In "The Society of the Spectacle" - published in 1967 - Guy Debord systematically exposes the ways in which modern society operates, as shaped by the late 1920s and escalating, paroxysmally and paranoidly, up to the present day. Half a century after its first publication, this unique book remains dynamically relevant. Debord writes: "The spectacle cannot be understood as a misuse of the world of vision, as a product of techniques of mass dissemination of images. It is rather a Weltanschauung [worldview] that has become reality, that has been expressed materially. It is a view of the world that has become objective."
As for the author himself, he followed throughout his life and until his voluntary death a single rule. He summarizes it in the preface of the third French edition of this work: "One must read this book with the understanding that it was written with the intention of harming the society of the spectacle. I never said anything outrageous."