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Comments on the Society of theSpectacleby Guy Debord, 1988

In memory of Gerard Lebovici,ambushed and murdered in Paris on 5March 1984 by persons still unknown[1]

"However desperate the situation andcircumstances, do not despair. Whenthere is everything to fear, beunafraid. When surrounded bydangers, fear none of them. Whenwithout resources, depend on

resourcefulness. When surprised, takethe enemy itself by surprise." Sun Tzu,The Art of War.[2]

I

These comments are sure to bewelcomed by fifty or sixty people; alarge number given the times in whichwe live and the gravity of the matters

under discussion. But then, of course,in some circles I am considered to bean authority. It must also be borne inmind that a good half of thisinterested elite will consist of peoplewho devote themselves tomaintaining the spectacular system ofdomination, [3] and the other half ofpeople who persist in doing quite theopposite. Having, then, to takeaccount of readers who are bothattentive and diversely influential, Iobviously cannot speak with complete

freedom. Above all, I must take carenot to give too much information tojust anybody.

Our unfortunate times thus compelme, once again, to write in a new way.Some elements will be intentionallyomitted; and the plan will have toremain rather unclear. Readers willencounter certain decoys, like thevery hallmark of the era. As long ascertain pages are interpolated hereand there, the overall meaning may

appear just as secret clauses have

very often been added to whatevertreaties may openly stipulate [4]; justas some chemical agents only revealtheir hidden properties when they arecombined with others. However, in

this brief work there will be only toomany things which are, alas, easy tounderstand.

II.

In 1967, in a book entitled The Societyof the Spectacle, I showed what themodern spectacle was already inessence: the autocratic reign of the

market economy which had accededto an irresponsible sovereignty, andthe totality of new techniques ofgovernment which accompanied thisreign. The disturbances of 1968,which in several countries lasted intothe following years, having nowhereoverthrown the existing organizationof the society from which it springsapparently spontaneously, thespectacle has thus continued togather strength, that is, to spread tothe furthest limits on all sides, while

increasing its density in the center. Ithas even learnt new defensivetechniques, as powers under attackalways do. When I began the critiqueof spectacular society, what wasparticularly noticed -- given the period-- was the revolutionary content thatcould be discovered in that critique;and it was naturally felt to be its mosttroublesome element. As to thespectacle itself, I was sometimesaccused of having invented it out ofthin air, and was always accused of

indulging myself to excess in myevaluation of its depth and unity, andits real workings. I must admit thatothers who later published new bookson the same subject demonstratedthat it was quite possible to say less.All they had to do was to replace thetotality and its movement by a singlestatic detail on the surface of thephenomenon, with each authordemonstrating his originality bychoosing a different and all the lessdisturbing one. No one wanted to taintthe scientific modesty of his personal
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interpretation by interposing recklesshistorical judgments.

Nonetheless, the society of thespectacle has continued to advance. It

moves quickly for in 1967 it hadbarely forty years behind it, though ithad used them to the full. And by itsown development, which no one tookthe trouble to investigate, it has sinceshown with some astonishingachievements that it was effectivelyjust what I said it was. Proving thispoint has more than academic value,because it is undoubtedlyindispensable to have understood thespectacle's unity and articulation asan active force in order to examine

the directions in which this force hassince been able to travel. Thesequestions are of great interest, for it isunder such conditions that the nextstage of social conflict will necessarilybe played out. Since the spectacletoday is certainly more powerful thanit was before, what is it doing with thisadditional power? What point has itreached, that it had not reachedpreviously? What, in short, are itspresent lines of advance? The vaguefeeling that there has been a rapid

invasion which has forced people tolead their lives in an entirely differentway is now widespread; but this isexperienced rather like someinexplicable change in the climate, orin some other natural equilibrium, achange faced with which ignoranceknows only that it has nothing to say.What is more, many see it as acivilizing invasion, as somethinginevitable, and even want tocollaborate. Such people would rathernot know the precise purpose of thisconquest, and how it is advancing.

I am going to outline certain practicalconsequences, still little known, of thespectacle's rapid extension over thelast twenty years. I have no intentionof entering into polemics on anyaspect of this question; these are nowtoo easy, and too useless. Nor will I tryto convince. The present commentsare not concerned with moralizing.They do not propose what is desirable,or merely preferable. They simply

record what is.

III.

No one today can reasonably doubtthe existence or the power of thespectacle; on the contrary, one mightdoubt whether it is reasonable to addanything on a question whichexperience has already settled in suchdraconian fashion. Le Monde of 19September 1987 offered a felicitousillustration of the saying, "If it exists,there's no need to talk about it," afundamental law in these spectaculartimes which, at least in this respect,ensure there is no such thing as a

backward country.

That modern society is a society ofthe spectacle now goes withoutsaying. Indeed people will soon onlybe conspicuous by their reticence.One loses count of all the booksdescribing a phenomenon which nowmarks all the industrialized nationsyet equally spares none of thecountries which has still to catch up.What is so droll, however, is that allthe books which do analyze this

phenomenon, usually to deplore it,cannot but join the spectacle if they'reto get attention.

It is true that this spectacular critiqueof the spectacle, which is not only latebut, even worse, seeks 'attention' onthe same level, inevitably sticks tovain generalities or hypocriticalregrets; just as futile as the clownswho parade their well-mannereddisillusion in newspapers.

The empty debate on the spectacle --

that is, on the activities of the world'sowners -- is thus organized by thespectacle itself: everything is saidabout the extensive means at itsdisposal, to ensure that nothing is saidabout their extensive deployment.Rather than talk of the spectacle,people often prefer to use the term'media.' And by this they mean todescribe a mere instrument, a kind ofpublic service which with impartial'professionalism' would facilitate thenew wealth of mass communicationthrough mass media -- a form of

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communication which has at lastattained a unilateral purity, wherebydecisions already taken are presentedfor passive admiration. For what iscommunicated are orders; and with

perfect harmony, those who givethem are also those who tell us whatthey think of them.

Spectacular power, which is sofundamentally unitary, soconcentrated by the very weight ofthings, and entirely despotic in spirit,frequently rails at the appearance inits realm of a spectacular politics, aspectacular justice, a spectacularmedicine and all the other similarlysurprising examples of 'media excess.'

Thus the spectacle would be merelythe excesses of the media, whosenature, unquestionably good since itfacilitates communication, issometimes driven to extremes.

Often enough society's bosses declarethemselves ill-served by their mediaemployees: more often they blamethe spectators for the common,almost bestial manner in which theyindulge in the media's delights. Avirtually infinite number of supposed

differences within the media thusserve to screen what is in fact theresult of a spectacular convergence,pursued with remarkable tenacity. Justas the logic of the commodity reignsover capitalists' competing ambitions,and the logic of war always dominatesthe frequent modifications inweaponry, so the harsh logic of thespectacle controls the abundantdiversity of media extravagances.

In all that has happened in the lasttwenty years, the most importantchange lies in the very continuity ofthe spectacle. This has nothing to dowith the perfecting of its mediainstruments, which had alreadyreached a highly advanced stage ofdevelopment; it means quite simplythat the spectacle's domination hassucceeded in raising a wholegeneration molded to its laws. Theextraordinary new conditions in whichthis entire generation has effectivelylived constitute a precise and

comprehensive summary of all that,

henceforth, the spectacle will forbid;and also all that it will permit.

IV.

On a theoretical level I only need adda single detail to my earlierformulations, albeit one which hasfarreaching consequences. In 1967 Idistinguished two rival and successiveforms of spectacular power, theconcentrated and the diffuse. Both ofthem floated above real society, as itsgoal and its lie. The former, favoringthe ideology condensed around a

dictatorial personality, hadaccomplished the totalitarian counter-revolution, fascist as well as Stalinist.The latter, driving wage-earners toapply their freedom of choice to thevast range of new commodities nowon offer, had represented theAmericanization of the world, aprocess which in some respectsfrightened but also successfullyseduced those countries where it hadbeen possible to maintain traditionalforms of bourgeois democracy. Since

then a third form has beenestablished, through the rationalcombination of these two, and on thebasis of a general victory of the formwhich had showed itself stronger: thediffuse. This is the integratedspectacle, which has since tended toimpose itself globally.

Whereas Russia and Germany werelargely responsible for the formationof the concentrated spectacle, and theUnited States for the diffuse form, the

integrated spectacle has beenpioneered by France and Italy. Theemergence of this new form isattributable to a number of sharedhistorical features, namely, theimportant role of the Stalinist partyand unions in political and intellectuallife, a weak democratic tradition, thelong monopoly of power enjoyed by asingle party of government, and theneed to eliminate an unexpectedupsurge in revolutionary activity.

