Riots as the opposite of a spectacle
A spectacle is something distinctive, out of the ordinary, different from every life, which is used by the powerful to distract the masses from their reality. A spectacle is something the audience watches, not something they take part in, and it serves to keep people quiet. In this sense, the London summer riots cannot be seen as a spectacle, as they do not serve as means of escapism – instead of them freeing the public from the burden of existential anxiety, the riots served as a focus lens pointing towards exactly what was wrong with the current economical, political or social system.
The spectacle is something that requires little to no intellectual participation, as it engages the emotion and overrides the mind. In theatre, the mind is engaged and provokes the feeling, while in spectacle, if it is working, it is only the emotions that are triggered, as the audience is swept away. The spectacle provides an alley to get rid of the existential anxiety, which comes as a result of self-understanding and self-doubt, and it is a time when self-consciousness and life worries disappear. From this point of view, the London riots are obviously an event, completely different to what a spectacle is, as they not only provoke the mind and not so much the emotion, but also heighten the sense of existential anxiety and bring to front the problems of one's social circumstances.
In the words of Debord, “the spectacle aims at nothing other than itself”, it is not a means of bringing up other issues or provoke deeper thoughts. However, in the case of the London riots, the situation did not draw attention to the riots themselves, as a spectacle would have, but to what had happened to Mark Duggan, as well as other serious issues, such as the current political situation, as well as the state of the British youth and the conflict with regard to ethnic minorities and immigrants. Hence the riots cannot be seen as a means of distracting people from their reality, overriding the mind and keeping them passive and quiet, as it was, in fact, a wake-up call which pointed towards people's reality and forced them to use their mind and be active, to voice their concerns, opinions and issues.
In Ancient Rome, the spectacle was used to control the mob and distract them from challenging the dictatorial nature of the regime. McClelland quotes Tacitus's description of the battle within the walls of Rome between Vitellius and Vespasian in 69 AD, which says: “The crowd can no longer see the difference between games and the great events of the empire; everything has become a public spectacle”. And that is exactly the nature of the spectacle – an event, which distracts, which takes away the focus from the more important social matters, which allows the public to be consumed by the emotions the spectacle provokes and use it as escapism. Clearly, in the case of the London riots, the thoughts came before the emotions and it was not an event which allowed the public to be distracted, but exactly the opposite, to become more focused on the current social regime.
If we were to compare the London riots to some other contemporary spectacles, the differences would be clear. Whether that would be the royal wedding or the deaths of Michael Jackson or Heath Ledger, whether they would be murder trials or television talent shows, it is clear how those events are, in themselves, spectacles, and even more so when enforced by the media coverage of them. They don't provoke deep thoughts, they don't provoke discussions on one's social reality – instead, people identify with celebrities and they get a feeling of participation in talent shows or the royal wedding in an attempt to escape from that social reality. In comparison to those, the London riots were an event which provoked people to take a look at their circumstances and challenge the existing current order, even if not with physical actions, but they certainly required the use of one's mind. As opposed to spectacles, where the public receives pleasure from the illusion of participation, people did a conscious effort to distance themselves and to not participate in the situation, they did not identify themselves with the rioters.
Instead of a passively receiving audience, everyone became part of the crowd. In the way Le Bon describes it, it is easy to define the rioters as a psychological crowd: “Whoever be the individuals that compose it [the psychological crowd], however like or unlike be their mode of life, their occupations, their character, or their intelligence, the fact that they have been transformed into a crowd puts them in possession of a sort of collective mind which makes them feel, think, and act in a manner quite different from that in which each individual of them would feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation”. But Le Bon also says: “The disappearance of conscious personality and the turning of feelings and thoughts in a definite direction do not always involve the simultaneous presence of a number of individuals on one spot. Thousands of isolated individuals may acquire at certain moments the characteristics of a psychological crowd”. In this sense, society itself became a part of the crowd, and not, as in a case of a simple spectacle, a passive audience, escaping from their social reality.
A few examples:
Ukranian spectacle show - creates strong emotions, awe, admiration, one is thinking 'wow, that's incredible'; a situation which provokes the feeling and overrides the mind
William and Kate's kiss on the balcony – creates feelings of joy and happiness, the illusion of being a part of the royal family's celebration and participating in the spectacle; strengthening the image of the royal family as being more powerful, being something special
London riots report
– provokes first thought, then feeling; arouses arguments and discussions on the reasons behind the riots, on race, immigration and other social issues)
Resources:
Gustave Le Bon, “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”
John McClelland, “The Crowd and the Mob: From Plato to Canetti”
Guy Debord, “The Society of the Spectacle”Labels: 305mc |
