Good old Phone Book, we hardly thumbed Ye, says Patrick Ford at the American Conservative blog in a paleo's dystopian cri de coeur -or heart @TAC-AC-AC-AC-AC-AC-AC-AC - and says, If that's movin' up, then I'm - movin' out:

iPhone and the End of Civilization

I have always found conspiracy theories distasteful. To me, they have always seemed like an attempt to evade the complexity of wide-scale issues, reducing a difficult problem such as poverty to the evil conniving of a few men ensconced in an office tower. That said, there is something remarkably troubling about Tom Hodgkinson's stunning (if slightly paranoid) piece on Facebook in the Guardian this week.

In it, Hodgkinson digs into the ideological leanings of the VC's behind Facebook's meteoric rise. Most significant among them is Peter Thiel, a prominent right-wing investor who also spearheaded the growth of PayPal. Thiel, who is unsurprisingly in favour of a small-government free market approach, has not only written a book condemning multiculturalism as something that limits personal freedom but has also characterised the next wave of capitalism as the monetizing of day-to-day activity; in much the same way PayPal creates a business out of grandmothers buying stuffed animals from each other off eBay, Thiel and Co. look to the commodification of human relationships as the next wave of capitalist growth. Social networks and media are, in this model, merely mechanisms for advertising delivery.

What we end up with is a potentially unconscious disconnect between what online services purport to do ("connect people", "bring the world together") and the ideologies that users may inadvertently support. While one can set up, for example, a pro-union or pro-minimum-wage Facebook group, the money made from the ad-supported model supports an ideology that is explicitly opposed to such ideas. The point here is that Facebook is many things at once: it is simultaneously innocuous and insidious; a potential platform for the political engagement of youth in which all activity ultimately supports one ideology and one ideology only; or a way for sequestered teens to connect while being bombarded with ads.

While this all might sound paranoid - and might very well be - it highlights the problems we will face as all online services, including music and video, increasingly move towards the ad-supported model. What are the implications of participating in Facebook if one is oppsed to Thiel et al's political viewpoint? How complicit are users in propagating the politics of the owners of services they use? What are the issues surrounding disclosure? Should we be alerted to the ideological stances of services that posit themselves as 'neutral'? Or should the onus be on users to choose services, the financing of which supports their own ideological concerns - a sort of new mode of 'voting with your dollars'?

Fundamentally, the tricky question is that of resistance. It's a tough question to ask in the tech blogosphere - as soon as you do, people will assume you are trying to suggest some kind of traditional Marxist revolution. As I have said before, criticism is unwelcome in the technology blogging community. But there are serious questions to ask - I wonder to what extent the ad-supported model isn't something akin to a sort of 'false consciousness': that we spend our time doing genuine, 'human' things - connecting with others, playing games, making dates to meet-up - and in doing so propagate a particular sort of ideology that we may be personally opposed to. I mean seriously - how many people do you know who would be comfortable with the idea of 'commodifying human relationships'? Not many I would bet. And yet, we may very well be doing exactly that.

These are not simple questions. Unfortunately, save perhaps the few gadflies like Nick Carr, no-one will ask them - the technosphere is so overwhelmingly committed to the concepts of the free market and a sort of apoliticism, no-one will even care; this will be written off as more technophobic clap-trap. For this reason, it is all the more disheartening to realise that Hodgkinson was not the one to write this piece - he descends into Keen-esque ludditism and attempts to dismiss the internet as a mere extension of other technologies rather than the radical epistemological shift it represents. When Hodgkinson responds to very idea of social networks by asking "what's wrong with the pub?", he falls into the classic mistake that online networks were meant to replace face-to-face connections. And his insistence that "Facebook actually isolates us at our workstations" sounds like the usual alarmist clap-trap that ignores the potential humanist core of a persistent network of communication.

But fortunately this does little to lessen the implications of Hodgkinson's piece. What remains to be seen is whether anyone will actually listen. Hit the comments if you have any thoughts.

[Update]: Slate has a piece up looking at how Facebook's reliance on its users is kinda' makes it like the Ikea of the intertubes.