The integrated spectacle shows itselfto be simultaneously concentrated

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and diffuse, and ever since the fruitfulunion of the two has learnt to employboth these qualities on a granderscale. Their former mode ofapplication has changed considerably.

As regards concentration, thecontrolling center has now becomeoccult never to be occupied by aknown leader, or clear ideology. Andon the diffuse side, the spectacle hasnever before put its mark to such adegree on almost the full range ofsocially produced behavior andobjects. For the final sense of theintegrated spectacle is this -- that ithas integrated itself into reality to thesame extent as it was describing it,and that it was reconstructing it as it

was describing it. As a result, thisreality no longer confronts theintegrated spectacle as somethingalien. When the spectacle wasconcentrated, the greater part ofsurrounding society escaped it; whendiffuse, a small part; today, no part.The spectacle has spread itself to thepoint where it now permeates allreality. It was easy to predict in theorywhat has been quickly and universallydemonstrated by practical experience

of economic reason's relentlessaccomplishments: that theglobalisation of the false was also thefalsification of the globe. Beyond alegacy of old books and old buildings,still of some significance but destinedto continual reduction and, moreover,increasingly highlighted and classifiedto suit the spectacle's requirements,there remains nothing, in culture or innature, which has not beentransformed, and polluted, accordingto the means and interests of modern

industry. Even genetics has becomereadily accessible to the dominantsocial forces.

Spectacular government, which nowpossesses all the means necessary tofalsify the whole of production andperception, is the absolute master ofmemories just as it is the unfetteredmaster of plans which will shape themost distant future. It reignsunchecked; it executes its summaryjudgments.

It is in these conditions that a parodicend of the division of labor suddenlyappears, with carnivalesque gaiety, allthe more welcome because itcoincides with the generalized

disappearance of all real ability. Afinancier can be a singer, a lawyer apolice spy, a baker can parade hisliterary tastes, an actor can bepresident, a chef can philosophize oncookery techniques as if they werelandmarks in universal history.Anyone can join the spectacle, inorder publicly to adopt, or sometimessecretly practice, an entirely differentactivity from whatever specialism firstmade their name. Where 'mediastatus' has acquired infinitely more

importance than the value of anythingone might actually be capable ofdoing, it is normal for this status to bereadily transferable; for anyone,anywhere, to have the same right tothe same kind of stardom. Most oftenthese accelerated media particlespursue their own careers in the glowof statutorily guaranteed admiration.But it sometimes happens that thetransition to the media provides thecover for several different enterprises,

officially independent but in factsecretly linked by various ad hocnetworks. With the result thatoccasionally the social division oflabor, along with the readilyforeseeable unity of its application,reappears in quite new forms: forexample, one can now publish a novelin order to arrange an assassination.Such picturesque examples also go toshow that one should never trustsomeone because of their job.

Yet the highest ambition of theintegrated spectacle is still to turnsecret agents into revolutionaries, andrevolutionaries into secret agents.

V.

The society whose modernization hasreached the stage of the integratedspectacle is characterized by thecombined effect of five principal

features: incessant technological

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renewal; integration of state andeconomy; generalized secrecy,unanswerable lies; an eternal present.

Technological innovation has a long

history, and is an essential componentof capitalist society, sometimesdescribed as industrial or post-industrial. But since its most recentacceleration (in the aftermath of theSecond World War) it has greatlyreinforced spectacular authority, bysurrendering everybody to the mercyof specialists, to their calculations andto the judgments which alwaysdepend on them. The integration ofstate and economy is the mostevident trend of the century; it is at

the very least the motor of all recenteconomic developments. Thedefensive and offensive pactconcluded between these two powers,economy and state, has providedthem with the greatest commonadvantages in every field: each maybe said to own the other; at any rate,it is absurd to oppose them, or todistinguish between their reasons andfollies. This union, too, has proved tobe highly favorable to thedevelopment of spectacular

domination -- indeed, the two havebeen indistinguishable from the verystart. The other three features aredirect effects of this domination, in itsintegrated stage.

Generalised secrecy stands behindthe spectacle, as the decisivecomplement of all it displays and, inthe last analysis, as its most vitaloperation.

The simple fact of being unanswerablehas given what is false an entirelynew quality. At a stroke it is truthwhich has almost everywhere ceasedto exist or, at best, has been reducedto the status of pure hypothesis.Unanswerable lies have succeeded ineliminating public opinion, which firstlost the ability to make itself heardand then very quickly dissolvedaltogether. This evidently hassignificant consequences for politics,the applied sciences, the legal systemand the arts.

The manufacture of a present wherefashion itself, from clothes to music,has come to a halt, which wants toforget the past and no longer seemsto believe in a future, is achieved by

the ceaseless circularity ofinformation, always returning to thesame short list of trivialities,passionately proclaimed as majordiscoveries. Meanwhile news of whatis genuinely important, of what isactually changing, comes rarely, andthen in fits and starts. It alwaysconcerns this world's apparentcondemnation of its own existence,the stages in its programmed self-destruction.

VI.

Spectacular domination's first prioritywas to eradicate historical knowledgein general; beginning with just aboutall rational information andcommentary on the most recent past.The evidence for this is so glaring ithardly needs further explanation. Withconsummate skill the spectacle

organizes ignorance of what is aboutto happen and, immediatelyafterwards, the forgetting of whateverhas nonetheless been understood.The more important something is, themore it is hidden. Nothing in the lasttwenty years has been so thoroughlycoated in obedient lies as the historyof May 1968. Some useful lessonshave indeed been learnt from certaindemystifying studies of those days;these, however, remain state secrets.

In France, it is some ten years nowsince a president of the republic, longago forgotten but at the time stillbasking on the spectacle's surface,naively expressed his delight at"knowing that henceforth we will livein a world without memory, whereimages flow and merge, likereflections on the water." Convenientindeed for those in business, and whoknow how to stay there. The end ofhistory gives power a welcome break.Success is guaranteed in all its

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undertakings, or at least the rumor ofsuccess.

How drastically any absolute powerwill suppress history depends on the

extent of its imperious interests orobligations, and especially on itspractical capacity to execute its aims.Ts'in Che Hoang Ti had books burned,but he never managed to get rid of allof them. In our own century Stalinwent further, yet despite the variousaccomplices he managed to findoutside his empire's borders, thereremained a vast area of the worldbeyond the reach of his police, wherehis schemes could be ridiculed. Withits new techniques now adopted

globally, the integrated spectacle hasdone much better. Ineptitude compelsuniversal respect; it is no longerpermitted to laugh at it. In any case, ithas become impossible to show thatone is laughing.

History's domain was the memorable,the totality of events whoseconsequences would be lastinglyapparent. And thus, inseparably,history was knowledge that shouldendure and aid in understanding, at

least in part, what was to come: "aneverlasting possession," according toThucydides. In this way history wasthe measure of genuine novelty. It isin the interests of those who sellnovelty at any price to eradicate themeans of measuring it. When socialsignificance is attributed only to whatis immediate, and to what will beimmediate immediately afterwards,always replacing another, identical,immediacy, it can be seen that theuses of the media guarantee a kind of

eternity of noisy insignificance.The precious advantage which thespectacle has acquired through theoutlawing of history, from havingdriven the recent past into hiding, andfrom having made everyone forgetthe spirit of history within society, isabove all the ability to cover its owntracks -- to conceal the very progressof its recent world conquest. Its poweralready seems familiar, as if it hadalways been there. All usurpers have

shared this aim: to make us forgetthat they have only just arrived.

VII.

With the destruction of history,contemporary events themselvesretreat into a remote and fabulousrealm of unverifiable stories,uncheckable statistics, unlikelyexplanations and untenablereasoning. For every imbecilitypresented by the spectacle, there areonly the media's professionals to givean answer, with a few respectfulrectifications or remonstrations. Andthey are hardly extravagant, evenwith these, for besides their extreme

ignorance, their personal andprofessional solidarity with thespectacle's overall authority and thesociety it expresses makes it theirduty, and their pleasure, never todiverge from that authority whosemajesty must not be threatened. Itmust not be forgotten that everymedia professional is bound by wagesand other rewards and recompensesto a master, and sometimes toseveral; and that every one of themknows he is dispensable.

