The society of entertainment works to capture our gaze. Yvan Illich rightly pointed out that the direction of our gaze is disappearing. The gaze represented the voluntary freedom of self-construction. According to Nietzsche, learning to see is the first step in the education of the mind. We must cultivate a "long and slow" gaze and control our attention.
Until the time of the Fatimid Egypt (1000), scholasticism perceived universals without images, and transcendent. When Hakim al-Haytham (965-1039) invented the camera obscura, objectivity demystified scholasticism. During the Renaissance, perspective placed the perceived object within a frame, the painting, and it was eventually replaced by the era of the show, which began around 1800 with the creation of the stage and its exclusions.
"Photography has opened limitless horizons for the pathology of progress, as it encouraged us to delegate to the multitude of our vision machines the exorbitant power of looking at the world, representing it, and controlling it." Paul Virilio
Language retains traces of this influence : casting a glance, looking with a bad eye, having a sidelong glance, having a good eye, a contemptuous gaze, an inquisitive eye, for example.
Similarly, in the realm of ideas : the Turks avoid the "evil eye," the envious gaze. While the modern consumer moves from entertainment to advertising, Alfred Binet noted in experimental psychology the importance of what he called "voluntary attention," which is non-natural. "Attention requires concentration, which is the opposite of dispersion. It is inhibited by anxiety and fatigue. It is diverted by circumstances that solicit it outside the desired field" (Léon Michaux - La mémoire). Distraction, the enemy of Blaise Pascal, is systematically organized by the Society of the Spectacle (Guy Debord).
The power of the Spectacle is underestimated.
The existence of a general and independent press is no longer assured, making way for rumors fueled by fear of a conspiracy by the powerful. Social media is the ideal medium for this enclosure. The creation of "filter bubbles" established by internet giants solidifies their profiling.
Information has disappeared ; public authorities have lied too much. The confluence of demagogy, the disease of democracy, and the proliferation of media has replaced the learning of an official discourse with the assertion of an identity.
"Infotainment" acknowledges the primacy of entertainment. The abandonment of the common interest feeds rumors and emotional waves. Emotion, which was used by the media and the state itself, has now become visibly counterproductive, as seen in vaccine refusals, for example.
Entertainment is primarily a distancing from oneself, a loss of consciousness. When education is replaced by entertainment, it produces incomplete beings.
Erwin Panofsky demonstrated the connection between one's perception of reality and its representations, particularly in images.
The dissolution of culture, commercial nihilism, and the gig economy have dissolved the old order, the one that persisted in state television, in favor of a pure distraction, which has asserted itself for itself. The discipline demanded of children allows them to learn self-control, as noted by Emmanuel Kant in his pedagogy treatise : "Discipline prevents man from deviating from his destination, from humanity, due to his brutal inclinations."
A well-founded mistrust of institutions promotes this nihilism, which is easily prone to conspiracy theories.
History, like any search for truth, is abandoned in favor of subjectivity's celebration.
The prevailing belief since the 20th century is that the Spectacle has triumphed : "the show must go on." The message takes precedence over the receiver, who is no longer a subject of anything. This decline has been realized with the rejection of effort and human authority. Only material obligations are respected, while human discourses are considered dubious, subjective, and outside the social sphere. Intervening is seen as impertinence and invites the all-too-classic response : "What business is it of yours ?"
Because the institution must not exclude, the individual must not distinguish. This serves the interests of domination. The moralization of media "elites" aligns with the marketing of capitalism.
Self-possession presupposes the acquisition of willpower. An as objective as possible view, the use of repetitions, and the establishment of habits enable orientation. According to Pierre Bourdieu, who is a reference in this case, "habitus" replaces personality. His "habitus" overlaps with what is commonly referred to as habit and posture, which is another self, the role. However, there is a dialectic between "habitus" and personality: a role allows for expression, and it is already a way to "get into it." The difference between discipline and freedom is not a simple opposition. Habit is a belonging, but it is a belonging that allows for emancipation. Discipline opposes dissipation : being oneself always means departing from what one was. For this, a detour is necessary : one must play their own role. It is the concept of duty that allows us to resist addictions, and, first and foremost, the idea of owing it to oneself.
Individual freedom characterizes the last millennium. Has it found its limit ? How far is one allowed to change their mind and be disloyal ? It is evident that this hypertrophy of the self and the instant cannot last. It creates a precarious world.