So, it's one of those days today - when the entire internet may as well have an 'i' in front of it or, to be less polite, when Steve Jobs receives one long, collective blow job. While iTunes HD rentals may be the announcement that has the most significant long-term effect, unsurprisingly it is the razor-thin Macbook Air that is getting the lion's share of attention. The response has been interestingly mixed - even Gizmodo seems conflicted, with one post showcasing their trademark technofetishism (translation? "ooh, it's so damn pretty") while another condemns the Air for its lack of a replaceable battery or upgradability, calling them 'fatal flaws'.

But the most interesting - and incendiary - post has come from Devin Coldewey at Techcrunch who has called the Macbook Air "basically useless". The writer goes through a series of very practical criticisms - the proprietary ports, the lack of an optical drive and the slow CPU etc - and they are all very valid critiques. Trouble is, he totally misses the point. Coldewey is trying to suggest that people buy consumer goods like iPods and Macbooks purely out of a need for how they are used; they do not. It is precisely the 'sexiness' of the device - i.e. the desire it elicits in us - that creates its success. When Coldewey asks "What is losing that last half an inch doing aside from attracting stares?" what he refuses to understand is that the stares are the important thing. This is not about how 'people are shallow' - it is the difference between use value and exchange value. In most circumstances, there is in fact less use value to a Macbook Air than a regular Macbook - it can do less. But its exchange value - i.e. its worth to us as a cultural item rather than just a practical tool - is far higher, precisely because it "looks so damn cool", because our friends want one and because owning one will be a marker of not only our savviness but also of our success.

Finally, if you want absolute confirmation that this is about so much more than just 'technology', just look at the Apple page for the Air. In reference to the development of the Air it says, and I quote, that "you don't lose pounds and inches overnight". They are, in effect, employing a contemporary discourse that links thinness to self-improvement to market the desirability of the Mac. And we want that right? I wanna' be thin and constantly improving - who doesn't? It's brilliant - and, to me anyway, totally insidious and off-putting. It is, however, a perfect moment for understanding how contemporary culture fetishes technology and, in a way that is far more complex than it sounds, puts form in front of function.

"One of the biggest challenges a musician faces in the age of digital downloading is expanding the experience for their audience. The world has changed, but people haven't. You have to figure out a new language to communicate with people, and I think Lupe really understands that."

~Joe Hahn of Linkin Park

Lupe Fiasco's new album, The Cool, is as dope as they say. Solid production, witty lyricism and clever, intelligent social commentary that doesn't beat you over the head with empty, pretentious rhetoric. Definitely peep it if you haven't yet.

I came across an interesting article recently about Lupe's status as a "trendsetter" and "tastemaker" in terms of his style and the fashion/design artists that he has aligned himself with. Along with Jay-Z, Pharrell, Kanye and others, he is part of a slew of folks obsessed with Japan's high end streetwear design innovations (ie, Nigo's BAPE, Hiroshi Fujiwara, etc.).

The above quote by Linkin Park's Joe Hahn, a clothing boutique owner himself who is wild about Japan, was interesting to me in that musicians today really are having to figure out other ways of making money and appealing to the masses besides solely putting out music. I have to admit that I download way more music these days than I buy. It also makes me think of my own conflicting ideas about the state of hip hop, capitalism and commodity fetishism. I hate how capitalism requires poverty and is always susceptible to creating widespread suffering and alienation. I also hate how much of hip hop is obsessed with appearance and materialism. On the other hand...I am in awe of folks like Lupe's entrepreneurial drive and the creative shit they are putting out there. Darren Romanelli (famed designer and Lupe collaborator) is working with Nathan Cabrera, a graphic designer and toy sculptor who introduced him and Fiasco, to develop collectible toys based on "The Cool's" characters -- a hustler-zombie among them -- featuring USB ports loaded with multimedia content. Fuckin sick! But does that shit have to cost like a thousand bucks?

That Kanye line, "I'm like a fly Malcolm X/buy any jeans necessary," really is kind of reflective of a certain segment of this generation--informed by the politics of past leaders and revolutionaries...but also really into hot jeans. Damn, now I really want one of those hustler-zombie toys and a spiderman hoodie. And I guess I should read Malcolm X's autobiography again too.

