The Society of the Spectacle

In this chapter, Debord takes up the topic of the relationship between theory and praxis, or the relationship that allows for knowledge to be translated into actions that substantially transform the world. In addition, Debord undertakes an analysis of the relationship between thought and action against the backdrop of the historical debates between socialists, communists, and anarchists in the 1860s and 1870s.

For Debord, the first key moment that establishes the possibility of fusing thought and action such that social revolution would be the product of this synthesis is Marx’s critique of Hegel. As Debord notes, while Marx’s analysis of capitalism remains forever indebted to Hegel’s dialectical method, Hegel fell short of translating thought into action precisely because, for him, theory was grounded upon the principles of logic and reason and not founded upon historical and material conditions.

Marx, by contrast, began from the idea that theory always finds itself grounded within a historical context and thus to translate thought into revolutionary action, one must first understand the historical conditions that oppress and hinder collective freedom. However, according to Debord, Marx himself fell short of the aim of fusing thought and action in order to give rise to a revolutionary practice precisely because Marx’s analysis of Capital still gave priority to the faithful theoretical understanding of the structure of capitalist society over and against the genesis of a theory of capitalism that emerged from workers struggles themselves.