Spectacles: Three Archetypes
Notes on Greek, Roman and Christian spectacles, Guy Debord, Eurovision and K-pop.
The Christian writer Tertullian wrote a treatise titled De Spectaculis at the end of the second century AD, arguing that Christians should abstain from attending games and shows held in Roman amphitheatres and circuses. The Christian ought to save his spiritual excitement for the Apocalypse, which will be the spectacle to end all spectacles. In Tertullian’s own words: ‘But what a spectacle is that fast-approaching advent of our Lord … that last day of judgement, with its everlasting issues; that day unlooked for by nations, the theme of their derision, when the world hoary with age, and all its many products, shall be consumed by one great flame! How vast a spectacle then bursts upon our eye!’
The early-Christian view of spectacle, articulated by Tertullian, provides the structure of historical timeframes. Guy Debord argued in Le société du spectacle (1967) that ‘modern conditions of production’ manifest themselves as ‘an immense accumulation of spectacles’ (Debord 12). Spectacles are, for Debord, the states in which humans are alienated from their power to direct the course of history. It is the passive state exemplified but not exhausted by the television-viewer. Instead of waiting for the final spectacle of the Second Coming of Christ, Debord believes that humanity can rise up to become a master of its own destiny. Against the passivity of watching, he asserts the activity of work: humanity must redeem itself.
Against the messianic-time of Christianity, the mythological time of Ancient Greece considered spectacles from the perspective of ethical life: the harmonious ordering of individuals into a society oriented towards human flourishing. Greek spectacles divided into two main types: athletic and theatrical. The athletic spectacles, hosted in stadiums, served as the display of physical virtues of strength, agility and beauty. Young men competing in the Olympic pentathlon would contend in a foot race, javelin and discus throw, long jump and wrestling, at all times displaying their oiled up and naked physique. Aristotle writes in the Rhetoric that ‘the athletes in the pentathlon are most beautiful’ due to their well-rounded physical development and skill. The broader, societal purpose of the athletic games was for citizens to be trained in skills conducive to warfare: ‘For a man in his prime, beauty is fitness for the exertion of warfare, together with a pleasant but at the same time formidable appearance’ (Rhetoric 1361b).
Theatrical spectacles took place in the amphitheatre. To Nietzsche, the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles are the highest form of art, combining the Apollonian and Dionysian drives in a spectacle that at once affirms order and expresses the untameable energy of life. It is an ‘affirmation of life even in its strangest and sternest problems, the will to life rejoicing in its own inexhaustibility through the sacrifice of its highest types’. In tragedy, we witness the downfall of rulers, which is at the same time a fatefull rather than a deserved downfall: it portrays political rulers as at once powerless against the forces of fate and as legitimate in their impersonal downfall.
The Greek athletic spectacle served to foster and exemplify the aesthetics of the virtuous citizen, whose appearance bore witness to his ethical virtues of valour, while the theatric spectacle functioned as a justification of political order without its false deification. The Ancient Olympic Games were held in the honour of Zeus and had the character of a religious festival just as much as an athletic competition. As such, these spectacles took place within the framework of a timeless world of archetypes; within a world structured by myth.
The third archetype of spectacle is to be found in Ancient Rome and its colossal circuses and amphitheatres, which operated neither in a messianic or mythical time, but in the sheer present of entertainment. Gladiatorial combats, animal hunts and ritual executions drew audiences of thousands from peasantry and aristocracy alike. They were occasions for Roman rulers to entertain and discipline the masses, with the events often being used to distribute food to the citizenry. The function of spectacle in the Roman Empire was a result of the concentration of power in the princeps and the legal system which recognised several classes of citizen, only a minority of which were granted suffrage and the ability to hold office. The majority of Roman citizens were disenfranchised and the large, violent spectacles that dotted the Roman calendar functioned as a means to placate them with entertainment and gifts. Juvenal summarised this state in his tenth Satire with the phrase panem et circenses – ‘bread and circuses’ – bemoaning the lack of broader civic ambitions of the populace.