All experts serve the state and themedia and only in that way do theyachieve their status. Every expertfollows his master, for all formerpossibilities for independence havebeen gradually reduced to nil bypresent society's mode oforganization. The most useful expert,of course, is the one who can lie. Withtheir different motives, those whoneed experts are falsifiers and fools.Whenever individuals lose the

capacity to see things for themselves,the expert is there to offer an absolutereassurance. Once there were expertsin Etruscan art, and competent ones,for Etruscan art was not for sale. But aperiod which, for example, finds itprofitable to fake by chemical meansvarious famous wines, can only sellthem if it has created wine expertsable to con connoisseurs into admiringtheir new, more distinctive, flavors.[5] Cervantes remarks that "under apoor cloak you commonly find a gooddrinker." [6] Someone who knows his
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wine may often understand nothingabout the rules of the nuclearindustry, but spectacular powercalculates that if one expert can makea fool of him with nuclear energy,

another can easily do the same withwine. And it is well known, forexample, that media meteorologists,forecasting temperature or rainfall forthe next forty-eight hours, areseverely limited in what they say bythe obligation to maintain certaineconomic, touristic and regionalbalances, when so many people makeso many journeys on so many roads,between so many equally desolateplaces; thus they can only try to maketheir names as entertainers.

One aspect of the disappearance of allobjective historical knowledge can beseen in the way that individualreputations have become malleableand alterable at will by those whocontrol all information: informationwhich is gathered and also -- anentirely different matter -- informationwhich is broadcast. Their ability tofalsify is thus unlimited. Historicalevidence which the spectacle does notneed to know ceases to be evidence.

When the only fame is that bestowedby the grace and favor of aspectacular Court, disgrace mayswiftly follow. An anti-spectacularnotoriety has become somethingextremely rare. I myself am one of thelast people to retain one, having neverhad any other. But it has also becomeextraordinarily suspect. Society hasofficially declared itself to bespectacular. To be known outsidespectacular relations is already to beknown as an enemy of society.

A person's past can be entirelyrewritten, radically altered, recreatedin the manner of the Moscow trials --and without even having to botherwith anything as clumsy as a trial.Killing comes cheaper these days. [7]Those who run the spectacle, or theirfriends, surely have no lack of falsewitnesses, though they may beunskilled -- and how could thespectators who witness the exploits ofthese false witnesses ever recognize

their blunders? -- or false documents,

which are always highly effective.Thus it is no longer possible to believeanything about anyone that you havenot learned for yourself, directly. Butin fact false accusations are rarely

necessary. Once one controls themechanism which operates the onlyform of social verification to be fullyand universally recognized, one cansay what one likes. The spectacleproves its arguments simply by goinground in circles: by coming back tothe start, by repetition, by constantreaffirmation in the only space leftwhere anything can be publiclyaffirmed, and believed, preciselybecause that is the only thing to whicheveryone is witness. Spectacular

power can similarly deny whatever itlikes, once, or three times over, andchange the subject, knowing full wellthere is no danger of any riposte, in itsown space or any other.

For the agora, the general community,has gone, along with communitiesrestricted to intermediary bodies or toindependent institutions, to salons orcafes, or to workers in a singlecompany. There is no place left wherepeople can discuss the realities which

concern them, because they cannever lastingly free themselves fromthe crushing presence of mediadiscourse and of the various forcesorganized to relay it. Nothing remainsof the relatively independentjudgment of those who once made upthe world of learning; of those, forexample, who used to base their self-respect on their ability to verify, tocome close to an impartial history offacts, or at least to believe that such ahistory deserved to be known. Thereis no longer even any incontestablebibliographical truth, and thecomputerized catalogues of nationallibraries are well-equipped to removeany residual traces. It is disorientingto consider what it meant to be ajudge, a doctor or a historian not solong ago, and to recall the obligationsand imperatives they often accepted,within the limits of their competence:men resemble their times more thantheir fathers.[8]
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When the spectacle stops talkingabout something for three days, it isas if it did not exist. For it has thengone on to talk about something else,and it is that which henceforth, in

short, exists. The practicalconsequences, as we see, areenormous.

We believe we know that in Greece,history and democracy entered theworld at the same time. We can provethat their disappearances have alsobeen simultaneous.

To this list of the triumphs of powerwe should, however, add one resultwhich has proved negative: once therunning of a state involves apermanent and massive shortage ofhistorical knowledge, that state canno longer be led strategically.

VIII.

Once it attains the stage of theintegrated spectacle, self-proclaimeddemocratic society seems to begenerally accepted as the realization

of a fragile perfection. So that it mustno longer be exposed to attacks,being fragile; and indeed is no longeropen to attack, being perfect as noother society before it. It is a fragilesociety because it has great difficultymanaging its dangerous technologicalexpansion. But it is a perfect societyfor governing; and the proof is that allthose who aspire to govern want togovern this one, in the same way,changing hardly a thing. For the firsttime in contemporary Europe no party

or fraction of a party even tries topretend that they wish to changeanything significant. The commodity isbeyond criticism: as a general systemand even as the particular forms ofjunk which heads of industry chooseto put on the market at any giventime.

Wherever the spectacle has itsdominion the only organized forcesare those which want the spectacle.Thus no one can be the enemy of

what exists, nor transgress the omerta

which applies to everything. We havedispensed with that disturbingconception, which was dominant forover two hundred years, in which asociety was open to criticism or

transformation, reform or revolution.Not thanks to any new arguments, butquite simply because all argument hasbecome useless. From this result wecan estimate not universal happiness,but the redoubtable strength oftyranny's tentacles.

Never before has censorship been soperfect. Never before have those whoare still led to believe, in a fewcountries, that they remain freecitizens, been less entitled to make

their opinions heard, wherever it is amatter of choices affecting their reallives. Never before has it beenpossible to lie to them so brazenly.The spectator is simply supposed toknow nothing, and deserve nothing.Those who are always watching to seewhat happens next will never act:such must be the spectator'scondition. People often cite the UnitedStates as an exception because thereNixon eventually came to grief with aseries of denials whose clumsiness

was too cynical: but this entirely localexception, for which there were someold historical causes, clearly no longerholds true, since Reagan has recentlybeen able to do the same thing withimpunity. Many things may beunauthorized; everything is permitted.Talk of scandal is thus archaic. Themost profound summing up of theperiod which the whole world enteredshortly after Italy and the UnitedStates, can be found in the words of asenior Italian statesman, a member,simultaneously, of both the officialgovernment and the parallelgovernment, P2, Potere Due: "Oncethere were scandals, but not anymore." [9]

In The Eighteenth Brumaire of LouisBonaparte, Marx described the state'sencroachment upon Second EmpireFrance, then blessed with half amillion bureaucrats: "[Everything was]made a subject for governmentalactivity, whether it was a bridge, a

schoolhouse, the communal property
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of a village community, or therailways, the national wealth and thenational university of France." Thefamous question of the funding ofpolitical parties was already being

posed, for Marx noted that, "Theparties that strove in turn for masteryregarded possession of this immensestate edifice as the main booty for thevictor." Yet this may nonethelesssound somewhat bucolic and out ofdate, at a time when the state'sspeculations involve new towns andhighways, channel tunnels andnuclear energy, oil wells andcomputers, the administration ofbanks and cultural centers, themodification of the 'audiovisual

landscape' and secret arms exports,property speculation andpharmaceuticals, agribusiness andhospitals, military credits and thesecret funds of the ever-expandingdepartments charged with runningsociety's numerous defense services.But Marx unfortunately remains all tooup to date when in the same book hedescribes this government, which"rather than deciding by night, andstriking by day, decides by day and

strikes by night."

IX.

Such a perfect democracy constructsits own inconceivable foe, terrorism.Its wish is to be judged by its enemiesrather than by its results. The story ofterrorism is written by the state and itis therefore highly instructive. Thespectators must certainly never know

everything about terrorism, but theymust always know enough to convincethem that, compared with terrorism,everything else must be acceptable,or in any case more rational anddemocratic.

The modernization of repression hassucceeded in perfecting -- first in theItalian pilot-project under the name ofpentiti[10] -- sworn professionalaccusers; a phenomenon first seen inthe seventeenth century after the

Fronde, when such people were called

'certified witnesses.' This spectacularjudicial progress has filled Italy'sprisons with thousands of people [11]condemned to do penance for a civilwar which did not take place, a kind of

mass armed insurrection which, bychance, never actually happened, aputsch woven of such stuff as dreamsare made on.

