The Securitarian Society of the Spectacle
The Securitarian Society of the Spectacle
This chapter analyzes the spectacle of security. Elaborating on Guy Debord's theses to demystify US establishment ideology, it reveals how history is buried in culture through discourses of “terrorism,” “security,” and “consumption.” The theme of “regeneration through violence” (Pearl Harbor related to the bombing of the Twin Towers) serves to secure a dehistoricized identity, while the spectacle of security assures the continuation of consumption patterns. The latter is necessary to uphold a system that feeds upon a dutiful and patriotic submission to “business-as-usual”; that is, to securing and superintending egotistic social relations in everyday life. The paradox of refuge into mundane comfort in the face of the spectacle of an omnipresent yet elusive menace conceals the fact that the status quo is the real catastrophe.
Keywords: security, Guy Debord, terrorism, consumption, violence, social relations
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