THE STATE, THE SPECTACLE, AND SEPTEMBER 11 He wo fou ander teison fou place inthe so. —Robect Lowel on eaten Cale, 1971 {We begin ffom the moment in February 2003, with the run-op to wat in rag emering ies fal stages, when the copy oF Peastos Gers hangin ‘he amteroom tthe UN Sccusty Cound Chamber was eurtained over, st Ameccan insistence —not “an appropri backlit was explined, for offical satements 10 the world media. The episode became an emblem. Many a placard on Piceaily and Las Rambla rang sardonic ‘changes on Bush and the snoring bl. An emblem, yes ~ but, withthe benefit of hindsgh, emblematic of what? OF the tte’ relentless wll 0 ‘contol the minutiae of appearance, as part of ~esenil its dive to ‘wa? Well cerinly: But inthis ease, gets way? Dd nt the boor fahness ofthe effor a censorship prove counterpodhictive, elcting the ‘very haunting —byan imagery ll capable of puting face the rut abstraction of “shock and awe" = thatthe vleo covering was meant to putastop to? Aad did not the whole incident pl above al othe state ‘asia red to micromanage the means of symbolic production ~ a6 iF ie eared that very lst etal of the drelized decor it had bu for its ‘isons had he potenti at «ime of cio turn utr aginst? ‘These are theambigiies, generalized othe whole cond of wae and "THE STATE.THE SPECTACLE ANO SEPTEMBER 11 17 polis over the past fur years hati chap aims to explore. We start ffom he premise that certain concepts nd descriptions pt forsad forty seus ag by Guy Deboal and the Siuatinist International as part of| thei effort to comprehend the new forms of state conto and sci sintsrtion then emerging, sll possess explanatory power ~ more so than ever, we ssspect, inthe poisonous epoch we are King trough. La pica, the rrinned notions of “the colonization of every ie” and te society ofthe spectacle” we tin cach concept needs the her if citer i 19 do its proper woek ~ suk us as having purchase on ly Aspects of what his happened since September 11,2001. Oue purpose, in word o turn two cental Siu hypotheses ack othe tase for which they were avays primaly intended ~ to make them instr sents of poltcal analysis again, directed to an understanding of the powers and vulnerabilities ofthe capitalist state, (We take it we are Alone in shuddering athe way “spectacle” has taken is place in appeoved postmodern discourse over che past fifteen years - as a vaguely tilnaran accompaniment to “new media studies” oto wish thinking shout fedomin berspace, wih never a whisper that it org objects vere the Wats Rios andthe Pokaan Cll Revolution.) [None of thi means hat we think we comprehend the whole shape and dynamic oF the ew state of afr, or can offer a theory of es despest Aetrminants, We are not secs of the spetace; no one concep, oF caster of concepts, seems 1 us to get the measure ofthe hoeror of the ps four years We even find i undertandabl if in dhe end a mistake ‘hat someon the Left have sean the zecent wats inthe desert and squab ‘es in the Security Counc as open to analjsis in classcl Marist terms proudly unreconsracted ~ bringing stage again the predictions and sevens of Lenn and Hobson studies of imperiaism ~ ae than In those ofa police of “mena”, echnologied social control retina Our deca of “pie stn i aol“This mach we are sue of What is now inthe current dark ican stance sil largely eles analy, Any sich analysis is obigd to begin from three obvious, interinked questions ofthe moment, which now we st on table forms + Towhar extent did the evens of September 11,200 — the precision bombing of New York and Washington by onze enemies of the US empire — usher na new en? Did those events change anything faamental in the calculus and conduct of advanced capitalist ates, ‘rin the relation of such states to tei civil soci? IF 0, how? + Are we to undemtand the forms of assertion of Americ poet since Sepember It —the hasty demonstation of mae supremney (lngly to reassure the demonstatrs, oe fs, that “something ou ill be done with the monstrous armory a the stu beck and cal), the Blndesing atempts at recolonzation under way ia Afghanis and Ia, he treats and pao to cent states in every ‘onmer of the globe, the plowering attack on ch Ibertis within he US iself —as a step backward, an bial nein, in which the ‘molecule, integra, nse means of coatol which so many of us Delve were indispensable co a uly “modern” sate-systrn have sven way toa new/oi eof gunboats and book baring? + Do the concepss “society of the spetale” and “colonisation