It can be seen that interpretations ofterrorism's mysteries appear to havebrought about a symmetry betweencontradictory views, rather like twoschools of philosophy adhering toabsolutely incompatible metaphysicalsystems. Some would see terrorism assimply a number of acts of blatant

manipulation on the part of the secretservices; others would reproach theterrorists for their total lack ofhistorical understanding. [12] But alittle historical logic should rapidlyconvince us that there is nothingcontradictory in recognizing thatpeople who understand nothing ofhistory can readily be manipulated;even more so than others. And it ismuch easier to lead someone to'repent' when it can be shown thateverything he thought he did freely

was actually known in advance. It isan inevitable consequence ofclandestine, military forms oforganization that a few infiltrators canactivate, and eliminate, a lot ofpeople. Criticism, when evaluatingarmed struggles, must sometimesanalyze particular operations withoutbeing led astray by the generalresemblance that will finally beimposed on all of them. [13] Weshould expect, as a logical possibility,that the state's security servicesintend to use all the advantages theyfind in the realm of the spectacle,which has indeed been organized withthat in mind for some considerabletime: on the contrary, it is a difficultyin perceiving this which is astonishing,and rings false.

Judicial repression's present objectivehere, of course, is to generalizematters as fast as possible. What isimportant in this commodity is thepacking, or the labeling: the price

codes. One enemy of spectacular
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democracy is the same as another,just like spectacular democraciesthemselves. Thus there must be noright of asylum for terrorists, and eventhose who have not yet been accused

of being terrorists can certainlybecome them, with extradition swiftlyfollowing. In November 1978, dealingwith the case of a young print worker,Gabor Winter, wanted by the WestGerman government mainly forhaving printed certain revolutionaryleaflets, Mlle Nicole Pradain, acting onbehalf of the Department of PublicProsecution in the Appeal Court ofParis, quickly showed that the'political motives' which could be theonly grounds for refusing extradition

under the Franco-German agreementof 29 November 1951, could not beinvoked: "Gabor Winter is a socialcriminal, not a political one. Herefuses to accept social constraints. Atrue political criminal doesn't rejectsociety. He attacks political structuresand not, like Gabor Winter, socialstructures."

The notion of acceptable politicalcrime only became recognized inEurope once the bourgeoisie had

successfully attacked previous socialstructures. The nature of politicalcrime could not be separated from thevaried objectives of social critique.This was true for Blanqui, Varlin,Durruti. Nowadays there is a pretenseof wishing to preserve a purelypolitical crime, like some inexpensiveluxury, a crime which doubtless noone will ever have the occasion tocommit again, since no one isinterested in the subject any more;except for the professional politiciansthemselves, whose crimes are rarelypursued, nor for that matter calledpolitical. All crimes and offenses areeffectively social. But of all socialcrimes, none must be seen as worsethan the impertinent claim to stillwant to change something in a societywhich has so far been only too kindand patient, but has had enough ofbeing blamed.

X.

According to the basic interests of thenew system of domination, thedissolution of logic has been pursuedby different, but mutually supportive,means. Some of these means involve

the technology which the spectaclehas tested and popularized; others aremore linked to the mass psychology ofsubmission.

At the technological level, whenimages chosen and constructed bysomeone else have everywherebecome the individual's principalconnection to the world he formerlyobserved for himself, it has certainlynot been forgotten that these imagescan tolerate anything and everything;

because within the same image allthings can be juxtaposed withoutcontradiction. The flow of imagescarries everything before it, and it issimilarly someone else who controlsat will this simplified summary of thesensible world; who decides where theflow will lead as well as the rhythm ofwhat should be shown, like someperpetual, arbitrary surprise, leavingno time for reflection, and entirelyindependent of what the spectatormight understand or think of it. In this

concrete experience of permanentsubmission lies the psychologicalorigin of such general acceptance ofwhat is; an acceptance which comesto find in it, ipso facto, a sufficientvalue. Beyond what is strictly secret,spectacular discourse obviouslysilences anything it findsinconvenient. It isolates all it showsfrom its context, its past, its intentionsand its consequences. It is thuscompletely illogical. Since no one maycontradict it, it has the right tocontradict itself, to correct its ownpast. The arrogant intention of itsservants, when they have to putforward some new, and perhaps stillmore dishonest version of certainfacts, is to harshly correct theignorance and misinterpretations theyattribute to their public, while the daybefore they themselves were busilydisseminating the error, with theirhabitual assurance. Thus thespectacle's instruction and the

spectators' ignorance are wronglyseen as antagonistic factors when in

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fact they give birth to each other. Inthe same way, the computer's binarylanguage is an irresistible inducementto the continual and unreservedacceptance of what has been

programmed according to the wishesof someone else and passes for thetimeless source of a superior,impartial and total logic. Suchprogress, such speed, such breadth ofvocabulary! Political? Social? Makeyour choice. You cannot have both.My own choice is inescapable. Theyare jeering at us, and we know whomthese programs are for. [14] Thus it ishardly surprising that children shouldenthusiastically start their educationat an early age with the Absolute

Knowledge of computer science; whilethey are still unable to read, forreading demands making judgmentsat every line; and is the only access tothe wealth of pre-spectacular humanexperience. Conversation is almostdead, and soon so too will be thosewho knew how to speak.

The primary cause of the decadenceof contemporary thought evidentlylies in the fact that spectaculardiscourse leaves no room for any

reply; while logic was only sociallyconstructed through dialogue.Furthermore, when respect for thosewho speak through the spectacle is sowidespread, when they are held to berich, important, prestigious, to beauthority itself, the spectators tend towant to be just as illogical as thespectacle, thereby proudly displayingan individual reflection of thisauthority. And finally, logic is noteasy, and no one has tried to teach it.Drug addicts do not study logic; theyno longer need it, nor are theycapable of it. The spectator's lazinessis shared by all intellectualfunctionaries and overnightspecialists, all of whom do their bestto conceal the narrow limits of theirknowledge by the dogmatic repetitionof arguments with illogical authority.

XI.

It is generally believed that those whohave displayed the greatestincapacity in matters of logic are self-proclaimed revolutionaries. Thisunjustified reproach dates from an

age when almost everyone thoughtwith some minimum of logic, with thestriking exception of cretins andmilitants; and in the case of the latterbad faith played its part, intentionally,because it was held to be effective.But today there is no escaping thefact that intense absorption of thespectacle has, as we should haveexpected, turned most of ourcontemporaries into ideologues, ifonly in fits and starts, bits and pieces.Absence of logic, that is to say, loss of

the ability immediately to perceivewhat is significant and what isinsignificant or irrelevant, what isincompatible or what could well becomplementary, all that a particularconsequence implies and at the sametime all that it excludes -- high dosesof this disease have been intentionallyinjected into the population by thespectacle'sanaesthetists/resuscitators. Rebelshave certainly not been any more

illogical than passive victims. It issimply that the former display a moreintense manifestation of thegeneralized irrationality, becausewhile parading their aims andprogrammes they have actually triedto carry out practical projects -- evenif it is only to read certain texts andshow that they know what they mean.They have committed themselves toovercoming logic, even at the level ofstrategy, which is precisely the entireoperational field of the dialectical logic

of conflicts; but, like everyone else,they lack the basic ability to orientthemselves by the old, imperfect toolsof formal logic. No one worries aboutthem; and hardly anyone thinks aboutthe others.

The individual who has been moredeeply marked by this impoverishedspectacular thought than by any otheraspect of his experience puts himselfat the service of the established orderright from the start, even though

subjectively he may have had quitethe opposite intention. He will

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essentially follow the language of thespectacle, for it is the only one he isfamiliar with; the one in which helearned to speak. No doubt he wouldlike to be regarded as an enemy of its

rhetoric; but he will use its syntax.This is one of the most importantaspects of spectacular domination'ssuccess.

The swift disappearance of our formervocabulary is merely one moment inthis process. It helps it along.

XII.

The erasure of the personality is thefatal accompaniment to an existencewhich is concretely submissive to thespectacle's rules, ever more removedfrom the possibility of authenticexperience and thus from thediscovery of individual preferences.Paradoxically, permanent self-denial isthe price the individual pays for thetiniest bit of social status. Such anexistence demands a fluid fidelity, asuccession of continuallydisappointing commitments to falseproducts. It is a matter of runninghard to keep up with the inflation ofdevalued signs of life. Drugs help oneto come to terms with this state ofaffairs, while madness allows one toescape from it.

