Critique of American Sociology
In Chapter 8, Negation and Consumption Within Culture, Debord includes a critical analysis of the works of three American sociologists. He discusses at length Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America (1961), which Debord argues missed the concept of Spectacle. In thesis 192, Debord mentions some of American sociologists that have described the general project of developed capitalism which "aims to recapture the fragmented worker as a personality well integrated in the group;" the examples mentioned by Debord are David Riesman, author of The Lonely Crowd (1950), and William H. Whyte, author of the 1956 bestseller The Organization Man. Among the 1950s sociologists that are usually compared to Riesman and Whyte, is C. Wright Mills, author of White Collar: The American Middle Classes. Riesman's "Lonely Crowd" term is also used in thesis 28.
Read more about this topic: The Society Of The Spectacle
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