of rer ie” hep us to grap the lg of the preset age? Or has the level of soil dispersal and meadacousnesst0 which those concepts once pote also heen overtaken ~ displaced bro at 4 special moment of urgeney and arrogance ~ by cree, ole imperatives of state? Miri csmenntan bynes ch sg rr cere ne eo ieee ak on So oa None of these questions to repeat can be answered in isoliton. No Jevel of analysis ~ “economic” or “politcal”, global or local ngon the means of ether marcia or symbolic production — wil sie to the current stage mistue of chaos and grad design. But iain aspect of the sory ~ the stage for mastery inthe ral of| nage — has so far ben barely thought of a pas ineratg with tore fuse and “mutes. Ii he fst outne of this inter sve ttn offer for arte debate. “The version of “spectacle” with which we operate is minimal, prgmatic, ad mater of fact. No doubt the ideas rial author often gave it an teltne, word-hstorial free But histone is inimitable, a all foes to duplicate it have provers and in any ease we are convinced that the age demands diferent cadence ~ someting close (we are lucky) otha fof the lines from Pande Lv we wse a8 our epigraph than to anything fiom Lakies or Ducass “The notion “spectacle” was intended, then, a6 a fist stb at charac tesrng «new form of, oF stage i, the accumulation of capital: What fe named precminently was the submission of more and more facets ‘of human sociability ~ areas of everday if, forms of recreation, partens of specch,idhoms of local solidarity, kinds of ethical or ‘esthetic insubordination, the endless eapacies of human beings to ‘evade or refine the orders brought down to them from oa high —0 the Sealy solicitations (the less bright samenes) of the markt. Those ‘who developed the analysis inthe fist place resisted hee that this coloration of everyday life was dependent on any one set of tech nologies, but notoriously they were interested inthe means modern Societies have at their disposal to sjstematize and disseminate appear ances, and to subject the texture oF day-to-day living to a constantbute of images, instructions, slogans, logos, false promise, virtual reales, miniature happiness-mosif. Baris Nor Included, a she ol unk bind hadi “The choive of the word “colonization” ro describe the process was Aelberste, Ie nvted teers to conceive of the invasion and steiiing fof so many unoccupied aeas of human speces-being — areas chat previous regimes, however overweeaing hal chosen (or been obliged) 10 leave alone ara pe may of ep prodtion,just 8 much pat of ins dynamism as expansion tothe ends ofthe eth, The colonization of «vee if, we might put i fom our present vatage point, was “ob slain” cured inward ~ mapping and enclosing the hinterland of the socal, and carving ou from the deta of humas iaveniveness an ever ‘more rami and sandardized mathet of exchangeable subjectvits, [Narualy the oe colonization implied the oer: there would have en Black Adan of supa alcoho nd opiate without the dive to shape subjectiviy into pattern of smal (sleable)adictions. “The point of the analysis, again, was to being nto focus the erm and possibilities of ressance (wars of liberation) against the colonizing forces thisina sation, the ler 19605, where it was nt fothardy, even if ultimately mistaken, co imagine “eeasembling our aficted Powers” nd doing eal harm to the enemy. Deon, to speak of hen dec was conccened most ofall withthe way the subjection of soil ie to the rule of appearances had led in turn toa distin form of plies ~ of| state Formason and srvilance His opinion on these mater: scant ‘hey were the aspect of the present he most loathed and which regular ied his best trades and worst paranoia. We extract the follwing, _ropositions from his pags. Fest tar wy bu surely the state inthe rent century had een legge ito fl colaboestion inthe micromanagement of every "The mathe’ necessity heame the sate’ obsession. (We say that this happened slew, and in a sense agtnet the site’ beter judgment, “THe STATE THE SPECTACLE, ANO SEPTEMBER 11-21 ways there existed a tension Between the modern states emote other-dccenss its ir dire aa war machine — expt’ insistence that the tte come to iain dhe rea work of policing and packaging, This tension has again been visible over past four years We believe it is one key tothe obvious incoherence he states recent actions) Second, this deeper and deeper iavohe ‘of the state in the day-to-day instrumentation of consumer meant that ineeatngy it came