In all sorts of business in this society,where the distribution of goods iscentralized in such a way that itdetermines -- both notoriously andsecretly -- the very definition of whatcould be desirable, it sometimes

happens that certain people areattributed with knowledge, qualities,or even vices, all entirely imaginary,in order to explain the satisfactorydevelopment of particular enterprises.The only aim is to hide, or at least todisguise as far as possible, theworking of various agreements whichdecide everything. Yet despite itsfrequent intentions, and theredoubtable means at its disposal, tohighlight the full stature of supposedlyremarkable personalities, presentsociety more often only succeeds in

demonstrating quite the opposite, andnot merely in what has today replacedthe arts, or discussion of the arts. Onetotal incompetent will collide withanother; panic ensues and it is then

simply a matter of who will fall apartfirst. A lawyer, for example, forgettingthat he is supposed to represent oneside in a trial, will be genuinelyswayed by the arguments of hisopposite number, even when thesearguments are as hollow as his own. Itcan also happen that an innocentsuspect temporarily confesses to acrime he did not commit simplybecause he is impressed by the logicof an informer who wants him tobelieve he is guilty (see the case of

Dr. Archambeau in Poitiers, in 1984).[15]

McLuhan himself, the spectacle's firstapologist, who had seemed to be themost convinced imbecile of thecentury, changed his mind when hefinally discovered in 1976 that "thepressure of the mass media leads toirrationality," and that it wasbecoming urgent to modify theirusage. The sage of Toronto hadformerly spent several decades

marveling at the numerous freedomscreated by a 'global village' instantlyand effortlessly accessible to all.Villages, unlike towns, have alwaysbeen ruled by conformism, isolation,petty surveillance, boredom andrepetitive malicious gossip about thesame families. Which is a preciseenough description of the globalspectacle's present vulgarity, in whichit has become impossible todistinguish the Grimaldi-Monaco orBourbon-Franco dynasties from thosewho succeeded the Stuarts. However,McLuhan's ungrateful moderndisciples are now trying to makepeople forget him, hoping to establishtheir own careers in media celebrationof all these new freedoms to 'choose'at random from ephemera. And nodoubt they will retract their claimseven faster than the man who inspiredthem.

XIII.

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The spectacle makes no secret of thefact that certain dangers surround thewonderful order it has established.Ocean pollution and the destruction ofequatorial forests threaten oxygen

renewal; the earth's ozone layer ismenaced by industrial growth; nuclearradiation accumulates irreversibly. Itmerely concludes that none of thesethings matter. It will only talk aboutdates and measures. And on thesealone, it is successfully reassuring --something which a pre-spectacularmind would have thought impossible.Spectacular democracy approachesmatters with great subtlety, verydifferent from the straightforwardbrutality of the totalitarian diktat. It

can keep the original name forsomething secretly changed (beer,beef or philosophers). And it can justas easily change the name when thething itself has been secretlymaintained. In England, for example,the nuclear waste reprocessing plantat Windscale was renamed Sellafieldin order to allay the suspicions whichwere aroused by a disastrous fire in1957, though this toponymicreprocessing did nothing to limit the

rise in local mortality rates fromcancer and leukemia. The Britishgovernment, as the populationdemocratically learned thirty yearslater, had decided to suppress areport on the catastrophe which itjudged, reasonably enough, wouldprobably shake public confidence innuclear power. The nuclear industry,both military and civil, demands a farhigher dose of secrecy than in otherfields -- which already have plenty, aswe know. To make life -- that is to say,

lying -- easier for the sages chosen bythe system's masters, it has beenfound useful also to changemeasurements, to vary themaccording to a large number ofcriteria, and refine them, so as to beable to juggle as necessary with arange of figures which are hard toconvert. Hence, to measureradioactivity levels, one can choosefrom a range of units of measurementcuries, becquerels, roentgens, radsalias centigrays, and rems, not

forgetting the humble millirads, and

sieverts which are worth 100 rems.[16] It reminds one of the oldsubdivisions of British currency whichforeigners found so confusing, back inthe days when Sellafield was still

called Windscale. One can imaginethe rigor and precision which wouldhave been achieved in the nineteenthcentury by military history, and thusby theorists of strategy, if, so as not togive too much confidential informationto neutral commentators or enemyhistorians, campaigns were invariablydescribed in the following manner:

"The preliminary phase involved aseries of engagements in which, fromour side, a strong advance force made

up of four generals and the unitsunder their command, met an enemyforce of 13,000 bayonets. In thesubsequent phase a fiercely disputedpitched battle developed, in which ourentire army advanced, with 290canons and a heavy cavalry of 18,000sabers; the confronting enemyalignment comprised no less than3,600 infantry lieutenants, 40 captainsof hussars and 24 of cuirassiers.Following alternate advances andretreats on both sides, the battle can

finally be seen as inconclusive. Ourlosses, somewhat lower than theaverage figure normally expected incombat of similar duration andintensity, were appreciably superior tothose of the Greeks at Marathon, butremained inferior to those of thePrussians at Jena."

In this example, it is not impossible fora specialist to gather some vague ideaof the forces engaged. But theconduct of operations remains

securely concealed. In June 1987,Pierre Bacher, deputy director ofinstallations at Electricite de France,revealed the latest safety doctrine fornuclear power stations. By installingvalves and filters it becomes mucheasier to avoid major catastrophes,like cracks or explosions in thereactors, which would affect a whole'region.' Such catastrophes areproduced by excessive containment.Whenever the plant looks like blowing,it is better to decompress gently,

showering only a restricted area of a

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few kilometers, an area which on eachoccasion will be differently andhaphazardly extended depending onthe wind. He discloses that in the pasttwo years discreet experiments

carried out at Cadarache, in theDrome, "clearly showed that wastegas essentially is infinitesimal,representing at worst one per cent ofthe radioactivity in the power stationitself." Thus a very moderate worstcase: one per cent. Formerly, we wereassured there was no risk at all,except in the case of accidents, whichwere logically impossible. Theexperience of the first few yearschanged this reasoning as follows:since accidents can always happen,

what must be avoided is theirreaching a catastrophic threshold, andthat is easy. All that is necessary is tocontaminate little by little, inmoderation. Who would not agree thatit is infinitely healthier to limit yourselfto an intake of 140 centilitres of vodkaper day for several years, rather thangetting drunk right away like thePoles? It is indeed unfortunate thathuman society should encounter suchburning problems just when it has

become materially impossible to makeheard the least objection to thelanguage of the commodity, just whenpower -- quite rightly because it isshielded by the spectacle from anyresponse to its piecemeal anddelirious decisions and justifications --believes that it no longer needs tothink; and indeed can no longer think.Would not even the staunchestdemocrat have preferred to havebeen given more intelligent masters?At the international conference of

experts held in Geneva in December1986, the question was quite simplywhether to introduce a worldwide banon the production ofchlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the gaseswhich have recently and rapidlystarted to destroy the thin layer ofozone, which as will be recalledprotects this planet against theharmful effects of solar rays. DanielVerilhe, representing Elf-Aquitaine'schemicals subsidiary, and in thiscapacity part of a French delegation

firmly opposed to any ban, made a

sensible point, "it will take at leastthree years to develop substitutes andthe costs will be quadrupled." As weknow, this fugitive ozone layer, sohigh up, belongs to no one and has no

market value. This industrial strategistcould thus show his opponents theextent of their inexplicable disregardfor economics: "It is highly dangerousto base an industrial strategy onenvironmental imperatives." Thosewho long ago had embarked on acritique of political economy bydefining it as "the final denial ofhumanity" were not mistaken. [17]This will be seen as its definingcharacteristic.

XIV.

It is sometimes said that sciencetoday is subservient to theimperatives of profit, but that isnothing new. What is new is the waythe economy has now come to declareopen war on humanity, attacking notonly our possibilities for living, but ourchances of survival. It is here that

science -- renouncing the oppositionto slavery that formed a significantpart of its own history -- has chosen toput itself at the service of spectaculardomination. Until it got to this point,science possessed a relativeautonomy. It knew how to understandits own portion of reality and in thishas made an immense contribution toincreasing economic resources. Whenan all-powerful economy lost itsreason -- and that is precisely whatdefines these spectacular times -- it

suppressed the last vestiges ofscientific autonomy, both inmethodology and, by the same token,in the practical working conditions ofits 'researchers.' No longer is scienceasked to understand the world, or toimprove any part of it. It is askedinstead to immediately justifyeverything that happens. As stupid inthis field, which it exploits with themost ruinous disregard, as it iseverywhere else, spectaculardomination has cut down the vast treeof scientific knowledge in order to

