Why the Customer Is Always Right: Debord's Spectacle as the Rationalisation of Mimesis
Why the Customer Is Always Right: Debord's Spectacle as the Rationalisation of Mimesis
Author: Eric-John Russell
Year: 2023 (Radical Philosophy 2.14)
Source type: article
Raw file: raw/articles/russell-2023-debord-spectacle-rationalisation-mimesis.md
Summary
Russell argues that Debord's society of the spectacle is best understood through the compulsion for identification — Joseph Gabel's Identitätszwang — and the rationalisation of mimesis (from Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment), establishing a firm continuity between Debord and the first generation of the Frankfurt School. Against the emphasis on "separation" alone, he reads the spectacle as an integrative socialisation cohering through a principle of identity and pathological, participatory identification — "the customer is always right."
Key Claims
- Identification, not just separation: the literature stresses the spectacle's separation; Russell argues the spectacle also inculcates "universal modes of pathological identification" — the compulsion to recognize oneself "in the dominant images of need." "For Debord, the society of the spectacle … has inaugurated universal modes of pathological identification." Separation remains "the alpha and omega," but the spectacle obtains a "unity-in-separation."
- The rationalisation of mimesis (Adorno & Horkheimer): following Dialectic of Enlightenment, mimesis — fear-induced adaptation to objective power — is rationalised into instrumental identity and formalized exchange; sacrifice becomes quantified exchange; modernity "becomes mythic." Mimicry becomes "a renunciation of the self," adaptation to a lifeless objectified world — "the tribute life pays for its continued existence is adaptation to death."
- Caillois and Gabel: Caillois's "legendary psychasthenia"/mimicry (a "real temptation by space," depersonalization); Gabel's Identitätszwang and "morbid rationalism" — reification as analogous to schizophrenia, "false identification" producing "false differentiation," the "human spirit's appetite for identity."
- Debord's spectacle as schizophrenic: Debord adapts Gabel (whom he read) so that the whole of spectacular society is "a psychopathological formation" — "the spectacle erases the dividing line between self and world … between true and false." "The need to imitate … is indeed a truly infantile need."
- Pathic/false projection: following Dialectic of Enlightenment's "Elements of Anti-Semitism" — "if mimesis makes itself resemble its surroundings, false projection makes its surroundings resemble itself." "the customer is always right."
- Against recognition: "recognition" can be a proviso for hatred/indifference, "identification with the aggressor"; the spectacle's "constant isomorphic solicitation" is "a faithful portrait" — "Society in its length and breadth becomes capital's faithful portrait."
Connections
Concepts: Spectacle · Ideology · Semiocapitalism · Consumerism Authors: Eric-John Russell · Guy Debord Debates: (critical theory and spectacle) Related source notes: The Society of the Spectacle (Debord) · The Age of Spectacle (Dyckhoff)
Direct Quotes
"[T]he spectacle erases the dividing line between self and world … it likewise erases the dividing line between true and false." (Debord, as quoted)
"If mimesis makes itself resemble its surroundings, false projection makes its surroundings resemble itself." (Adorno & Horkheimer, as quoted)
"The customer is always right." (the essay's thesis)
"Society in its length and breadth becomes capital's faithful portrait." (Debord, as quoted)
Open Questions
- Does the "rationalisation of mimesis" reading successfully fold Debord into the Frankfurt School — and how does the compulsion-for-identification account for the participatory (not merely passive) spectacle of the social-media/Instagram age?
