Page 141 - Critical Theories of Mass Media

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126 Then
supposed misapprehensions, the spectacle falsely generates a
dichotomy between representation and reception, and so obscures
the fact that its own deeply ideological natural mode of operating
has deliberately generated these misunderstandings in the first
instance.

Terrorism
The Society of the Spectacle argued that the theatrics of adversarial
politics concealed the underlying hegemony of a unitary system, but
under the integrated spectacle simulated conflict is replaced with a
manufactured consensus, a ‘third way’ for which the dominion and
logic of the commodity and spectacle are beyond question. All
‘legitimate’ participants accept as the price of entry a commitment
to the fundamental values of the integrated spectacle (evoking
Adorno’s notion that talented individuals seeking to be successful
within the culture industry belong to it in spirit before they even
begin their quest), which come wrapped in the sugar-coating of the
radical political ideals of the earlier centuries (democracy, free
speech). This creates a situation in which to fundamentally question
the integrated spectacle is effectively to question the inalienable
right to question, and therefore to be an enemy of freedom. This
double bind is part of what Debord describes as the ‘fragile
perfection’ of the integrated spectacle, whose perfection in terms of
its scope and self-sufficiency means that all contradiction assumes the
guise of an irrational ‘other’:
Such a perfect democracy constructs its own inconceivable foe,
terrorism … The story of terrorism is written by the state and it
is therefore highly instructive. The spectators must certainly
never know everything about terrorism, but they must always
know enough to convince them that, compared with terrorism,
everything else must be acceptable, or in any case more
rational and democratic.
(1991: s. N9)
Being unable to accept the principles on which the integrated
spectacle apparently rests, means that this contradiction cannot be
accommodated, but only extirpated. Moreover, in the face of an
alterity that appears to refuse all forms of democratic representation,
‘anything goes’, up to and including the suspension of the very
rights that terrorism will not honour. The intrinsically shadowy
nature of terrorism is perfectly suited to the spectacle’s own agenda,
and its ‘rumors … after three or four repetitions acquire the weight
of secular historical proofs. According to the legendary authority of
the day, strange characters eliminated in silence can reappear as

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