to ie ode by its investment fun contol of, the fd of images ~ the alternative world conjured by the new battery of pepetal emotion machines" of which TV ‘he dim pioneer and which now beckons the etizen every wabing “This world of images had long been struct] necessity of 2 in oriented towant the overproduction of commodities, and fore the constant manufacture of dese for thers but by the te eth century it had yen ese wa specific pois “The modern sate, we woul argue, has come to ned weak een 1 depends more and more on maintaining an impoverised and public realm, in which ony the ghosts of an older, more rycraic cil sity Hive on, It has adjusted profoundly eo its omic masters requirement for a thinned, unobstructed social teste, made up of loselystached consumer subjects ach locked in fs plastic workstation and nuclearized fry of four. Weak cizenship, Dur for that very reason the object of the state's constant, anxious Jazetion — an unstoppable hierage of ie fashions and panies and Jimage-motis all aimed at sewing the ciszen back (anobtrusivly, “nid ino a dealysmalacrum of community. Very offen, the fst writer to confront this nighenare seemed 0 Aspirin the fice of ie 1 rey Anke he Og Pedy. tat 98 812 ARFUCTED PoweRS “Thee is ple left where people an dlscass the reas which ‘concen hem, bette they can never tng fc themsees fom the rushing presence of maa discourse and of the vats ores on inal tei. Ununswerabe es ave succeded in limiting bli opinion, which is lowe the ability 2 make isl hea 0d then ‘sry quickly soled shops... nee one con the edhinism Which opeies the only fem oF social vercton to be ul and nical recngivd oe can ay what one ks... Spectacalar power ‘an sini deny whatever with 6 one, o he des ove, ad chang the ibsce kaon al wel here i danger oF iste ais ven space or ay ther? “Too many imes over the past four years these Seatences, in thei ery anger and sors at the present form of pois, have echoed in out rinds, Bur ukimately we dsseat fom thee toralizing closure, Living fier September 1, we are no longer so sure ~ and do not believe that spccacular powers sure~ tha “there iso danger of spose in is own space or any other”. Far hetero worse, the precision bombings were such a rposte. And thee effect on the spectacular state has been profound: the state reply to them, we ae cera, has exceeded in its srassness and faity the miryrpiots widest dreams. Therefore we tum to anther sentence from the same book, which (chancteistill) ssa finale to the previous admissions of defeat. "To this sof the triumphs of power we shoud ad, howeves, one result which has proved negative once the running of the state involves permanent and massive shortage of historical knowledge, that state can no lager beled rate ‘ath Issued bya devotee of San Ta and Classe, this st verdict inerushing. Gp Din amt tt of et ate Mel i Len 9 ie 1 Sate tance Debord fla robust and sraightforsard view of the neces, for ls and colectves, of leaning For dhe past (eno he Least the ways his thinking i classe, 8 opposed to postmadern) OF Ine knew thatthe past sa “construction but eoastrction, he fed, made of obarite and three dimensional materials constnly anyone fame, and which only the most elaborate machinery of ring could make fully tractable to power. His deepest fears a 2 revoluionary dived from the sense which grew upon hi, tha hi aborate machinery might now have ben bil, and relly be tring he Ivor nko an etna present, That was the key to hi hatred of the mage ie: hac what i threatened, uhimately was the very existence of the complex, created, touy tempor that for him consirted the ‘exence of the human, Such wat the nightmare, But even Debord sometimes took (cold) ‘oor rom the recognition that the state too live the nightmare, ane ‘would suffer the consoquences Fort too could no longer learn For the past it had progressively dismantled the contexts in which rly saci ‘scutsion of it ims and interests — thinking in the longterm, adit ting the parsdoxes an! uncertainties of power, recognizing, in word, the cunning of reason” — might still be possible" ‘The sate wat ‘entrapped in is own apparatus of clichés It had come almost to Beee fn the poliey-modif es thinktanks and disinformation consitancies hened out fori, How Debord would have reveled, over the past ‘ons in the endless double entendres provided by the media, the ‘fece dhat Bush and Ble rush co war in Tag should be blamed on “fal ineligence"™ 1 eco ig ate lei of em rh cin ih an gee{Whar