The totalitarian bureaucracy – that “substitute ruling class for the market economy” – never had much faith in its own destiny. It knew itself to be nothing but an “undeveloped type of ruling class” even as it yearned to be something more.

THE WHOLE LIFE of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation.

This book should be read bearing in mind that it was written with the deliberate intention of doing harm to spectacular society. There was never anything outrageous, however, about what it had to say.

But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence … illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to

THE SPECTACLE IS NOT a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.

IMAGES DETACHED FROM every aspect of life merge into a common stream, and the former unity of life is lost forever.