constantly seeking to “save” by increasing transportation speeds or using packaged soups ends up being spent by the American population in watching television three to six hours a day.

But the object that was prestigious in the spectacle becomes mundane as soon as it is taken home by its consumer—at the same time as by all its other consumers. Too late it reveals its essential poverty, a poverty that inevitably reflects the poverty of its production. Meanwhile, some other object is already replacing it as justification of the sys

The spectacle is the stage at which the commodity has succeeded in totally colonizing social life.

The real consumer has become a consumer of illusions. The commodity is this materialized illusion and the spectacle is its general expression.

The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.

“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

images plus sounds. It is whatever escapes people’s activity, whatever eludes their practical reconsideration and correction. It is the opposite of dialogue. Wherever representation becomes independent, the spectacle regenerates itself.

The spectacle is rooted in the economy of abundance, and the products of that economy ultimately tend to dominate the spectacular market and override the ideological or police-state protectionist barriers set up by local spectacles with pretensions of independence.

“spectacular domination has succeeded in raising an entire generation molded to its laws.”