Lupe, Kanye and Pharrell have also formed a super group called CRS (Child Rebel Soldier) and have released this unofficial video for the song "Us Placers," itself a remix of a Radiohead song. Peep the video below.

There's a lot to write about re this whole iPhone thing - about commodities, geek culture, conspicuous consumerism and even false consciousness of a sort - but it'll just get lost in the madness. So, for the time being, iPhone: fuck off.

Useless Crave Bit

Plustek's new OpticBook 3600 is a low-cost scanner optimized for scanning books -- it has a little shelf-thing at the edge that makes it easier to get the book flatter, and some kind of "Shadow Elimination Element" to correct for the distortion and shadow cast by the hump of the book at the spine. Link (via Gizmodo)

With the  scanner:

Regular scanner:

RANDOM OLD.   Why aren't you guys in the country?

KEVIN.   Oh, we started redoing the house at the end of last season and it's not quite finished yet.  What about you?  Why aren't you in the country?

OLD.   My wife has a charity ball.

Sigh.

Long-Overdue Edit: "We started redoing it"---what, the country?  That should, of course, have been written the way it's written now.

But here's my issue: Sex and the City was considered groundbreaking because it featured women who were independent and successful in the way that men are.  However, to me, it seems misogynistic that the show implicitly suggests that when women gain independence and parity with men, they use it to have casual sex and engage in rank commodity fetishism (see Carrie's repeated declarations of love for overpriced shoes).  Seriously, are these best representatives of womankind we can find?  I think not and, yet, girls and women across the country idolize these insipid, callus, consumers.

Not convinced that Carrie and friends are as bad as all that?  Check out Roger Ebert's review, which makes the SITC movie sound like a Farrelly Brothers flick.

Recently, I read an article regarding culture jamming by Kalle Lasn. Broadly speaking, culture jamming is our "belligerent attitude" towards authority, or our instincts to go against authority where information flows from the "powerful to the powerless" in a trickle down style. Culture Jammers are then those who take big risks and commit themselves to "small, spontaneous movements of truth."

Lasn states that culture jamming may be relatively new term, but it is an old movement. Take for example the punk hippies movement, the Surrealists, Anarchists, and so on. However, the most important movement is the Situationist International founded by Guy Debord. These individuals believed that the reflexive way of acting and reacting, living and existing in capitalist societies were killing the "real" way of living life and concentrated on the "novelty" as a way of life. The SI spoke of the everyday way of life (advertising, tv, and commodity consumption) as "spectacles" and were thoroughly against it.

So without, getting into too much detail, what do these jammers do in order to revive the authenticity of life? In order to break free of this mass-culture, what do you do? The idea was called derive or "the drift" which was borrowed from the Dadaists but was defined by the SI as "locomotion without a goal."

You float through the city, open to whatever you come in contact with, thus exposing yourself to the whole spectrum of feelings you encountered by chance in your everyday life. Openness is key (Kalle Lasn)."

Lasn talks about Marcus' idea about the "democracy of false desire," that is how our society and all the media in large offer us the illusion of choices, however, in actuality reducing them to a select number of products or commodities such as action movies, political scandals, ball games, and so on.

Fast forward into actual practice, Lasn talks about Demarketing Loops. Uncooling what is considered cool now and bringing back the authentic version of life. No more Nikes and Calvin Kleins, privately owned media, fast food, cars, and essentially, consumption. So, not buying basically means not buying into consumer culture, which losens the grip of corporations on us as "consumers (Lasn)." Downshifting into the slow lane of life, thinking green, consuming green, thinking about social costs and benefits, family life, and so on. The more you have does not equal to more happiness or joy. Forget McDonalds, make your own burgers. Walk into a class room lecture dressed as a professor (in a satirical way, ofcourse) and talk about educational propaganda. Or wake up in the morning and jump into a tub full of water and ice. Shocks the body, doesn't it?

This is exactly what Lasn talks about. Jumping into the tub is a mindful, spontaneous decision and doesn't follow the mentally learnt schemas of culture and society.

Basically, then, we want to "reverse the spin cycle... Demarket our news, our entertainments, our lifestyles and desires - and eventually, maybe even our dreams" that have been constructed by the media. Everything is a simulation of life: a hyperreality, where the goal to be achieved in the capitalist system is so ideal that it does not exist except by enhancement through digital technology.