the, potical and stratgiealy; ook place on September 11 20017 ‘Ad ba pally and stratgical has the US state responded 10 i? OF course, we tae the dangers hee, Why should we fallow the lead ofthe spectacle itself in eting this one among many atocies~ raise othe ‘new poms of ideology neinly, by the idiot device of dgtazing is ate ~ a: wld strc ttning point? How much of the real dynamic {and pathology of American power conjred sway by pinning it thus ‘ova singe imge-event~in mach the same way hat American vitor) in the Col Wae was render in retrospect magi, unable, by the manta“the allo the Wall”? There have been moments when we found ‘easy to snputhize with thor of our comrades who, palin reaction to the flood of closing, pscude-spocalypic verbiage eleaed by September 11 (which shows no ign oF abating, go so far as to dismiss "he bombings asso many pinpricks, atm, hopes symbolic gestures ‘on the pat of those with no real power to wound “Hlopcless symbolic gestures”. We agree que stity with all three words of the dignosis (As do the perpetrators, i seems. In them chilis is spiced th mir, co foem a distinctively hyper modern compound, When they boast in thir communigués of being “for Deth” — in contradstncion, ehey imp, © moderit’s miserable smtchment to 3 Life not worth the mime ~ one i never sure if one is hearing Tua’ ey from dhe stake oe Starogia’s inthe st pages of | ‘The Paredes so often ately, the twenty-first century seems an imam of the sistenth aad inetcenth) And the question remains ERR i angen cine ‘She hang te defy of ie em ess of pd bowel, SS ew cet ego eh ool tel pane “THE STATE THE SPECTACLE, ANO SEPTEMBER 11-25, is the flatness — the specific poll force ~ of tis form of sn, hopeless oF not, within the symbolic economy elle sacl"? Spucacla, the American state suffered a defeat on 11. And spectaculat, or this ste, does aot mean supedi- ‘or epiphenomenal The site wae wounded in September in te fof hearts and we ce sil almost for years later, ailing blindly the face of an image it annot exoreize, and tying desperatly 0 the defext back nto term tea respond ‘One lat caveat. Is necessary 9 state thar because we refs t0 the September bombings fom the eee oF horus over which US has preside since 1945, and believe it accesary if we ae and them policy co treat the events of September as an occu ina war of images it dos nt fll that we il to recognize (and ve could find words fo) the evens obscenity? We hope not. contrary, precisely because the atacks in September were calrated eave an indelible image behind them, they have seared inthe item after item of evidence of jus what tis terms of man and agony that pital alls so habitually writes of. We to are od by te Maing arms of she jumpers, and the scream on the as the tower setters ito dass just a we are Haunted bythe of Hana Janda blondy end, “her thick hai ted in pony 7 dumped by the clan-ap squud on a ble at the buck oF the in Haifa se hal Mwn to pices an hour before!” We wish thd words for these things, We wish we led in pola cultute she language of revulsion had not been debauched by decade afer ‘of selective gravitas. (Your Chechaya for my Guatemala, Your for my Pol Poe) : We proceed then msilingy rm the image on the sere. Fmasters lp, we are convince, that the horrors of September IT were Ni Yt Tn Oa 5,20,esigaed above all tobe visible, and that his vsiity marked he bomb ings off from most previous campaigns of air teror, expecially those sponsored by states. Thete were no cameras at Dresden, Hamburg, and Hiroshima.” The hortor there had to be unscen; it had to act ~ was meant to at —on the surrounding population inthe form of uncontrol lubleheasay and panic; and ic was wo be presented the enemy state apparatus in dhe form of teport, statisti, preiction lima. ‘September’ tere wa diferent. Ke made no demands i offered a0 ‘explanations Te was premised onthe belief earned from the culture i ‘wishes to aaa) shat pictur is worth a thousand words ~ that a pice, in the present condition of polities, is isl, if suficiendy wll exceuted, a specifi and effective pce of statceraft, OF couse the artyrpilots knew that bringing down the Twin Towers would do nothing, or next to nothing, stop the actual cuts of capital. But zeit of capita are bound up, inthe longer term, with cuits of soci Diy ~ paueras of bei and dese, levels of contidence, degrees of “entification with the good fe of the commeity. And thes, sid the terrors, thinking stata, are aspects of the soda imgiony stl (away, interminahly) being put together by the perpetual «motion ‘machines Supposing those machines could be eaprued for 4 moment, and on them appeared the perfor image of capitalism’ negation. Would ‘that aot be enough? Enough truly to destabize the state and society and proce a sequence of rauntngs and paranoia whore longterm politcal consequences fr the esptals word order would atthe very least, be unpredictable? 