Yet as his films and autobiographies can attest, Debord held no grudge against images per se. The former misnomer gains traction with the frequently and cynically bemoaned dissemination of images themselves, exemplified for instance in the advertising and entertainment industries. It is often forgotten that the society of the spectacle is less a critical theory of appearances than it is a theory of the organization of appearances. Yet if the tropes surrounding Debord’s diagnosis have faded into the background with recent scholarship, we might inquire whether a critical theory of capitalist society that lays emphasis on a unique form of social domination by images, representations and appearances, might offer some coherence within such incoherent times. It is in these moments that it would seem odd to return to and assess the legacy of Guy Debord’s 1967 The Society of the Spectacle. When each new day brings with it a new disaster, the horror lies in the rhythm with which we are acclimated, without time or reflection, to a new ordinary of social amnesia.
At a time of so much change, a critical theory of society is confronted by the challenge of a moving target.
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