An Ethical Study Of Debord's Theory Of Landscape Society

The French philosopher Guy Debord proceeded from the characteristics of his era after the rise of “state monopoly capitalism” after World War II,continued and developed Marx’s critical theory of alienation of capitalist society since Marx.Targeting the commodity’s abundance and advertisement,Debord named a new alienation called “spectacle” to describe contemporary capitalist society.There has three paths in Debord’s ethical analysis of the society of spectacle: First,the spectacle commodities produced and consumed by people are considered to be alienated as an ontological social existence.Debord believes that in the process of commodity production,the separation of laborers and their products is the root of the alienation of the spectacle society.The confusion of consciousness prompts people to form a conspicuous representational life in the consumption of commodities,that is,spectacle fetishism.Spectacle fetishism replaces the perceptual interaction between people with symbolized social relations by manipulating the symbolic meaning of the commodities’ images,which produces alienation of identity ethics between display and gaze.Second,the media technology and social system are regarded as the intermediary of spectacle alienation.In Debord’s view,whether it is the application and development of a large number of media technologies displaying commodity images,or the contemporary free market economy and bureaucratic capitalism’s institutional design,the instrumental rationality for profit is the dominant reason behind it.The spectacle has embedded its own intermediary props in social life,and they have collectively fabricated the false needs of individuals and the totalitarian management of society.Third,the consumer culture that breeds the spectacle is defined as a materialized and objective ideology.The visual culture that the spectacle strives to develop eventually oppresses and exploits people’s material and mental life in the form of cultural hegemony,and ultimately leads to the unconscious and irrationalization of people’s behavior,making people’s moral sense of themselves and society more and more rare.Along these three paths,Debord discovered the possibility of subverting the domination of the spectacle on the basis of the ethical analysis and ethical criticism,through the study of the diversity and freshness of daily life.From the humanitarian standpoint of the proletariat,Debord regards the proletariat as the true historical subject,restoring the true life as the society’s prospect,and points out a logical way to return to humanism.He put forward the humanist revolutionary strategy with different tracks,construct situations and drift as the main practice methods,trying to break the illusion of spectacle and reach the awakening of life consciousness,which reflects an ethical utopian spirit of pursuing freedom and justice.Debord’s ethical analysis and criticism of spectacle alienation further developed and deepened Marxist humanism,integrated multiple theoretical paths of Western Marxism,and exhibited a post-modern character of “anti-construction”.Debord’s view has an important theoretical position.However,Debord’s criticism of the spectacle society and the revolutionary strategy of humanism eventually deviated from the scientific path of historical materialism and production mode criticism.Therefore,he cannot find the real solution to his problem.But the ethical research on Debord’s humanistic ideas still has rich research value and practical significance in terms of cultivating the moral situation of our society,resisting the invasion of capitalist ideology,and ensuring the development of socialist spiritual civilization.