In his seminal work, The Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord argued that capitalism and mass consumption had created a world in which human relations were now mediated by images. Commodification had intruded so radically into all spheres of life that individuals, who were formerly in a natural state of being, passed into another state of having and finally into one of appearing. It is not hard to see how Debord's thesis might be applied today, even though his work is 50 years old. He did not live to see the internet age nor the era of the smartphone, but it seems likely he would not have been surprised. I can imagine him writing an essay on the selfie, much as he also might be interested in the artificial online self. And much else besides.

Debord was a Marxist and critical theorist. He was also a French intellectual so (without trying to sound too essentialist) he tended to hyperbolize - theories were seen through to their most radical conclusions, but his central ideas remain pertinent and influential. I don't have his brainpower for deep analysis but reading his work, though it is sometimes obscure and difficult to grasp, reflects how I have long felt about the modern Western world. In saying this I am not harking back to some ideal time (there may have been some great historical periods to have been alive but they didn't have modern medicine or dentistry) and what's done is done. But it behooves us, perhaps, to meditate upon why so many people seem anxious or unhappy or prone to using drugs or alcohol, when we live in an age of unparalleled plenty. What is ungrounding us?