An interesting riff from Simon Reynolds. Interesting because it squarely hits on some things I've had on my own mind for some time, and I'm intrigued to see that he more or less arrives at the same conclusion that I have. (And does so far more succinctly and eloquently, of course.)
Simon's responding to a happened-upon pair of posts (here and here), which caused him to share a few thoughts about the connection between politics, "digimodern" "pseudo-participations," and the shapings-up of contemporary cultural landscape. He also -- more specifically -- wonders if the blog author "is using the term 'spectacle' in the Guy Debord sense of the word or whether he's just fastened upon the word unawares of its applications."
I can definitely see why Simon would be curious, would wonder about a connection. At times, the phrasing at times ("The sign of ideology is the spectacle.") closely shadows that of Dubord & co., though I suspect it's by mere chance. I suspect the author of the posts in question just happened to chose that particular word to embody the concept he was crafting. After all, some have pointed out vague similarities between Debord's theory of the Spectacle and Daniel Boorstin's discussion (c. 1961) of "the Image." And my guess would be that what the blogger had in mind was probably more akin to the latter.
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