To read more on Culture Jamming, click here. Then take action.

First off, the site doesn't trade on "whiteness" as skin color per se: it trades on a specific kind of white privilege. Notice there is nothing on there about NASCAR, for instance. If you were starting a list of things "white people" like, wouldn't you go straight to (or at least include) stuff that rednecks like? Certainly this joke has been done to death (there is a reason Jeff Foxworthy is now primarily a game show host), but wouldn't such things count as "white"? So this is not just any whiteness, this is a specific kind of whiteness. This is stuff that upper middle class, milquetoast Democrats in their 20's and 30's like. And this is the crucial part of that satire: the stuff they like sets the trend for establishing power and consumer trends in our society, of what "everyone" aspires to (and paradoxically, marketers help inculcate this market to convince white people of what they like). The new American Dream is not about having a ranch home with a picket fence and 2.5 children, it is, essentially, Stuff White People Like. "Whiteness" is therefore coded as being much more, and much less, than skin color, and is instead about a particular taste culture that for the moment is the hegemonic form of "success" in this country. This is borne out in the blog's mode of address: advice to someone who isn't white on how they can move in white circles and take advantage of white people. The base assumption is that everyone wants to be white, or hang out with white people. Why? In order to get ahead in life.

This requires an extremely brief discussion of the core of what is meant by "white privilege": although intimately connected to race, it is not limited to race. After all, you can be white and not really be able to capitalize on white privilege (and vice versa). It is not merely skin color, it is a set of attitudes, behaviors, cultural norms, and a host of other socially advantageous attributes. It is rooted in being "white" not merely because white people have historically been the most advantaged group, but also because its boundaries and elements are largely established and maintained by white people, as a whole way of being, as praxis. Most importantly, these qualities are what become the standard for "proper" behavior and attainment in our society, from relatively banal things like the stuff listed on SWPL, to extremely important things like how to conduct yourself at a job interview. And the most important thing about it is this: it is entirely normative, meaning that it establishes norms, and it is regarded as being "normal" when it is in fact a culturally, socially, and historically specific set of elements. How do you know whether you have white privilege? Well, when Katrina hit, and you saw the footage of the refugees in New Orleans, did you say or think, "Why don't those people just get the hell out of there?"? If so, you "suffer" from white privilege in the sense of not being fully aware of how privileged you are or how privilege works in our society.

So, SWPL is not just a means of making fun of whiteness—it's about exposing the normativity of this kind of taste culture, and how it's not actually "normal" at all, and is based instead on incredible socio-economic power (which may or may not be "earned" so much as granted to those with the right connections and/or skin color—although certainly anyone can attain it). To this end there is no contradiction between being a "person of color" and doing/buying/enjoying all the things on SWPL. SWPL also therefore exposes the politics of such so-called liberalism for what it is: being mostly vain and unthinkingly consumerist. The site further exposes the real truth of this kind of liberal: whether or not they truly realize it, they "celebrate diversity" as an end in itself, not as a means of actual social empowerment; their means of "protecting the environment" is not to advocate fundamental consumption and lifestyle changes, but to merely recycle and buy "green" products. And so on. In short: their politics is not a real politics, it is a commodity fetish. It is an ultimately arbitrary set of signifiers of social power, which in its normativity and banality, not only hides the source of that power, but ironically puts it on display. Meanwhile, it is also ultimately somewhat bereft of meaningfulness (though not meaning), in that it is almost entirely based on conspicuous consumption. In short, this demonstration of social power, while in its way less of a barrier to social mobility than in years past, is still a means of maintaining a class system, only in this case it is also the privileged in society who become dependent on and beholden to capitalist ideology. The problem with confusing social relations with commodities is that it masks the true nature of these social relations, and with it any truly liberatory politics. It is also a problem in that every aspect of our lives becomes commodified, and we are rendered incapable of being social without buying something (or buying into something) first.

