Jean Baudrillard

[Karl Marx's Camel]

What is your opinion regarding Jean Baudrillard and his views?

[A Demoralised Mortal]

Which of the views that Jean Baudrillard holds? He holds a great many.

I will point out one thing of some significance from the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard) article on him that might very well interest people here, in order to stimulate the thread. (The article is a good outline of his ideas by the way, and they are interesting, so I suggest having a bit of a read of it).


Originally posted by Jean Baudrillard
According to Baudrillard, in the 20th century, we somehow reached the termination of history. The method of this termination comes through the lack of oppositional elements in society, with the mass having become 'the silent majority', an imploded concept which absorbs images passively, becoming itself a media overwritten by those who speak for it.

If the Wikipedia article is to be believed, then that is quite a cynical view of the working class ("the mass") that Baudrillard holds, and is directly in contradiction of revolutionary anarchism and of revolutionary Marxism. If we have "reached the end of history" because "the working class have become hopelessly passive consumers of capitalist images", then there is no hope of an upheaval of capitalism by the working class.

It is a view that directly questions the pretensions and/or predilections of most users of this message board.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Bah. A pessimistic Debord.
Read some SI shit, or, better yet, go out and "crack the image" some.