13h me yen 5p 8 et i oo ar ‘Sy ras teen dln gen eager gs ema a ‘altos pca excavate {Gc NaF Cad of Mod Hy 9 af Rd de, Sew noon yc eae a, perhaps etn pica, from a gepolal standpoint “You bor demands, sid the ares trey 1 themselves) “And Teoow you eanaot accede to them... We know what sou will do ‘Weare certain your answer wil be mitay ... We anticpate iio der blaring out the word crusade. What you wll do will ‘our analysis point by point, humiation by humiliation, snd the wor of Islamism in its despring strength... And you wll irbecause theres no answer to ou image-vitory, yet you (case mis something in which you have no schooling) have t0 there sone" terrorists (o put it ony slightly fern) Followed the logic of spectacle to its charneL house cnchsion. If 10 trot out Debord Faron aphorism again, “ihe spectacle is capital aceuralted tthe vet it becomes image! dhen what more adequate encepsla of the press cou there be but the World Trade Center (with ts cation ofthe terminally gigantic by t60)? And what other means eating it~ its soil instrament, that i is power over the imagination —than have it be teealyoberted a camer? "We ate rehearsing ogc, no endorsing it, But we belive that ony cognizing what ws tly “moder” in che martyr plo” sat — the opposite of a desperts, powerless avs pinprick; truly the of the states present agony ~ wil dhe Left be able to move anqument wit the new tevorsn’s premises and upshos. At the fF the image (hte premise number one the state is wuncnbles, that levels now fly par of, necessary, the state's apparatus of| Yo sn hn ine ve of he Ma ems op ‘adn peck oun cps eee wh tan gomedia oe hk iTnews nore Ne a 3 Eten nets Drs Nin Sith, ew Vk 9 it pou neselfrproduction. Teor can take over the image-machinery for a moment and moment, in he timeless eco chamber oF the spectacle, may now eternally be all there i and wei to ampli reiterte, ace ulate the sheer visible happening of deft. eis a eonfemation of the terrors’ hopes that after the first days in he US, the fall oF the Towers bcame exact the mage that had a Be hn The taboo only made the aferimage more palpale and effective. Everything in the culare ‘went on, adil goes on relation to that pas mage events nothing in the cure can address the event drt. The sence of road “populie cal” in the face of September 11 has been deafening (leis sf dhe commer mie of America in dhe mid went cetary had had nothing to say about war, orice, ofthe Depression othe new ‘world of goods and appliances Irhad plenty purly Because the ade tive “popalie” il pointed to something real about its audiences and raw ratenalt. That 38 long ago, of cause: the present tral obedience of| the care industry 1 the protocols of the War Tero = its me slate ingestion and reproduction ofthe state ineriets and paraoias— is proof ponies, if any were needed, of the saufing out of the lst traces of insubontinason in the studios of Time Warner) ‘The logic of the pilots was patt fantasy, we would argue, part (proves) lois: We could reply cit by saying that the new terrorists succumbed to the temptation of the specu, rather than devising a ‘way to outlank or contest it They were exponents of the ides (beiliant ‘exponent, but this only reveals the ideas Fundamental heatessnes) thar conta over the image is sow the key t socal powers and that image-powe, lke al other forms of ownership and ascendancy under ‘apts, hasbeen subject to an inlucable process of concentration, so that now it is manifest in certain identifiable (angele) places, eta as eg cee ats, psewlo-boulis, ions, logos, manufactured oa-evens; hain their very empriness and worthlessness (he Twin Towers rare were perfect examples) rule the imaginary earth: and toncentrated, materialized lity gives the new terror a ehance Fighten, dmoralize trthe wodd upside down. ‘upon a time (and sil, ¢ we wrt) bombers went ut into the ‘vith thir sensible holdalls, or thie windbreakers« linle more gpd than usual Once upon atin the shrapnel ced through tne shllsin eighborbood restaurants, teeet markets, dance hall the contagion of