Or, as a non-academic translation: remember Edward Norton's character in Fight Club? He lived the life of a white person, as articulated on SWPL. The point of the film was about how empty he felt living that comfortable life. And of course while a lot of audiences and critics alike were fixated on the problems of defining "authentic" and meaningful masculinity according to fighting, they missed the point of the whole last third of the movie: about how that morphed into an anarchist organization, where at the very end they blow up the buildings of credit card companies. At base Fight Club's argument is therefore that our malaise stems not from the fact that men don't get into fights anymore, but rather that this malaise is a function of living with/in capitalistic postmodernity.

Although it's clear that practically nobody "gets" either SWPL or Fight Club at that level of detail, there are signs that people understand the humor of SWPL well enough that it's not just a list of things that white people do—lots of people, it would seem, are prone to at least a little bit of critical reflection about what they or acquaintances of theirs do, and therefore recognizing that it's no more or less "normal" than any other culturally specific thing. But it seems pretty clear that the underlying critique of white privilege is still not really getting through, which, ironically, demonstrates its power.

My knee-jerk reaction is that Adorno's talking about my mama, and though I can be dismissive of schlocky pop or overbearing rock, or whatever, he had better watch his ass next time he comes around because it is mine. He is dismissive of people who listen to popular music (A says, they are fed only what the industry wants them to have--to ask them whether they like it is beyond the point because they (we) have been so totally dominated by capital that they (we) are unable to have taste in any meaningful sense); he fetishizes the musical work (so that music people dance to is always suspect; he (wierdly, in my opinion) rejects out of hand any music written in tablature (why? who knows, but it is bad, and maybe evil); and so forth.

But, as Ben said, it's possible that even if we disagree with all his examples, his basic point might hold, or at least have some significance. And I'm glad we got down to it, because, though I still disagree with him, I think it was worth getting there. The basic critique, as I understand it, is that having turned music into a commodity, the industry creates a situation in which music's use value (its non-commodity purpose, whatever that is) is subordinated to (or perhaps replaced by) its exchange value (its commodity status). Again, I will say, I disagree, but I think it's worth considering. I think it's particularly worth considering, because a rational person could argue that the industry creates a situation in which music becomes incapable of, even hostile to the radicalization of oppressed social groups in the West. (Yes, I think this is wrong--just because music can be co-opted, in my opinion, doesn't mean that people can't/don't still do personally and socially useful things with it--but I think the argument can be had between rational people).

All of this was on my mind today when I gave a presentation to a group of visiting scholars from overseas. I had been asked to speak on American music, and I chose to do my little spiel about blues, for a variety of reasons. Now, I LOVE blues. Love it. And have respect for it as a form and as a cultural manifestation. So you can imagine my consternation at the end of the presentation when one of the scholars (who had not listened to the presentation, but instead chosen to read an article on a different subject--at a table with nine other people...it was conspicuous) chose to lay into the old saw that blues/rock was socially corrosive. After hearing him talk about my mama, so to speak, for a few minutes, I suggested Adorno's critique to him. I thought, here's an opportunity: we can talk about whether this music/the industry does, in fact, stop people from effectively organizing into radicalized polities and objeting to their own domination. I'm willing to say that people do it, and sometimes they involve commodified music in the process, but that the music itself is basically neutral with regards to this sort of business.

But in the end he just said that popular music leads to moral degradation (proffering Elvis's unsavory death as evidence), and the like, like a writer for the Ladies' Home Journalin the 1920s. I was truly disappointed, at least in part because this is what I fear Adorno's actually doing, too, but just with fancier verbiage and reasoning. It makes me wonder how common this sort of idea is among academics outside my little sphere.

But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence…illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.
--Feuerbach, Preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity

Feuerbach—copy/original—simulacrum—Deleuze and Baudrillard?
Accumulation of spectacles—"All that once was directly lived has become mere representation" (12).
Detached images enter into a common stream—partial aspects of reality congeal into a pseudo-world set apart as object of contemplation/autonomous image where deceit deceives itself--autonomous movement of non-life.
Three aspects of the spectacle—society itself/parts of society/means of unification. This is the place of false consciousness because it is where all consciousness converges--it is merely the official language of generalized separation

[For the convergence of Badiou, Deleuze, Guattari and Debord on this point, see my earlier post.]

