The Society of the Spectacle

“I read The Society of the Spectacle again and I thought, ‘This is a fucking amazing book!’ I had forgotten how terrific it was, and it was actually quite different to how I remembered it. I insist that the key chapter is not the first one, on the spectacle itself, but the second to last–the chapter on détournement. To me, that concept is the great gift of the Situationists. They realized that one can exploit this critically–one can copy and correct in the direction of hope.”–McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto in Los Angeles Review of Books

“We are not just inspired by what happened in the Arab Spring recently, we are students of the Situationist movement. Those are the people who gave birth to what many people think was the first global revolution back in 1968 when some uprisings in Paris suddenly inspired uprisings all over the world. All of a sudden universities and cities were exploding. This was done by a small group of people, the Situationists, who were like the philosophical backbone of the movement. One of the key guys was Guy Debord, who wrote The Society of the Spectacle. The idea is that if you have a very powerful meme–a very powerful idea–and the moment is ripe, then that is enough to ignite a revolution.”–Adbusters (explaining the origins of the “Occupy” movement in 2011)

“In Society of the Spectacle, Debord sets out his best-known statement of how the categories of capitalism colonize everyday life to such an extent that we can barely imagine an existence beyond them.”–Sydney Review of Books

“Never before has Debord’s work seemed quite as relevant as it does now, in the permanent present that he so accurately foretold? Open his book, read it, be amazed, pour yourself a glass of supermarket wine–as he would wish–and then forget all about it, which is what the Spectacle wants.”–Will Self, professor of Modern Thought at Brunel University London

Guy Debord was the founder of the Situationist International (1957), the editor of its journal Internationale Situationniste (1958-1969), the author of several books, and the creator of seven films, including one based on his book The Society of the Spectacle.

Ken Knabb has translated numerous works by Guy Debord and the Situationist International, including Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle (2014; reissued by PM Press in 2024) and Debord’s Complete Cinematic Works (2003; to be reissued by PM Press in 2025). Knabb’s own writings, published in Public Secrets: Collected Skirmishes of Ken Knabb (1997), have been translated into more than fifteen languages. He is currently presenting a series of Zoom webinars on The Society of the Spectacle and the Situationist International Anthology.