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make itself a truncheon. To obey thisultimate social demand for amanifestly impossible justification, it isbetter not to be able to think at all,but rather to be well trained in the

conveniences of spectacularlanguage. And it is in such a careerthat the prostituted science of ourdespicable times has found its latestspecialization, with goodwill andalacrity. The science of lyingjustifications naturally appeared withthe first symptoms of bourgeoissociety's decadence, with thecancerous proliferation of thosepseudo-sciences known as 'human';yet modern medicine, for example,had once been able to pass as useful,

and those who eradicated smallpox orleprosy were very different from thosewho contemptibly capitulated in theface of nuclear radiation or chemicalfarming. It can readily be seen, ofcourse, that medicine today no longerhas the right to defend public healthagainst a pathogenic environment, forthat would be to challenge the state,or at least the pharmaceuticalsindustry. But it is not only by itsobligation to keep quiet that

contemporary science acknowledgeswhat it has become. It is also by itsfrequent and artless outbursts. InNovember 1985, professors Even andAndrieu at Laennec hospitalannounced that they had perhapsfound an effective cure for AIDS,following an experiment on fourpatients which had lasted a week. Twodays later, the patients having died,several other doctors, whose researchwas not so far advanced, or who wereperhaps jealous, expressed certain

reservations as to the professors'precipitate haste in broadcasting whatwas merely the misleadingappearance of victory -- a few hoursbefore the patients' condition finallydeteriorated. Even and Andrieudefended themselves nonchalantly,arguing that "after all, false hopes arebetter than no hope at all." Theirignorance was too great for them torecognize this argument as a preciseand complete disavowal of the spiritof science; as the one which had

historically always served to endorse

the profitable daydreams ofcharlatans and sorcerers, long beforesuch people were put in charge ofhospitals. When official science hascome to such a pass, like all the rest

of the social spectacle that for all itsmaterially modernized and enhancedpresentation is merely reviving theancient techniques of fairgroundmountebanks -- illusionists, bankersand stool-pigeons[18] -- it is notsurprising to see a similar andwidespread revival of the authority ofseers and sects, of vacuum-packedZen or Mormon theology. Ignorance,which has always served theauthorities well, has also always beenexploited by ingenious ventures on

the fringes of the law. And what bettermoment than one where illiteracy hasbecome so widespread? But thisreality in its turn is denied by a newdisplay of sorcery. From its inception,UNESCO had adopted a very precisescientific definition of the illiteracywhich it strove to combat in backwardcountries. When the samephenomenon was unexpectedly seento be returning, but this time in theso-called advanced nations, rather in

the way that the one who was waitingfor Grouchy instead saw Blucher jointhe battle [19], it was simply a matterof calling in the Guard of experts; theycarried the day with a single,unstoppable assault, replacing theword illiteracy by 'languagedifficulties': just as a 'false patriot' cansometimes arrive at an opportunemoment to support a good nationalcause. And to ensure that thepertinence of this neologism was,between pedagogues, carved in stone,

a new definition was quickly handedround -- as if it had always beenaccepted -- according to which, whilethe illiterate was, as we know,someone who had never learnt toread, those with language difficultiesin the modern sense are on thecontrary people who had learnt toread (and had even learnt better thanbefore, coolly proposed the moregifted official theorists and historiansof pedagogy), but who had by chanceimmediately forgotten again. This

surprising explanation might have

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been more disturbing than reassuring,if, by deliberately missing the point, ithad not skillfully sidestepped the firstconsequence which would have cometo anyone's mind in more scientific

eras. That is, the recognition that thisnew phenomenon had itself to beexplained and combated, since it hadnever been observed or evenimagined anywhere before the recentprogress of damaged thought, whenanalytical and practical decadence gohand in hand.

XV.

More than a century ago, A.-L.Sardou's Nouveau Dictionnaire desSynonymes Francais defined thenuances which must be graspedbetween fallacious, deceptive,impostrous, inveigling, insidious,captious; and which taken togetherconstitute today a kind of palette ofcolors with which to paint a portrait ofthe society of the spectacle. It wasbeyond the scope of his time, and hisspecialist experience, for Sardou to

distinguish with equal clarity therelated, but very different, meaningsof the perils normally expected to befaced by any group which practicessubversion, following, for example,this progression: misguided,provoked, infiltrated, manipulated,taken over, subverted. Certainly theseimportant nuances have never beenappreciated by the doctrinaires of'armed struggle.' [20]

Fallacious [fallacieux], from the Latin

fallaciosus, adept at or accustomed todeception, full of deceit: the definitionof this adjective is equivalent to thesuperlative of deceptive [trompeur].That which deceives or leads intoerror in any way is deceptive: thatwhich is done in order to deceive,abuse, lead into error by planintended to deceive with artifice andmisleading confidence mostcalculated to abuse, is fallacious.Deceptive is a generic and vagueword; all forms of uncertain signs and

appearance are deceptive: fallacious

denotes duplicity, deceit, studiedimposture; sophistic speech,asseveration or reasoning isfallacious. The word has affinities withimpostrous [imposteur], inveigling

[seducteur], insidious [insidieux] andcaptious [captieux], but withoutequivalence. Impostrous denotes allforms of false appearance, orconspiracies to abuse or injure; forexample, hypocrisy, calumny, etc.Inveigling expresses action calculatedto take possession of someone, tolead them astray by artful andinsinuating means. Insidious onlyindicates the act of placing traps andentrapping. Captious is restricted tothe subtle act of taking by surprise

and taking in. Fallacious encompassesmost of these definitions.

XVI.

The relatively new concept ofdisinformation was recently importedfrom Russia, along with a number ofother inventions useful in the runningof modern states. It is openly

employed by particular powers, or,consequently, by people who holdfragments of economic or politicalauthority, in order to maintain what isestablished; and always in a counter-offensive role. Whatever can oppose asingle official truth must necessarilybe disinformation emanating fromhostile or at least rival powers, andwould have been intentionally andmalevolently falsified. Disinformationwould not be simple negation of a factwhich suits the authorities, or the

simple affirmation of a fact whichdoes not suit them: that is calledpsychosis. Unlike the straightforwardlie, disinformation must inevitablycontain a degree of truth but onedeliberately manipulated by an artfulenemy. That is what makes it soattractive to the defenders of thedominant society. The power whichspeaks of disinformation does notbelieve itself to be absolutelyfaultless, but knows that it canattribute to any precise criticism theexcessive insignificance which

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characterizes disinformation; with theresult that it will never have to admitto any particular fault.

In essence, disinformation would be a

travesty of the truth. Whoeverdisseminates it is culpable, whoeverbelieves it is stupid. But who preciselywould this artful enemy be? In thiscase, it cannot be terrorism, which isin no danger of 'disinforming' anyone,since it is charged with ontologicallyrepresenting the grossest and leastacceptable error. Thanks to itsetymology and to present memoriesof those limited confrontations which,around mid-century, briefly opposedEast and West, concentrated

spectacle and diffuse spectacle, thecapitalism of today's integratedspectacle still pretends to believe thatthe capitalism of bureaucratictotalitarianism -- sometimes evenpresented as the terrorists' base campor inspiration -- remains itsfundamental enemy, despite theinnumerable proofs of their profoundalliance and solidarity. But actually allestablished powers, despite certaingenuine local rivalries, and withoutever wanting to spell it out, never

forget what one of the rare Germaninternationalists after the outbreak ofthe First World War managed to recall(on the side of subversion and withoutany great immediate success): "Themain enemy is within." In the end,disinformation is the equivalent ofwhat was represented in thenineteenth-century language of socialwar as 'dangerous passions.' It is allthat is obscure and threatens tooppose the unprecedented happinesswhich we know this society offers tothose who trust it, a happiness whichgreatly outweighs various insignificantrisks and disappointments. Andeveryone who sees this happiness inthe spectacle agrees that we shouldnot grumble about its price; everyoneelse is a disinformer.

The other advantage derived fromdenouncing a particular instance ofdisinformation in this way is that itwards off any suspicion that thespectacle's global language might

contain the same thing. With the most

scientific assurance, the spectacle canidentify the only place wheredisinformation could be found: inanything which can be said that mightdisplease it.

It is doubtless by mistake -- unless itbe a deliberate decoy -- that a projectwas recently set in motion in Franceto place a kind of official label onsome parts of the media guaranteeingthem 'free from disinformation.' Thiswounded certain media professionals,who still believe, or more modestlywould still like it to be believed, thatuntil now they had not actually beensubject to censorship. But the conceptof disinformation must never be used

defensively, still less as part of a staticdefense, building a Great Wall orMaginot Line around an areasupposedly out of bounds todisinformation. There must bedisinformation, and it must besomething fluid and potentiallyubiquitous. Where the language of thespectacle is not under attack it wouldbe foolish to defend it, and theconcept would wear out very fastindeed if one were to try to defend itagainst all the evidence on points

which ought on the contrary to bekept from public view. Moreover theauthorities have no real need toguarantee that any particularinformation does not containdisinformation. Nor have they themeans to do so: they are notrespected to that extent, and wouldonly draw down suspicion on theinformation concerned. The concept ofdisinformation is only valid forcounter-attack. It must be kept inreserve, then rapidly thrown into thefray to drive back any truth which hasmanaged to get through.