The Roman archetype of spectacle, as well as its political structure, can be found at play in the institutions of the European Union. Luc van Middelaar has characterised the founding of the Union as a series of ‘coups’ – radical reforms that were smuggled through apparently procedural decisions. As an enthusiast for a federal Europe, van Middelaar acknowledges the ‘democratic deficit’ of the Union, but argues that what the project lacks is not democracy but a ‘thrilling’ spectacle that would transform Danes, Belgians and Spaniards into ‘Europeans’. The European Parliament provides some legitimising democracy-theatre to the otherwise technocratic and inscrutable operations of the executive and judicial arms of the Union, in a similar way to which Roman Emperors would preserve the institution of the Senate while stripping it of any actual political power.
One peculiarly European spectacle, intimately tied to the post-war European project, is the Eurovision Song Contest: an annual event where European nations compete in the kitsch music genre of schlager. The show attracts some 200 million viewers annually, infecting each with several earworms. In a recent piece, Ryan Ruby referred to Rome when he described it as a ‘Saturnalia of Sovereignty’ and its televoting system as ‘the single most democratic institution with a foothold in the EU’, where popular will can overturn the opinions of the technocratic jury-vote. ‘Eurovision functions as a “ritual of rebellion,” a carnival for our hypermediated, neoliberal age, in which even the reversal of power relations enacted through the televoting … has been monetised’.
The Roman archetype of illegitimately legitimating spectacles is ascendant in an age of technocratic rule, while the Christian archetype of redemptive spectacle has, since the decline of faith and Marxism, degenerated into hysteria and mob-rule. Where if anywhere can we find the Greek archetype today? Certainly not in the athletic events that claim continuity with the Ancient Olympics. Professional sports do not represent ideals of citizenship but increasingly genetic outliers – those who are stronger, taller, faster – and their intensive training-regime, which in most cases begins in the first years of life and is so time-consuming that the person has no time to engage in any other civilised activity. Edward Said complained about the transformation of tennis from ‘a sport of skilful, well-mannered ladies and gentlemen’ into ‘a brutal confrontation between unpleasant, physically overdeveloped and remorselessly single-minded hitters’. Professional sportspeople are hyper-specialised rather than beautiful.
Instead, something like the Greek archetype may be found in K-pop of all places. The pseudonymous writer Black Wind To-Su has arguedthat K-pop functions as an ‘civilisational institution’ in which girls and boys engage in a ‘merciless meritocratic struggle’ in which both demonstrate their feminine and masculine virtues. The most virtuous are rewarded with fame and money by the national entertainment conglomerates. To-Su contrasts this with Western pop-culture, describing it as nepotistic, individualistic and overly sexualised, pandering to ephemeral trends and base urges rather than aesthetic ideals. This is an intriguing argument, but it ignores the broader political structures which distinguish contemporary Korea from Ancient Athens. In a hypermediated age, we cannot assume that aesthetics is reliable indicator of ethical virtue. To do so would be to fall into the Leni Riefenstahl-trap:
Good read.
To elaborate on K-pop a bit, what I noticed is a different approach to ethics. When we say a watch is good, we mean it serves its function well, it tells time correctly. When a modern westerner says a man/woman is good, they mean it in a bad vs evil way, like "is this man/woman a decent christian" (or "decent believer of whatever current prog politics" for in the case of our current year), so ethics have been decoupled from any telos/purpose. But that is not so for K-pop, where an idol is "good" if they serve their function as idols properly: aesthetics as you mentioned (=virtue of beauty), singing (=virtue of patience/practice/skill), how they carry themselves at variety shows (=virtue of charisma), etc. So we are closer to Aristotle/Macintyre on ethics, or to Nietzsche's good vs bad if you prefer that framing.
Also there's competitions like Eurovision, not only with groups but with individual idols and trainees who want to 'make it' and debut with prestigious entertainment companies, and not just singing but all kinds of skills like I mentioned above, so I think K-pop also fits with the archetypal Roman spectacle that you mention.
"The Christian ought to save his spiritual excitement for the Apocalypse"
I find this amusing
“Professional sports do not represent ideals of citizenship but increasingly genetic outliers”
I’m curious about how to get back to this ideal or whether it’s possible. There’s a sense in which the trans stuff may actually be the way it happens since it’s included because of the value and importance of representing people and accepting them for who they are.
“base urges rather than aesthetic ideals”
Wouldn’t the most aesthetic things excite the senses the most? We behave as if this is true, but I'd be curious to hear the argument that true beauty is sublime.