Spectacle is a social relationship mediated by images
It is not deliberate—a weltanschauung or worldview transformed into an objective force.
In its totality—spectacle is the outcome and goal of the dominant mode of production—heart of the spectacle’s real unreality—celebration of a choice already made in the sphere of production—thus as consummation the spectacle serves as a total justification of the system in form and content. The permanent presence of that justification is due to the fact that “governs almost all time spent outside the production process itself” (13).
Separation—reality/image—Why does the spectacle appear as the apparent goal of social practice? The language of the spectacle is made from signs of the dominant mode of production—these signs are the ultimate end-products of that organization [does this start to sound like D+G and the critique of biunivocalization and linearization that occurs through the triangular nature of Oedipus?]
The spectacle is a product of real activity—we incorporate the spectacular order and lend it support—the reciprocal alienation is the essence and underpinning of society.
A world really turned on its head, truth is a moment of falsehood.
Spectacle as a visible negation of life—it has invented a visual form for itself [The virtual/visual intersection of Debord and Deleuze?]
The spectacle expresses the total practice of one particular economic and social formation; it is that formation’s agenda.
Spectacle as enormous positivity; monopolization of the realm of appearances.
The spectacle globalizes the empire of modern passivity
For the spectacle as perfect image of the ruling economic order, ends are nothing and development is all—though the spectacle only desires to develop itself.
There is an ever-growing mass of image objects [partial objects?], ‘a general gloss on the rationality of the system’ (16).
The spectacle acts as a faithful mirror held up to the production of things and as a distorting objectification of the producers
Being--Having--Appearing to have—individual reality is not, it is only through the social/symbolic order [Again D+G, but with an inverse emphasis: for D+G, schizoanalysis must focus on group fantasies—precisely the spectacle. For Debord, however, it seems that he’s criticizing the gregarious nature of conspicuous consumption as that which forces us more and more into the logic of the spectacle, which entails that we purchase an identity (that is socially legitimated) in the fashion of a consumption of images].
Mere images are transformed into beings; spectacle as opposite of dialogue—representation takes on an independent existence.
So far from realizing philosophy, the spectacle philosophizes reality, and turns the material life of everyone into a universe of speculation (17). [Notice here that Debord produces a common rhetorical (in a non-pejorative sense) move that is usually referred to as a chiasmus—it is the disjunctive power of the genitive!}.
Philosophy is at once the power of alienated thought and the thought of alienated power—never been able to emancipate itself from theology. Material reconstruction of the religious illusion—technological version of the exiling of human powers in a world beyond.
The spectacle is the bad dream and guardian of that sleep.
This ability is due to a self-cleavage and self-contradictoriness inherent to modern practice.
Specialization of power at the root of the spectacle. It acts as a diplomatic representative of hierarchical society—it is thus the most archaic form of social power.
One-way communication—social cleavage/division—spectacle as a second Nature that imposes its own law.
Separation and the spectacle—religious contemplation and the social division of labor—power garbed in a mythical order. Ancient society/modern society—spectacle is about what society can deliver—what is permitted, not what is possible—spectacle as a specious form of the sacred—how to reunite the separation? This is the communist question [Excursus: This reminds me of Levinas’s reconstruction of a desacralized religion that understands that devious forms of power will persist unless we destroy the violence of the sacred].
Economic system founded on separation—proletarianization of the world
Inactivity is in thrall of production—it is of the rationality of production—within the spectacle, all activity and freedom is banned—‘liberation from work’ is false.
Isolation underpins technology; all goods proposed by the spectacular system reinforce the isolation.
Spectacle divides the world into two parts—self-representation of the world and superior to the world—it also unites what’s separate, but only in its separateness.
The more he contemplates, the less he lives—he recognizes his needs in the images of needs, the less he understands his own existence and his own desires—the spectacle’s externality—someone else represents his own gestures to him—the spectator feels at home nowhere.
Workers produce a force independent of themselves—the surplus that is generated by the producers is felt as an abundance of dispossession (23). All time, all space, becomes foreign to them as their own alienated products accumulate. The spectacle is a map of this new world
The spectacle manufactures alienation as its concrete function—if something grows with the self-movement of the economy, it is alienation.
Though he is separated from his product, more produces the world in ever detail—thus he is more and more drastically cut off from a life that is his own creation.
The spectacle is the image that arises when capital accumulates to a certain point [This point can be related to D+G’s theory of the recording surface—capital miraculates a spectacle that serves as a fetish in the sense that the images of capital come to mediate the molecular flows; moreover, the socius comes to impose means of orienting our bodies in conjunction with the operator-word-images that dominate our social interactions. More simply put, the BwO is the body without an image—images being that which strives to promote itself from the rank of a principle of induction to that of a principle of organization and that around which the BwO ought to organize itself. It is in this sense that we should understand Oedipus or Oedipal triangulation as a means of imposing an image on the BwO, and when we assert that one pole of the schizophrenic process is the creation of paranoic machines that repel these images from connecting, we truly begin to highlight the schizophrenic process as a means for radically revolutionizing the socius and the forms of social relationship that follow from the logic of its mediation by the spectacle.]

