spectacle anxiety
Debord and de Botton
spectacle anxiety
The first phase of the domination of the economy over social life brought into the definition of all human realization the obvious degradation of being into having.
Society of the Spectacle
This society which eliminates geographical distance reproduces distance internally as spectacular separation.
Society of the Spectacle
“Rousseau’s Discourse goes on to sketch the history of the world not as a story of progress from barbarism to the great workshops and cities of Europe, but as one of regress, from a privileged state in which we humans lived simply but were aware of our own needs to a state in which we are apt to feel envy for ways of life that can claim little conn
... See moreNicolas Chamfort—”Public opinion is the worst of all opinions” … “One can be certain that every generally held idea, every received notion, will be an idiocy, because it has been able to appeal to a majority” (90).
from Chamfort’s Maxims, 1795
Status Anxiety
Alain de Botton
the objects which promise unique powers can be recommended to the devotion of the masses only if they’re produced in quantities large enough for mass consumption. A product acquires prestige when it is placed at the center of social life as the revealed mystery of the ultimate goal of production. But the object which was prestigious in the spectacl... See more
Society of the Spectacle
“We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like—we envy only members of our reference group. There are few successes more unendurable than those of our ostensible equals” (30).
Status Anxiety
Alain de Botton
“If our need for status is a fixed thing, we nevertheless retain all say over where we will fulfil that need. We are at liberty to ensure that our worries about being disgraced will arise principally in relation to an audience whose methods of judgement we both understand and respect. Status anxiety may be defined as problematic only insofar as it
... See morecultural capital within sub-cultures
“The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible. It says nothing more than “that which appears is good, that which is good appears. The attitude which it demands in principle is passive acceptance which in fact it already obtained by its manner of appearing without reply, by its monopoly of appearance.
... See more“The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as all of society, as part of society, and as instrument of unification.”
Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.htm