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?