Contemporary Spectacle promotes narcissism : the supremacy of personality over the soul, procedure over usage, caprice over obligation. Doing what one wants (...) as opposed to doing what one must.
"Political freedom does not consist in doing what one wants. In a state, that is, in a society where there are laws, freedom can only consist in being able to want what one must, and not being forced to want what one must not." Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, ch. 11
The famous individual responsibility has dissolved into Léon Tolstoy's exhortation : "We are all responsible for everything before everyone."
The bureaucratic response to this injunction has been the dissolution of action in the process, of which the political sphere is the most visible isolate. However, the entire society, including private enterprises, has thus become "detached."
Thus, state laws have become punctual : "The new logic is to create a regulation tailored to the project. It is not up to the project to constrain itself to the rule but for the rule to serve the project." Sylvia Pinel, Minister of Housing, October 22, 2015 (PLU reform project).
"Quality" has been the means to depersonalize activity even further.
The critique of domination can only be understood through the autonomy of individuals : anarchism presupposes responsible citizens. Accepting a tutor and constructing oneself against them requires an understanding of otherness and dialectics.
The repugnant is a reference ; negation is also an affirmation.
"But beyond the values put into circulation, it is the very logic of neoliberalism that challenges contemporary beliefs, giving rise to new forms of extremism (...) neoliberalism, even more than old-style capitalism, promotes the individual's ability to build themselves, choose their destiny, and be the agent of their own success. However, this requires continuous decision-making, the ongoing resolution of dilemmas whose accumulation becomes exhausting and anxiety-inducing. It is no longer just goods and services that we are urged to choose thoughtfully and planned according to our interests, but our job, our romantic partner, our lifestyle, our health, our social or sexual identity... With the consequence of overwhelming responsibility falling on our shoulders in case of disappointment or failure. This is what sociologist Renata Salecl called 'the tyranny of choice.' The psychological cost of this tyranny, the 'burden of being oneself,' leads to a retreat into a pre-defined system of meaning where all choices have already been made for the individual (...) The tyranny of choice is reversed into the choice of tyranny." Patrick Marcolini, The Connected Tyranny (La décroissance n°125 page 3).
Starting from the revolution of love-based marriage against established societies, we have reached the obligation for the post-modern human to construct themselves, and liberation has turned into slavery. This is the paradox of choice shown by Barry Schwartz (TED).
Throughout history, freedom has been a burden for humanity. Emancipation is an effort justified only by the will to transcend oneself : immanence is a weakness that seeks justification through narcissism.
Any parent or educator knows that a child's will is not merely an extension of their desire. To truly be oneself, one must overcome natural laziness, easy temptation, and powerful distraction. Personality consists of finding within oneself a force of resistance: hedonism is built on top of instincts. If a cat's freedom is to catch mice, human freedom requires self-knowledge without waiting for perfect knowledge, which will never come. Thus, freedom joins that of humankind: the honest person does not belong to themselves.
"To free oneself is, all things considered, existentially comfortable, no matter how tough the struggle, because you know what you're freeing yourself from and what you want to achieve. Being liberated is much more challenging to live because you float in the void and feel overwhelmed by the fact that even the slightest of your actions and gestures becomes a matter of conscience. This is what torments us every day. The liberated universe of the new world is a universe of radical uncertainty." Marcel Gauchet, interview of 12/5/17.
European civilization has been built on the strength of the idea of responsibility and individual freedom. Of course, this is a foundational myth that is only valid to a limited extent. People have discussed determinism without noticing that living beings only subscribe to it statistically. If we calculate the time of operations that occur causally and spontaneous wills, we might have a proportion of 1% for the latter, but it is these moments that determine life, and if one has been well educated, they orient themselves from these moments.
After World War II, it became clear that humanity could destroy itself with atomic bombs. Since then, we have come to understand that there are other means. This bad news has accompanied the good news, which is that it has delivered us from many of the fears of the past. Of course, I am speaking for a part of humanity. Faced with these possibilities, human beings will have to be mature if they simply want to survive. Vanity, selfishness, egocentrism, power games as we see in Russia or among the Islamists should no longer be acceptable. If a pilot commits suicide by killing the passengers of his plane, which dictator would want to end the world with him ?