rumor inthe nartow strets, sapping the wil ‘ass or colonial enemy, diving its cades back into the isolation — demoralization —of "home"; eroding that i the paters of soci {patcins of font and enforcement, es, but embeded in a wider tlespor universe of lyalis) cha had eld a regime rogether ow a new bred of bomber has understood tha nthe society they stacking sch networks of sociability ae secondaey: not absent, not 1, hu increasingly supplaned by a ghost sociability which does ec is cizens to leave home for its key sta and allegiances 10 lace themselves The terror of September 11 hada handful of (out tendency 0 make i, i memos simply “the bombing of he Twin Towers” is not untrue to the logie of the event. The perpe- nw full wel that they lacked the means to spread out through rier social bre and bring day-to-day business toa halt, And hey sd ighy on wrongly that in present circumstances they dd not to, What they did was designed to hold us indoors, co make us turn ck and back co a moving image of capitalism sereaming and to make us go on listening (in spite oF ourselves) co the talking heads tying 0 put something, anything in place of che[Mowe thaa one commenttor since September 1, pureusly over the last years or 30, has red to make sense of the special desperation (ofthe stat conde inthe aftermath. David Runciman has pone so fit ‘aso argue hat whats happening mounts to a genuine mutation ofthe ieratonal tate system Suddenly the Hoblesian view that sees and suites alone ave the ower operite under conitions of Iwas is Ueaened Dy the ole that cw the most perf sats aevulerble to asst from unknown and unpreditabl sources Ica 0 be sad hatin the inertial ac “the weakest the rng il he songs” ‘or they would do nly they could ge hit hands on the necessary ‘suipmeat Thi, pony, changes xerhing "The common view tat 11 September 201 ark the earn 0 2 bbesan word i therfore entey wrong, Keitke the benning of 1 pos Hobbes ae, a which new Rod f insect hentes the fair reczes of modern poll fe In. one ens, of cou his insocury snot ac; bees it cares eho of the natu uncertain ties of inva! human beings. Bat cs ew for state, which were meant be aelnrable sock paranoid ansities, And since they ate ot desig 0 dea with his sort oF thet, eve the most powerfal states dont know what odo aboot ie” “This sis ws a capraing something rea. These are sever things to be sd in response First, Runciman’ argument stars, very reasoaaly; fom the dea tat the sate ew level of fries is derive rom the possible o acta sally of “weapons of mass desraction” to groups selesing under 17 Dida RAG Lane a ads Ap 288 85, wing of reyes ose to the new wold onl, oF sich and sl to bargain wih sch res Fo a share in ther miltay tech- (The it hat such technology was sal inthe ist place egely by the states now pking in thir boos at the thought of is ing astray ~ ha Fct ought o be entered ito the reckoning, ye, i it be done without to tach repeive "tld you so") Ti a ight paras o Runciman tht the aac which preitated the change the order of tat relations wed weapons tat had nothing do with intgrating international arms market. Nothing could be more of eon than olesp on Runciman aa this pit with se, banking some pot argument to the eet dh fom wo the ral weapons of mass destction are the media thatthe wat far of simular not ules ~ that "te alo the Tin Towers Did Take Pac”. But we woul argu thatthe preset contin of pol doesnot ake sease ures its approache oma dul perspectve— en 8a sre fo crude, mac asnanee, bu also (headed ever scion tha stg) 83 befor the contol of appearances We age with Runciman (against many onthe Left who woud prefer nto be a asp, ext, pathetic, pre-capitalist phenomenon) the September bombings ae a dsnesvely modern symptom. What it ofr beyond the specifi atrocity antsy relgious ful, new rca etre ofthe itera state syste: tha le ie moos of the ae of detract teste nw ork, That new hus many causes Technologie advance sone of them. There a worldvide secondary market in ams — pa theres of the chaos ing the end of the Cok! War, pty satura product of he val commesiicaion of the lobe ~ is anotber. Likewise the sng ost of more and more military services toa shady coxporate gain something thar neo-iberlism began by warmly recom ing to its cen ations. The permeabity of bordees obviously fan has become another major item inthe new paranoia, Butthat facts inked oa deeper and more peratve rai, which agin i 1 prodict of the “slbalzacion” thee same states ae commited to = and on which ther bloated home economies depend Fla statis the teem of at for this ray ~ this consative Feature ofthe world we lve in from which the perionnel and ideology of September 11 50 tums arose. “Pad states”, “rogue sates, “weak states" “societies eft behind by modernization” ~ the diagnoses are legion anal the fats they pin to ‘complex. Let as simpy asert here, with the problem of September specifiy oar obj, that “ile tates” seem to wea structural eleent ‘of the international system —a prota necessity, of the new universe ‘of globalization Theres no ontological diinction between the sees fully weakoned and permeable states om which the world onder now theives and those whore weakness has become chron ntgue and di tegration, and whose embrace of foreign capital ha widened just enough to include independent arms dealers, wards nd drug eats “Theres alnk here clea, to ou previous argument about the nec sity of weak cizenship to the site's internal health, Wak cits, then, at the spectacular center and seat sarin the “world economy” which the center works endesly to exploit. A weak state is one whose local defenses aginst imperil contol have (through the implanting of “bases, che ing of eatral resources, the helping hand to loca elites in the event of indigenous revolt, and neo-beral penetration by the corporations) all been sasfictowly dismantled. fale state is one ‘where the logic of abjetion hasbeen ccc, often impercepiby, 0 far ~ sth suldenly the “Aourshing” scoaonyshaters, dhe bes 00 Jonge proce the shoddy goods, the death rats cil, the egies oF Uncle Sam are parade through the sets, ad up in the mosantans oF inthe university dormitories young men and wornen cover their heads and sty The Ar of War. We could say with only the slightest edge of| ‘xaggstaton tat filed states ate the typical ~ determinant ~ pic of the word eft behind by the Cold War, “rash programs" and entions of the IME ‘rents of September, its common knowledge, were dtety the ofthis worl of despa. They were tine fri Jalalabad, paid fig Riad, But saying s0 does oe inthe least conce with the sie ~ tha of spectcle ~ fom which this chapter began. One of Fey pheno ofthe “ied sat realty we have been describing over of al-accta, and the runaway word of Islamist websites the US hs etn, mich to its ehagen) Nothing enrages 2 certain Arab intellectual so mach a the sight of people his own age vel by an ua fie arrest midvay on the path 0 post- sual, clutching thee cllpones and telling thei video wory i. One of the formative moments ia the eduction of Muhammad ‘ve are ol ws when he came wo realize thatthe “conservation Islamic Carn which he had hope to partcpate as 2 newly trained planer, wis to obey the loge of Disney World, Tle states are hidcous amalgam of the feudal, the Nasserite Pan the spectacular ~ that is the point Intec brought in such ccles of hel aed no lessons from postmodern theory about power lis inthe chaos around dhe, and what means might be let contest it, They draw conelasions —eruel and mistaken ones, ur view, but emesging fom a redil of pain and hopelessness we only dimly gues at ~and choose thie weapons v Me rerun to the pivorl sentence fom Debord, “To tis list of the Ieampts of power we shoul! ald one result which has proved negative: ‘nce the running of the sae involves a permanent and masie shortage (6f historical knowledge, tat state ean no longer bell aia” Tis ‘20 be unpacked in varios ways Fest here is what we might call heKissinger problem ~ the problem of weak citizenship in relation wo the cru, brutal neds of empire (Tis i understandably an obsession of the old Peace-Prizeman. He for one has never recovered from the ‘Vitam syideome) \ tension exits — let os putt milly between the Aligpersal and vacuity of the public sphere, whichis necessary to the main tenance of “consumer socies", and chose stronger allegiances and ‘lensicaions whieh che state must ell on, epee if esto maintain {he dependencies tha feed the consumer best. Weak igen grow 10 | son tied of wars and occupations To this log:tem dilemma is now Adel anther A ste that ves mote and more in and through arm of dhe image does no know what to do when, fora moment it es by the sme lights. Tr does a mute, as we have sa efor, that “cond: ell" or"eopolicaly” the death may bean sion, Spectacular iewas ‘eal. And image death ~ image deft ~ is nota condition thi ate can cedure. “There nw exit a threat, to quote Runciman, which makes some stats fel mote vulnerable