Baudrillard, the Death of the Real, Hyperreality.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

I wonder if any folks on here have come across Baudrillard and moreover, what they think of him.

I don't think its entirely useful to place him within the context of Marxist theory, given that Baudrillard is a metaphysical thinker, or 'Pataphysical' he might say, in reference to the French surrealist playwright who came up with 'Pataphysics' - perhaps the easiest way to understand this concept is by understanding pataphysics as being one 'level' detached from metaphysics, as metaphysics is from physics themselves.

Another key point with Baudrillard is irony, so I wouldn't expect people to appreciate his work much if they didn't appreciate/understand irony. Metaphor also, for example, his work on 9/11 (which I would recommend to anyone) is a kind of detached analysis of the event of 9/11 ('the mother of all events') in relation to the concept of hyperreality - its in no way 'scientific' and Baudrillard would never try to conduct a work in such away, let alone make claims as such.

Its difficult to try and formulate a question here given the complexity of Baudrillard's work and I can't do him any justice but I find his insights fascinating, despite leading one into nihilism. I intend to study his work quite closely over the years and I have been studying him for some time now so I'd like to hear any comments, criticisms or insights from people on here.

for anyone interested in Baudrillard, I'd suggest his work on 9/11 (can't remember the name), a chapter called 'the Murder of the Real' and his 1981 book 'Simulation and Simulacra' which is what inspired The Matrix (1991).

I have a number of pdfs, including the 9/11 one and the murder of the real, PM me if you'd like a copy.

[bcbm]

i've read 'simulacra and simulation,' i think he is an interesting writer and like some of his ideas. haven't thought about him in ages though. his piece on the first gulf war is good too

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Also, "Cool Memories III" rules.
A pill against your house burning down.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I've read a little bit of his stuff, I had a friend recommend America to me. Is Simulacra and Simulation something you can read on it's own, or does it require any kind of intro text?

[L.A.P.]

he's a lot more nihilistic than the other continental / post-structural philosophers. I like some of his theories on people being alienated from material reality and using media-images to interpret our private selves / subjective-substance. I also kind of like him and Jameson's critique of postmodern culture's reference to pastiche of past historical periods as a reaction-formation to its loss of historicity.

[nizan]

Baudrillard took the revolutionary theory of the Situationist International and transferred in to the range of postmodern ideology, hardly an admirable accomplishment... .

In 68, Baudrillard personally wrote to Debord and the SI expressing his 'solidarity', but, with apt judgement, the SI refused his overtures, knowing full well of the nature to the professor mentality. It was proven, as has thus been stated, that their position was not entirely baseless. The notion of the hyper-reality, the spectacle extended to a point of inescapable dominance, is simply a defeatist realization of the theory of the spectacle to a point wherein the ideas once turned against it has simply been recuperated into its bloodstream, wherein revolution is reduced to the work of coffee table books and fine dinner conversations, nothing more.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

Baudrillard took the revolutionary theory of the Situationist International and transferred in to the range of postmodern ideology, hardly an admirable accomplishment... .

In 68, Baudrillard personally wrote to Debord and the SI expressing his 'solidarity', but, with apt judgement, the SI refused his overtures, knowing full well of the nature to the professor mentality. It was proven, as has thus been stated, that their position was not entirely baseless. The notion of the hyper-reality, the spectacle extended to a point of inescapable dominance, is simply a defeatist realization of the theory of the spectacle to a point wherein the ideas once turned against it has simply been recuperated into its bloodstream, wherein revolution is reduced to the work of coffee table books and fine dinner conversations, nothing more.

to call it a mere 'transfer' is a very simplistic way of putting it. i suppose this comes from you considering the conception of hyperreality as defeatist, whereas it is clear that there is a qualitative difference between the spectacle that the SI recognized and the hyperreal world that baudrillard discussed. obviously we wouldn't have the latter without the former, but baudrillard's work is far more intricate than anything the SI ever wrote and that is precisely because the mechanisms of the hyperreal world are far more intricate than anything before - this is the 'nature' of hyperreality. its less defeatist than it is an account for why anti-systemic movements, demonstrations and whatever else usually amount to nothing in real terms, at least in the 'west'. if debord was alive in 2001, i reckon he'd have to take baudrillard into account.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I also kind of like him and Jameson's critique of postmodern culture's reference to pastiche of past historical periods as a reaction-formation to its loss of historicity.

I literally cannot understand any of this.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I literally cannot understand any of this.

It's basically like some French Hipster took Society of The Spectacle, expunged it of Marxism, and ran with it for an academic career. The result is predictable - often funny, and at moments insightful, but mostly frustrating. Does that clarify things at all?

[D-A-C]

For me, why I despise Baudrillard and those who can broadly speaking be lumped into the Postmodern or Poststructuralist theoretical tendencies is because their ideas fail to take into account real and existing material conditions.

In opposition to Baudrillard I have actually begun to consider taking up positions relating to the Russian thinker Valentin Volosinov and grounding my theory of signs in his work which emphasises the material origins and social struggles revolving around the construction of language.

Although, I am also only finally getting around to reading some Ferdinand de Saussure, so my position on the whole concept of language, signs, signifiers, simulacra etc is completely open and in flux (which is tragic considerinh I have less than a year before my PhD is due!).

However, the easiest critique of people like Baudrillard in my opinion is that they are idealists who have forgotten that there are materially existing struggles currently going on in the world, and that it was real and concrete material conditions that gave rise to their own set of ideas.

