All That Once Was Directly

In Our Society Now, We Prefer To See Ourselves Living Than Living.

It Is Hardly Surprising That Children Should Enthusiastically Start Their Education At An Early Age With The Absolute Knowledge Of Computer Science; While They Are Unable To Read, For Reading Demands Making Judgments At Every Line. Conversation Is Almost Dead, And Soon So Too Will Be Those Who Knew How To Speak.

Work Is Only Justified By Leisure Time. To Admit The Emptiness Of Leisure Time Is To Admit The Impossibility Of Life.

In Societies Where Modern Conditions Of Productions Prevail, All Of Life Presents Itself As An Immense Accumulation Of Spectacles. Everything That Was Directly Lived Has Moved Away Into Representation. The Images Detached From Every Aspect Of Life Fuse In A Common Stream In Which The Unity Of This Life Can No Longer Be Re-established. Reality Considered Partially Unfolds, In Its Own General Unity As A Pseudo-world Apart, An Object Of Mere Contemplation . . . The Spectacle Is Not A Collection Of Images, But A Social Relation Among People, Mediated By Images.

No Longer Is Science Asked To Understand The World, Or To Improve Any Part Of It. It Is Asked Instead To Immediately Justify Everything That Happens... Spectacular Domination Has Cut Down The Vast Tree Of Scientific Knowledge In Order To Make Itself A Truncheon.