We live in a world that fetishises the image, status and prestige over reality. We’ve created a second world, the ‘spectacle’ as Guy Debord called it. A world we feed with our praise of the image. And unconsciously, we are compelled to live up to its ideals.
As a consequence, we’ve not only kept this world an idea, but we’ve started to live in it. We start to associate people and interact with them through a collection of these images. We discover this through introspection. Think of someone you know, what comes to mind about them? Their job, appearance, and maybe subconsciously their status? Is this truly what the person is?
Although this sounds like a modern problem, given the obvious example of social media, there are thinkers who noticed this effect some 2400 years ago. Diogenes of Sinope, the father of cynic philosophy, often called ‘’the mad Socrates’’ already rejected the effects of the spectacle in ancient Greece without even knowing it.
As a response, he started living the anti-spectacle lifestyle, a rejection of the materialism that accompanies the fetish of the image. Diogenes wanted to prove that happiness comes from virtue and independence. It came down to the point that his only possession was a wooden bowl. Until one day he came across a boy drinking from a waterfall with his hands. At which Diogenes thought to himself: ‘’this child has bested me in simplicity, he doesn’t even need a bowl.’’
Diogenes then threw away the bowl as well.
The point I’m trying to make here is not to throw away all your products, or to never go shopping again. But it’s rather a call to attention. Try to notice where you are captured into the world of image, and where you are being controlled by it. See the world as it is and not how society has taught you to see it. Become yourself, untouched by the views of others. Let the world know who you truly are.