Chapter 3, Unity and Division within Appearance Summary and Analysis

Chapter 3 presents theses 54 through 72. Chapter 3 begins with a quote taken from the 21 September 1964 issue of Red Flag. Chapter 3 tackles the difficult topic of unity within diversity. The general approach is to demonstrate that perceived diversity is in fact a carefully modulated presentation of the unified spectacle. Although nobody deliberately controls the presentation, it is inherent within the universal construction of the spectacle. Thus, within the spectacle, observed diversity is in fact meaningless. The struggle for spectacular power provides the only real unity. The struggle is presented as real, for example, but the struggle only represents aspects of it, e.g., Communism. The spectacle colonizes society through false goods, presumed specializations within production, and false geographical localizations. Local resistance always loses to the global spectacle.

Within the spectacle, the consumer's supposed choice...