2. The Commodity as Spectacle
The commodity can only be understood in its undistorted essence when it becomes the universal category of society as a whole. Only in this context does the reification produced by commodity relations assume decisive importance both for the objective evolution of society and for the stance adopted by men towards it. Only then does the commodity become crucial for the subjugation of men’s consciousness to the forms in which this reification finds expression…As labor is progressively rationalized and mechanized man’s lack of will is reinforced by the way in which his activity becomes less and less active and more and more contemplative.
--Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness
35. The self-movement of the spectacle arrogates to itself everything that in human activity exists in a fluid state so as to possess it in a congealed form—being the negative expression of living value, it has become exclusively abstract value.
36. Commodity fetishism is the domination of society by perceptible and imperceptible images—the perceptible world is replaced by a set of images that is superior to the world yet impose themselves as eminently perceptible.
37. World of the commodity rules over all lived experiences.
38. Commodity form as self-equivalent and exclusively quantitative.
39. However, it is still subject to the qualitative—the spectacle must eventually break the bounds of its own abundance.
40. Development of the forces of production is the real unconscious history that has built and modified the conditions of the existence of human groups—human labor into labor-as-commodity after the ‘problem of survival is solved’—Economic growth liberates from the struggle of survival, but we must be liberated from the liberators. An abundance of commodity relations can be no more than an augmented survival.
41. Political economy as the dominant science and the science of domination.
42. Spectacle corresponds to the historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life. The whole of labor force as the total commodity must be returned in fragmentary form to a fragmentary individual completely cut off from the active forces of production. The science of domination is then broken down into sociology, applied psychology, cybernetics, and semiology which oversee the self-regulation of every phase of the process.
43. Perfected denial of man—worker transformed into consumer.
44. Spectacle is a permanent opium war—augmented survival itself belongs to the realm of dispossession: it may gild poverty, but it cannot transcend it.
45. Automation, capable of abolishing labor, must conserve labor as commodity—Thus new forms of employment must be created—the rise of the tertiary and service sector and the necessity for reintegrating newly redundant labor—the factitiousness of needs associated with the commodities on offer calls out a whole battery of reserve forces (for the production and satisfaction of the new pseudo-need).
46. Process of exchange became indistinguishable from utility, thereby placing use value at the mercy of exchange value.
47. Falling rate of use value—real consumer as consumer of illusion—commodity as illusion and spectacle as its most general form.
48. Use value, at once implicit, must become explicit due to the pseudo-justification that a counterfeit life requires.
49. Spectacle as another facet of money, the abstract equivalent of all commodities—the totality of the commodity world is visible in one piece, as the general equivalent of whatever society as a whole can do—spectacle is money for contemplation only—it is the pseudo-use of life.
50. Capital de-centers itself, spreading to the periphery, where is assumes the form of tangible objects—society in its length and breadth as capital’s faithful portrait.
51. Economy’s triumph as independent spells its own doom because it unleashes forces that must destroy economic necessity. It must replace the satisfaction of primary human needs with a ceaseless development of pseudo-needs—all of which merely point to the pseudo-need of an autonomous economy to continue.
52. Where economic id was, there ego shall be—product of the subject out of the struggle that society embodies.
53. Consciousness of desire and the desire for consciousness constitute the project whose goal is the abolition of classes and the direct possession by the worker of every part of his activity.

Continue to notes on section 3