I like to say that everything is epiphenomenal, but what is the actual phenomenon? What is the cause of it all?
The problem with protesting, for me at least, is the sense that the people with me would not have my back (Add to that the fact that many of the people with me actively support fascists). That's why I quit, probably for life - not so much because I'm intimidated by the government, but because I'm repelled by and fearful of the people on my own side.
Why would this be? Because too many of them aren't there because they actually have strong views on the subject, but instead because they are narcissists attempting to extract pleasure and social status from the pose of being a political activist. In Situationist terms, they are only formally against some aspects of the system but keep it's inner assumptions intact.
In even more Situationist terms, political activism has been completely hijacked by the Spectacle, and is incapable of offering any real resistance to the system as a result.
Therefore, whether I protest or not, pollution, Fascism, corporate rule, and economic chaos continue to spiral out of control. Because the people who do protest are doing so in bad faith - their real agenda is to appear in the Spectacle as PoliticalActivists. They have no core. (Clinical studies of narcissism confirm this)
In short, everything that's going wrong with protest is epiphenomenal of the Spectacle.
TIME FOR AN EDUCATIONAL LESSON
But what is the Spectacle, you might ask? If you are well read, perhaps rumours of some sort of 1960s-era theory of the mass media might be vaguely bubbling in your mind about now. But it is a lot more than that - the problem is that the foundational ideology of our society is very, very hard to describe. And not by accident.
Imagine the mass media. OK, now imagine the concept of the mass media. OK, now imagine the ideology of the mass media. Right, now imagine a person who has spent their entire life being told that the greatest thing a person could aspire to, is to be famous.
Right, put all that on the head of a pin.
Basically, the Spectacle is the foundational ideology of our society, an ideology without a name or a founder or even much in the way of a praxis. All it has is the Commandments:
1. THOU SHALT BE FAMOUS
2. THOU SHALT APPEAR
3. THOU SHALT BE HEARD
4. THOU SHALT APPEAR AND BE HEARD EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY
5. THOU SHALT NOT BE ALONE
6. THOU SHALT NOT BE QUIET
7. THOU SHALT NOT THINK
That sort of thing.
It's much more than "bread and circuses". It's much, much more insidious than any of the authorized theories of the mass media you might have heard of because it's much, much more than the world of the media.
People have driven themselves insane trying to describe it. Guy Debord, the man who coined the term "Society of the Spectacle" went full on conspiraloon towards the end and killed himself.
Another Spectacle-studies-related suicide is Mark Fisher, who evolved Debords' ideas into the 21st century with his own brilliant concept of precorporation.
1
Basically, two of the people who understood the nature of our society best both seem to have killed themselves out of sheer despair.
According to Debord, social change was now impossible as public opinion basically no longer exists (as it's so easy to manipulate people). Such a society would adapt to social challenges from within by adopting the critique of those who attacked it (he called this process "recuperation").
However due to the reckless nature of capitalism, Spectacular society would find itsself unable to restrain its' own extractive impulses and eventually collapse, but only after wobbling along in an increasingly erratic fashion for some indeterminate period of time, thought to be fairly long.
Personally I'm wary of promoting theories of the Spectacle, because they are (or can be) such a counsel of despair. If there's no point doing anything because it's all contained by the logic of the Spectacle, then politics becomes pointless, a game without players - very convenient for some people.
But I have to warn others of the danger. If you get involved in activism you are going to meet some seriously unbalanced people and you will be operating on the razors' edge of what is and isn't permitted - and not always in a good way: the taboo of antisemitism has already been shattered. Who will they decide has too much "privilege" next? Women? Gays? You?
Touch grass. Don't let it get to you.
On Spectacular logic: Here is a concrete example. When climate change protesters condone any behaviour, however antisocial, justifying it with "Anything's worth doing if it gets us on the news", they are both using Spectacular logic and ensuring their own failure at the same time.
SCOPE
"The Spectacle" is a very difficult concept to get across precisely because it is everything, the entire world we live in and everything in it. It's like trying to describe water to a fish.
It is the thing we do not see because we are always looking at it. It is hiding in plain sight. It is both the subliminal messages and the very idea that the ruling class would resort to such a schlocky, cheesy, horror movie gimmick as subliminal messages when they already control almost the entire informational throughput and the way in which you come think of that information, and the way in which you come to rebel against the system.
The Spectacle is the form and the content, the medium and the message, and it's crime is not that it is telling you to give up, it's crime is that it is telling you to behave in ways that are deeply antithetical to your own best interests - as an activist and as a human being.
People are trained these days to behave in ways that get attention, no matter what.
As noted above, this includes disestablishmentarian activity. (always wanted to use that word unironically!) The way to oppose the system, people say, isn't to work to frustrate our enemies, it's to jump up and yell "LOOK AT ME, EVERYBODY!!! I'M FIGHTING TEH SYSTEMS!!!" at the top of your lungs while furiously getting in everyone's faces with just how goddamed anti-establishment you are, but curiously enough, not actually targeting the establishment that much. Instead, random losers are hassled, ie art lovers, subway riders, Stonehenge fanciers, Pride attendees, cancer hospitals, etc, etc, etc.
Because the point isn't what you do, it's that you are SEEN to be DOING SOMETHING - and since nobody cares what that thing is, your protests will always fail until the Spectacle effect is taken into account and nullified.
But that, I fear, is work for the future. Please, somebody somewhere prove me wrong!
1 What we are dealing with now is not the incorporation of materials that previously seemed to possess subversive potentials, but instead, their precorporation:the pre-emptive formatting and shaping of desires, aspirations and hopes by capitalist culture. WItness, for instance, the establishment of settled 'alternative' or 'independent' cultural zones, which endlessly repeat older gestures or rebellion and contestation as if for the first time. 'Alternative' and independent' don't designate something outside mainstream culture; rather, they are styles, in fact 'the' dominant styles, within the meainstream.
-Capitalist Realism, Zero Books (chapter one)