If occasionally a kind of unregulateddisinformation threatens to appear, inthe service of particular intereststemporarily in conflict, and threatensto be believed, getting out of controland thus clashing with the concertedwork of a less irresponsibledisinformation, there is no reason tofear that the former involves othermanipulators who are more subtle or

more skilled: it is simply because

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disinformation now spreads in a worldwhere there is no room forverification.

The confusionist concept of

disinformation is pushed into thelimelight immediately to refute, by itsvery name, any criticism that hasfailed to be eliminated by the diverseagencies of the organization ofsilence. For example it could one daybe said, should this seem desirable,that this text was an attempt todisinform about the spectacle; orindeed, since it is the same thing, thatit was a piece of disinformationharmful to democracy.

Contrary to its spectacular definition,the practice of disinformation can onlyserve the state here and now, underits direct command, or at the initiativeof those who uphold the same values.Disinformation is actually inherent inall existing information; and indeed isits main characteristic. It is onlynamed where passivity must bemaintained by intimidation. Wheredisinformation is named it does notexist. Where it exists, it is not named.

When there were still conflicting

ideologies, which claimed to be for oragainst some recognized aspect ofreality, there were fanatics, and liars,but there were no 'disinformers.'When respect for the spectacularconsensus, or at least a desire forspectacular kudos prohibits anyhonest declaration of what someone isagainst, or equally what hewholeheartedly approves; and whenat the same time he needs to disguisea part of what he is supposed toacknowledge because for one reasonor another it is considered dangerous,then he employs disinformation, as ifby blunder or negligence, or bypretended false reasoning. In politicalactivity after 1968, for example, theincompetent recuperators known as'pro-situs,' became the firstdisinformers because they did theirbest to hide all practicalmanifestations which confirmed thecritique they claimed to have adopted;and, without the slightest

embarrassment at weakening itsexpression, never referred to anything

or anyone, in order to suggest thatthey themselves had actuallydiscovered something.

XVII.

Reversing Hegel's famous maxim, Inoted as long ago as 1967 that "in aworld that has really been turnedupside down, truth is a moment offalsehood." In the intervening years,this principle has encroached uponeach specific domain, withoutexception.

Thus in an era when contemporary art

can no longer exist, it becomesdifficult to judge classical art. Here aselsewhere, ignorance is only createdin order to be exploited. As themeanings of history and taste are lost,networks of falsification are organized.It is only necessary to control theexperts and auctioneers, which iseasy enough, to arrange everything,since in this kind of business -- and atthe end of the day in every other kind-- it is the sale which authenticatesthe value. Afterwards it is thecollectors and museums, particularlyin America, who, gorged on falsehood,will have an interest in upholding itsgood reputation, just as theInternational Monetary Fundmaintains the fiction of a positivevalue in the huge debts of dozens ofcountries.

What is false creates taste, andreinforces itself by knowinglyeliminating any possible reference tothe authentic. And what is genuine is

reconstructed as quickly as possible,to resemble the false. Being therichest and the most modern, theAmericans have been the main dupesof this traffic in false art. And they areexactly the same people who pay forrestoration work at Versailles or in theSistine Chapel. This is whyMichelangelo's frescoes will acquirethe fresh, bright colors of a cartoonstrip, and the genuine furniture atVersailles, the sparkling gilt which willmake them resemble the fake Louis

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XIV suites imported by Texans at suchgreat expense.

Feuerbach's judgment on the fact thathis time preferred "the sign to the

thing signified, the copy to theoriginal, fancy to reality," has beenthoroughly vindicated by the centuryof the spectacle, and in severalspheres where the nineteenth centurypreferred to keep its distance fromwhat was already its fundamentalnature: industrial capitalism. Thus itwas that the bourgeoisie had widelydisseminated the rigorous mentality ofthe museum, the original object,precise historical criticism, theauthentic document. Today, however,

the tendency to replace the real withthe artificial is ubiquitous. In thisregard, it is fortuitous that trafficpollution has necessitated thereplacement of the Marly Horses inplace de la Concorde, or the Romanstatues in the doorway of Saint-Trophime in Arles, by plastic replicas.Everything will be more beautiful thanbefore, for the tourists' cameras.

The high point in this process hasdoubtless been reached by the

Chinese bureaucracy's laughable fakeof the vast terra-cotta industrial armyof the First Emperor, which so manyvisiting statesmen have been taken toadmire in situ. A clear demonstration,since it was possible to fool them socruelly, that in all their hordes ofadvisors, there is not one singleindividual who knows about art historyin China, or anywhere else -- 'YourExcellency's computers have no dataon this subject.' Such a confirmationof the fact that for the first time in

history it is possible to govern withoutthe slightest understanding of art or ofwhat is authentic and what isimpossible, could alone suffice tomake us suppose that the credulousfools who run the economy and theadministration will probably lead theworld to some great catastrophe; iftheir actual practice had not alreadymade that crystal clear.

XVIII.

Our society is built on secrecy, fromthe 'front' organizations which drawan impenetrable screen over theconcentrated wealth of theirmembers, to the 'official secrets'

which allow the state a vast field ofoperation free from any legalconstraint; from the often frighteningsecrets of shoddy production hiddenby advertising, to the projections of anextrapolated future, in whichdomination alone reads off the likelyprogress of things whose existence itdenies, calculating the responses itwill mysteriously make. Someobservations can be made on thesematters.

There are ever more places in citiesand in the countryside which remaininaccessible, that is to say protectedand shielded from public gaze; whichare out of bounds to the innocentlycurious, and well guarded againstespionage. Without all being strictlymilitary, they follow the military modelin preventing any prying incursion bylocal people or passers-by; or even bythe police, whose functions have longbeen reduced to mere surveillanceand repression of the most

commonplace forms of delinquency.Thus it was that, when Aldo Moro wasa prisoner ofPotere Due[21], he washeld, not in a building which could notbe found, but in one which could notbe entered.

There are ever more people trained toact in secret; prepared and practicedfor that alone. There are special unitsarmed with confidential archives, thatis to say, with secret data andanalysis. There are others armed with

a range of techniques for theexploitation and manipulation of thesesecrets. And finally there are the'active' units, equipped with othermeans to simplify the problems inquestion.

The resources allocated to thesespecialists in surveillance andinfluence continue to increase, whilegeneral circumstances favor themmore by the year. When, for example,the new conditions of integrated

spectacular society have driven itscritique into genuine clandestinity, not

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because it is in hiding but because itis hidden by the ponderous stage-management of diversionary thought,those who are nonethelessresponsible for its surveillance, and in

the end for its denial, can now employtraditional methods for operations inclandestine milieus: provocation,infiltration, and various forms ofelimination of authentic critique infavor of a false one which will havebeen created for this purpose. [22]When the spectacle's generalimposture is enriched with recourse toa thousand individual impostures,uncertainty grows at every turn. Anunexplained crime can also be calledsuicide [23], in prison as elsewhere;

the collapse of logic allows trials andinquiries which soar into irrationality,and which are frequently falsified rightfrom the start through absurdautopsies, performed by extraordinaryexperts. [24]

We have long been accustomed tosummary executions of all kinds ofpeople. Known terrorists, or thoseconsidered as such, are openly foughtwith terrorist methods. Mossad canarrange the killing of Abou Jihad [25],

the SAS can do the same with Irishpeople [26], and the parallel police ofGAL with Basques [27]. Those whosekillings are arranged by supposedterrorists are not chosen withoutreason; but it is generally impossibleto be sure of understanding thesereasons. One can be aware thatBologna railway station was blown upto ensure that Italy continued to bewell governed [28]; or of the identityof the 'death squads' in Brazil; or thatthe Mafia can burn down a hotel in theUnited States to facilitate a racket.But how can we know what purposewas ultimately served by the 'madkillers of Brabant'? [29]It is hard toapply the principle Cui prodest?[30]where so many active interests are sowell concealed. The result is thatunder the rule of the integratedspectacle, we live and die at theconfluence of innumerable mysteries.