than thei subjects” ‘We woud put it diferent. OF course, as mates, we dom ioe a ona det the sci of he pcb padi he pc of des ig This the ul of our ace dissen feom Seprembe 11 leaving ide our state rejection of terror asa pote means (of which mote Ine) Bur the preset state dos not share out skepiism it seems. Tt feel the cold hand of the image-even at its theo It ves ad elves the moment is machines always had ying in wait for it~ the violent rendervous of speed with enormity, the nosthuman of technology resting the non-human of accumulation. As if Cheops hse? had looked oa while the Great Preamidl was spl inewo bya bot fom the sun Justin ime for Gand Maring America, “The spectacular states obliged, we ae saying to devise an answer the defeit of September 11, And it seems it canto OF course many of| the things its ted out over the pst four years have ora itary, neo-clonial, grossly economic ages undersng them. The invasion of| “THE STATE.THE SPECTACLE, AND SEPTEMBER 11-35 Js the obvious ease in point. We too tke stiously the idea hat ‘within the US administration had long thought de impasse of| 1” intolerable ha hestd foro had dresmt ofa new beige in an increasingly anti-American region, and so on, These 9 shall ear ta, Buta the vey leas ican be sad hat the ia which these polices were ated on rally they had ben the resins ofthe wl Right in Washington fr more than a decade — een a bac credible mistre of bander, lili, overrae, ip callousness (hardly bothering to digi is ack of concer at uff happening” inthe srets of Kandahar or Baghdad), unfath- ignorance snd wishful thinking andl constant entespment in the 3; hour hy-hourrermpority of the sound bite and the suicide And wher, in the end isthe image the war machine has beer for ~the one to pu pid to the September haunting? Topping Dresden in fight jackets, Saddam saying “Aah, embedded stroking the barrels of guns wake ws (ake the whole wold ouch potatoes) when its ove, ‘The Towers keep filling and now they are joined by the imagery of Ghraib, One stdiosly moderate historian of the age of Furopean ha this say, recently, about what marked the colonized word orn the generality of empires present were by no meas the nly lets wth a supe complex hr eabjoc, Bat they played hie comple an exceptionally systema, selfconscous way and in an unusually wide rage of seri They wer ingenious desing meds to hate on. uropens and unsaid encouraging hoe theyre Jernalize an nest comples.* De eth 1 ans i! a Bap has Eps 15188 Nove sa ane Sp =“\n umasally wide range oF symbolic stings” OF course the seting fn the photograph we use a our Fonsspiece i in a sense ondiary, ‘onimaginatve. The bor, the hood, the wire, the lctodes — dese are ‘he banaises of ei. The US i sl easing the ropes, Whats exraor dinar nonetheless, the feof torture ad dchumanisation becoming imagen the way they di here ~ inthe midst of abate for “hess snd minds” — and one that instantly dsmanded the dheori of Uber ‘on It did so because it concentrated ~ exyelized a whole previous history of hors and restance, “Trafic was Flowing freely again through the city’s casters gateway at the Square of the 1920 Revlation”, reported the New Vink Time during alia the bate for Naja And added by way of explanation: “a monument to a Shite prising aginst Beh tropa” (it might have explained further ‘psking that took place just two years afer Bitain created the cay called Tag taking the colonizers tay by surprise) Thus the export of| democracy catines, v ‘esc that the state dos not know what odo in these ctcumstances “This does not mean its a the path wo rel stats lure, necssai, ‘or tha it wll prove incapable of pling bc fom the imperatives of| ‘he imige-war and slowly lees accommodating itself othe neds ofa new rou of primitive seumulaton. The hatchet mea and torture brigades (profesional, not partners from Appalachia) are being retained at we wot. "Road maps ae w be thrown i the tas ean. Tred states became weak states once mors “Democracy” proves une Portable, Irn and Syria join the comity of nations it Wolfowitz and Makiya mumbling, scan behave ike maddened bestia other word, and sil get ‘vas They rguliely do But the presene madness i singular: the mf spectadl has never before interred 30 palpably, so ini vith the business of keeping one's atspies in order. And never Ihave spectaclar politics been conducted inthe shadow ~ the oledge” — of sia It remains to be seen what new of the mitary industrial entertainment complex emerge frm shambles