or even recognize that they are working, living, and consuming for ‘the man.’