Media/police rumors acquire instantly-- or at worst after three or four

repetitions -- the indisputable status

of age-old historical evidence. By thelegendary authority of the spectacleof the day, odd characters eliminatedin silence can reappear as fictivesurvivors, whose return can always be

conjured up or computed, and provedby the mere say-so of specialists.They exist somewhere between theAcheron and the Lethe, these deadwhom the spectacle has not properlyburied[31], supposedly slumberingwhile awaiting the summons whichwill awake them all: home is thepirate, home from the sea, and theterrorist home from the hill; home,too, the thief who no longer needs tosteal. [32]

Thus is uncertainty organizedeverywhere. Often domination willprotect itself by false attacks, whosemedia coverage covers up the trueoperation. Such was the case with thebizarre assault on the Spanish Cortesby Tejero and his civil guards in 1981,whose failure had to hide anothermore modern, that is to say, moredisguised pronunciamiento, whichsucceeded. [33] The equally showyfailure of the French secret services'sabotage attempt in New Zealand in

1985 has sometimes been seen as astratagem, perhaps designed to divertattention from the numerous newuses of these secret services, bypersuading people of their caricaturalclumsiness both in their choice oftarget and in their mode of operation.[34] It has most certainly been almostuniversally accepted that thegeological explorations for oil-beds inthe subsoil of the city of Paris, sonoisily conducted in the autumn of1986, had no other serious purposethan to measure the inhabitants'current level of stupefaction andsubmission: by showing themsupposed research so absolutelydevoid of economic reason.

So mysterious has power become thatafter the affair of the illegal armssales to Iran by the US presidency[35], one might wonder who wasreally running the United States, theleading power in the so-calleddemocratic world. And thus who the
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hell was running the democraticworld?

More profoundly, in this world which isofficially so respectful of economic

necessities, no one ever knows thereal cost of anything which isproduced. In fact the major part of thereal cost is never calculated; and therest is kept secret.

XIX.

At the beginning of 1988, a certainGeneral Noriega suddenly becameworld famous. He was the unofficial

dictator of Panama, a country withoutan army, where he commanded theNational Guard. Panama is not really asovereign state: it was dug out for itscanal, rather than the reverse. Itscurrency is the dollar, and the armywhich runs it is similarly foreign.Noriega had thus devoted his entirecareer -- precisely like [General]Jaruzelski in Poland -- to serving theoccupying power as its chief of police.He imported drugs into the UnitedStates, since Panama was not bringinghim sufficient revenue, and exportedhis 'Panamanian' capital toSwitzerland. He had worked with theCIA against Cuba and, to provideadequate cover for his businessactivities, had also denounced someof his rivals in the import trade to theUS authorities, obsessed as they arewith this problem. To the envy ofWashington, his chief security advisorwas the best on the market: MichaelHarari, a former officer with Mossad,

the Israeli secret service. When theAmericans finally decided to get rid ofthis character, some of their courtshaving carelessly condemned him,Noriega proclaimed that he was readyto defend himself for a thousand years-- against foreigners, and against hisown rebellious people; in the name ofanti-imperialism he quickly receivedpublic support from the more austerebureaucratic dictators in Cuba andNicaragua.

Far from being a peculiarlyPanamanian phenomenon, this

General Noriega, who sells everythingand fakes everything, in a world whichdoes precisely the same thing, wasaltogether a perfect representative ofthe integrated spectacle, and of the

successes it allows the assortedmanagers of its internal and externalpolitics: a sort of statesman in a sortof state, a sort of general, a capitalist.He is the very model ofour modernprince[36]and of those destined tocome to power and stay there, themost able resemble him closely. It isnot Panama which produces suchmarvels, it is our times.

XX.

For any intelligence service, followingClausewitz's accurate theory of war,knowledge must become power. Fromthis these services derive theircontemporary prestige, theirpeculiarly poetic quality. Whilstintelligence itself has been sothoroughly expelled from thespectacle, which prohibits action andsays very little about the actions of

others, it seems to have taken refugewith those who analyze and secretlyact on certain realities. The recentrevelations that Margaret Thatchertried in vain to suppress, and in factconfirmed by the attempt, haveshown that in Britain these serviceshave already been capable of bringingdown a prime minister whose politicsthey deemed dangerous. [37] Thegeneral contempt created by thespectacle thus, for new reasons,restored the fascination of what in

Kipling's day was called 'the greatgame.'

'The conspiracy theory of history' wasin the nineteenth century areactionary and ridiculous belief, at atime when so many powerful socialmovements were stirring up themasses. Today's pseudo-rebels arewell aware of this, thanks to hearsayor a few books, and believe that itremains true for eternity. They refuseto recognize the real praxis of their

time; it is too sad for their cold hopes.

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The state notes this fact, and plays onit.

When almost every aspect ofinternational political life and ever

more important aspects of internalpolitics are conducted and displayedin the style of the secret services, withdecoys, disinformation and doubleexplanations (one may concealanother, or may only seem to), thespectacle confines itself to revealing awearisome world of necessaryincomprehensibility. This tediousseries of lifeless, inconclusive crimenovels has all the dramatic interest ofa realistically staged fight betweenblacks, at night, in a tunnel.

When television has shown a finepicture and explained it with a brazenlie, idiots believe that everything isclear. The demi-elite is content toknow that almost everything isobscure, ambivalent, 'constructed' byunknown codes. A more exclusiveelite would like to know what is true,hard as it is to distinguish in eachparticular case, despite all theiraccess to special knowledge andconfidences. Which is why they would

like to get to know the method oftruth, though their love usuallyremains unrequited.

XXI.

Secrecy dominates this world, andfirst and foremost as the secret ofdomination. According to thespectacle, secrecy would only be anecessary exception to the rule of

freely available, abundantinformation, just as domination in theintegrated spectacle's 'free world'would be restricted to a mereexecutive body in the service ofdemocracy. But no one really believesthe spectacle. How then do spectatorsaccept the existence of secrecy whichalone rules out any chance of theirrunning a world of whose principalrealities they know nothing, in theunlikely event that they were to beasked how to set about it? The fact isthat almost no one sees secrecy in its

inaccessible purity and its functionaluniversality. Everyone accepts thatthere are inevitably little areas ofsecrecy reserved for specialists; asregards things in general, many

believe they are in on the secret.

In his Discours sur la servitudevolontaire, La Boetie showed how atyrant's power will be considerablyreinforced by the concentric circles ofindividuals who believe, rightly orwrongly, that it is in their interests tosupport it. In the same way manypoliticians and media professionalswho are flattered not to be suspectedof being irresponsible, learn a lotthrough their connections and

confidences. Someone who is happyto be given confidential information ishardly likely to criticize it; nor tonotice that in all that is confided tohim, the principal part of reality isinvariably hidden. Thanks to thebenevolent protection of hisdeceivers, he sees a few more of thecards, false though they may be; henever learns the rules of the game.Thus he immediately identifies withthe manipulators and scorns anignorance which in fact he shares. For

the tidbits of information tossed to thefamiliars of a lying tyranny are usuallypoisoned with lies, manipulated anduncheckable. [38] Yet they gratifythose who get them, for they feelthemselves superior to those whoknow nothing. Their only role is tomake domination more respectable,never to make it comprehensible.They are the privilege of front-rowspectators who are stupid enough tobelieve they can understandsomething, not by making use of whatis hidden from them, but by believingwhat is revealed!

Domination has at least sufficientlucidity to expect that its free andunhindered reign will very shortly leadto a significant number of majorcatastrophes, both ecological(chemical, for example) and economic(in banking, for example). It has forsome time been ensuring it is in aposition to deal with these exceptionalmisfortunes by other means than its

usual gentle use of disinformation.

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XXII.

As to the rising number ofassassinations over the last twodecades (Kennedy, Aldo Moro, OlafPalme, ministers and bankers, a popeor two, some others who were worthmore than all of them) [39], all ofwhich have remained completelyunsolved -- for, while the oddsupernumerary has been sacrificed,there has never been any question ofapprehending those who hold thepurse strings -- their serial charactershows a common hallmark: the

blatant, and variable, lies of officialstatements. The syndrome of thisnewly established social disease hasquickly spread, as if, following the firstdocumented cases, it moved downfrom the summits of the state (thetraditional sphere for such crimes) andat the same time moved up from thelower depths, the other traditionallocale for trafficking and protectionrackets, where this kind of war hasalways gone on, betweenprofessionals. These activities tend tomeet up in the middle of social affairs,a place which the state was preparedto frequent and which the Mafia waspleased to reach; thus a kind ofconfluence begins. [40]

There has been no shortage ofattempts to explain these newmysteries in terms of accidents: policeincompetence, stupid magistrates,untimely press revelations, crisis ofgrowth in the secret services,malevolent witnesses, or police spies

suddenly deciding to go on strike. ButEdgar Allan Poe had alreadydiscovered the real path to truth, in aw

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