Using your own words, define what Debord means by "the society of the spectacle."

Debord extends Marx's notion of labor production into the modern world, where laborers produce commodities. Consider Debord's notion of commodity. How abstracted do you think a commodity can become? For example, consider this book summary itself. It is a commodity functioning within a spectacular society. As an electronic document it has no physical existence and as a summary of a translated work which responds to another's philosophy, it has a very tenuous claim on significance. Yet somebody is purchasing it.

Debord's central theorem is that being has been replaced by having, and that having has been replaced by appearing to have. Consider the internet, for example. Have you ever known a friend who made a self-presentation on a social networking site? How accurate was their self portrayal? Was it based...