Brooks Needs Debord

David Brooks is writing about the capital S Spectacle but is only concerned with the most vulgar sense of the term, spectacle as diversion or entertainment. In Debord's analysis (developed with the Situationists), “By means of the Spectacle the ruling order discourses endlessly upon itself in an uninterrupted monologue of self-praise.” This is what Brooks gets paid handsomely to do, discourse endlessly. He is incapable of seeing himself performing a role in the totality which is the Spectacle, Capital's all-consuming cultural expression. Carried out by every institution, but especially media. To see the Society of the Spectacle you would have to find a critical space of remove, something htose like Brooks find impossible.