Originally published just months before the May 1968 upheavals in France, Raoul Vaneigem's text offered a lyrical and aphoristic critique of the ''society of spectacle'' from the point of view of individual experience. Vaneigem defines the alienating features of everyday life in consumer society and explores the countervailing impulses that persist within that alienation. The present English translation was first published by the Rebel Press in 1983. This new edition has been reviewed and corrected by the translator and contains a new preface by Raoul Vaneigem.
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THE HISTORY OF our time calls to mind those Walt Disney characters who rush madly over the edge of a cliff without seeing it: Read the first page
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THE HISTORY OF our time calls to mind those Walt Disney characters who rush madly over the edge of a cliff without seeing it: Read the first page
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a one off. There are wonderful pages describing the "many petty humiliations we a subjected too everyday" which will resonate with people who feel herded, crammed in and degraded by mass transportation. And what is humilation but "being reduced to an object"?
Indeed, it is these "inbetween times" - riding public transport, walking down the street - which Vaneigem seeks to save from oblivion, as just time-in-transit before assuming a work-or-lesuire role. This he calls "signifying the insignifcant" and is an attempt to bring lived meaning to the most unpromising or fleeting of situations.
Much of the book, and indeed the situationist project in general, can be viewsed as a "war against roles". Veneigem says that proportional to your identiification with a role is the sense of time speeding up - getting out of roles, or rather playing/creating an unplayed one, is the way towards authenticity and reunified subjectivity.
In a world where the following phrase is overused to the point of banality let me assure that it rings true here : THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!
Indeed, it is these "inbetween times" - riding public transport, walking down the street - which Vaneigem seeks to save from oblivion, as just time-in-transit before assuming a work-or-lesuire role. This he calls "signifying the insignifcant" and is an attempt to bring lived meaning to the most unpromising or fleeting of situations.
Much of the book, and indeed the situationist project in general, can be viewsed as a "war against roles". Veneigem says that proportional to your identiification with a role is the sense of time speeding up - getting out of roles, or rather playing/creating an unplayed one, is the way towards authenticity and reunified subjectivity.
In a world where the following phrase is overused to the point of banality let me assure that it rings true here : THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Written in a more accessible manner than the, also vital, Society of the Spectacle (Guy Debord) and with a more flowing, beautiful and inspiring style, this book is indespensible to any modern left-wing revolutionary.25 chapters of sparkling genius which, although not the easiest read in the world, is probably one of the most satisying and most life-changing books. A swift diatibe against the current world order of politics and economics, possessed with the urge to destroy that set of social relationships which it describes. "Be realistic - demand the impossible"
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Situationism arrived in London via Tom Vague. Undertaking the investigative work on the philosophical background to the Sex Pistols, the spirit of Paris 1968 the true social science archeologist, self taught, sieved for the evidence. These were published in his Fanzine "Vague". Turning everyone onto the Situationists it was a rebirth. Prior to this it was the province of Malcolm and a few people who could read intellectual french.
Everyone stakes a claim in retrospect, see the Post Punk interviews of Simon Reynolds. This is posing of the first order. Freedom Press at Whitechapel published the beginnings. They were available at Compendium in Camden but you had to struggle to find the books. You had to know they existed to ask for them. It wasn't as though they were advertised. The various communist groups never liked them because of the anarchist slant and attack on eveyday life. The Communists believed in economics, the Situationists believed in cultural, social, political and economic revolution. Detournment, turning the world into poets, artists, philosophers, thinkers with less emphasis on work was the message.
I tried to introduce them to the Social Sciences. Big mistake, earnest Marxist types as deluded as Charles Manson, essentialy beleived they were going to lead the revoution. This upset their new world order because it provided the pathway for the liberation of all. The Situationists undermined the New Puritans dressed up in red togs. Nothing colourful about these dour shape shifting characters. You would not want to share the last free bus home with them when the pubs and clubs had shut, let alone be on the barricade when the revolution kicked in.... Read more ›
Everyone stakes a claim in retrospect, see the Post Punk interviews of Simon Reynolds. This is posing of the first order. Freedom Press at Whitechapel published the beginnings. They were available at Compendium in Camden but you had to struggle to find the books. You had to know they existed to ask for them. It wasn't as though they were advertised. The various communist groups never liked them because of the anarchist slant and attack on eveyday life. The Communists believed in economics, the Situationists believed in cultural, social, political and economic revolution. Detournment, turning the world into poets, artists, philosophers, thinkers with less emphasis on work was the message.
I tried to introduce them to the Social Sciences. Big mistake, earnest Marxist types as deluded as Charles Manson, essentialy beleived they were going to lead the revoution. This upset their new world order because it provided the pathway for the liberation of all. The Situationists undermined the New Puritans dressed up in red togs. Nothing colourful about these dour shape shifting characters. You would not want to share the last free bus home with them when the pubs and clubs had shut, let alone be on the barricade when the revolution kicked in.... Read more ›
14 of 22 people found the following review helpful
By "pil00"
Format:Paperback
Vaneigem writes with a polemical, lucid dignity which eluded the faux-Nietzschean (although insightful) "Society of the Spectacle." This book is a pleasure to read for its critique rather than its revolutionary solutions, and as such is a work of exciting poeticism. A great writer and an inspirational, passionate work.
6 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I freely admit to not having read this book anywhere near as closely as it deserves. But is that going to stop me writing a review?? You bet. Instead, I offer the following - which I (despite my abject lack of humility) would not even dare dignify with the comparatively honorific term "review." Vaneigem's style is elegant, engaging and incisive. That much we know. However, there is sometimes the feeling that his thought is tinged with sociology...or at least, that it is not perhaps as startlingly original as it may feel on first encounters. E.g. Down Quantity Street. If I can reduce part of the thought here - the world abraded of its qualities, divided and subdivided, categorised, labeled, sawn up industriously into manageable chunks. And us with it. What's left? Numbers. Nothing to feel or be felt by. Computations, statistics, bean counting. Sure. Except wasn't this part of Weber's beef with bureaucracy? A big part, in fact. And probably bits of Hegel if you look. Not to mention a lot of the Romantics before that. Probably RV would say use what you can. And if so it would seem slightly churlish to argue.
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you are interested in buying this book, you probably already have leanings towards Vaneigem's point of view. It is interesting, even 40 years on, but is dated. It is a bit too hippy and late 60's / early 70's for my liking. A good read though.
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