One of my favourite theories and one which I am going back and forth on at the moment is that Postmodernist theories like those of Baudrillard are simply ideologies, and are a response to the structural mutations which occurred within Capitalism in the Western World around the end of the 1950's beginning of the 1960's. That was the time when Capitalist economies began to transition from industrial to post-industrial economies.

Post-Industrial economies target individual and niche markets and how conveniently that at that time we began to see the struggle for recognition of 'marginal' social groups. Labelling people as straight, gay, black, white, male, female and the entire struggle for recognition and identity politics is actually an ideological reflection of the alteration of the capitalist economy from industrial to post-industrial society. In otherwords, Capitalism currently depends that you think of yourself as a unique individual with unique tastes that you decide upon. Conveniently Postmodernism revolves around discussions of the 'individual' and a struggle for identity politics that coincides perfectly with the way contemporary capitalism targets particular social groups with their products, single mothers buy this, gay men buy that, black women buy this, disabled people buy that. Everyone has a niche product tailored and sold to them as 'individuals'.

That's basically the beginning of a theory as to why Baudrillard and other Postmodernists are not only wrong, but there ideas are merely an ideological reflection and alibi for the current relations of production under Post-Industrial Capitalism.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Post-Industrial economies target individual and niche markets and how conveniently that at that time we began to see the struggle for recognition of 'marginal' social groups. Labelling people as straight, gay, black, white, male, female and the entire struggle for recognition and identity politics is actually an ideological reflection of the alteration of the capitalist economy from industrial to post-industrial society. In otherwords, Capitalism currently depends that you think of yourself as a unique individual with unique tastes that you decide upon. Conveniently Postmodernism revolves around discussions of the 'individual' and a struggle for identity politics that coincides perfectly with the way contemporary capitalism targets particular social groups with their products, single mothers buy this, gay men buy that, black women buy this, disabled people buy that. Everyone has a niche product tailored and sold to them as 'individuals'.

For a more in depth and historical critique of the relationship between power and identification, you should suck up your hate-on for "post-modernists" and read Foucault before your PhD is due.

[blake 3:17]

Some of what D-A-C is true though very limited -- there has been space made in the political, public, and consumer spheres for people who were excluded from them.

A lot of anti-capitalist queer activists have been really wrestling with dilemmas about the meaning of winning genuine victories on one front while getting the shit kicked out of you on another. There are long winded sociological explanations. I tend to think it's just called life.

[D-A-C]

For a more in depth and historical critique of the relationship between power and identification, you should suck up your hate-on for "post-modernists" and read Foucault before your PhD is due.

I doubt I'd have time for a full reading of his works at this juncture. If you had any particular suggestions for specific works or chapters that would be helpful.

I contemplated reading him early in my PhD, especially given that his earlier work The Order of Things, is somewhat connected with Althusser (not in any direct way, but its usually described as being in the same spirit as Althusser's anti-humanist project I believe).

Again, at this juncture I doubt he could be useful practically in the developement of a methodology for the analysis of films.

At the moment I'm (hurriedly!) starting to read Barthes drawing on his notion of 'Readerly' and 'Writerly' texts in order to come up with a method for the selection of cinematic texts that explains why some are worth examining more than others. In other words, why is it easier to do an in-depth reading of Sam Mendes Revolutionary Road than Kenny Ortega's High School Musical? A distinction has to be made, although to a certain degree both films can be read, however the former lends itself more to an indepth analysis and the latter is only moderately (if even that) useful as a text for analysis.

I'm also pretty content to just let Lyotard and Baudrillard be theoretical whipping boys and happily consign them to the dustbin of history in the same way that was done to Althusser in an effort to (ironically) extradite Althusser from that very same dustbin.

Long story short, the fact is that Postmodernism can never be anything more than rhetoric ... it produces nothing, and seems content at producing nothing.

There are plenty of critiques of Althusser, but it is undeniable that his work actually effected and changed things. For starters it was highly influential in actually allowing Marxists to study superstructural phenomenon like art, literature, film etc by giving them a theory for the relative autonomy of the socio-political superstructure from the economic base.

In the same vein, my PhD, drawing on Althusser, by its end produces a practical methodology for the analysis of cinematic texts that actually has practical results. By arguing that film is a site of social struggle and that films cannot help but embody the capitalist ideologies of the societies in which they are produced, that allows the cinema to be another contested site of class struggle. It has practical implications for the transformation of society. Film can help change society.

The easiest way to summarise Cinema, and art in generals importance, is that art, cinema, literatre etc are all like the psychologist who helps his patient see the underlying psychosis that is causing his destructive behaviour.

Art cannot help but embody all the ideologies of Capitalism. This is because all art is inevitably reflections of the material circumstances in which they are produced. Therefore art allows us to see what is unseeable in our day to day life ... as Che Guevara said:

"The laws of capitalism, which are blind and are invisible to ordinary people, act upon the individual without he or she being aware of it. One sees only the vastness of a seemingly infinite horizon ahead. That is how it is painted by capitalist propagandists who purport to draw a lesson from the example of Rockefeller — whether or not it is true — about the possibilities of individual success. The amount of poverty and suffering required for a Rockefeller to emerge, and the amount of depravity entailed in the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible for the popular forces to expose this clearly ... It is a contest among wolves. One can win only at the cost of the failure of others."

Art allows us to concretely see the invisible forces at work in society and consequently is a powerful tool and site in the struggle for social change.


Sorry if that has gone way off topic, but to bring this back to Baudrillard, he and other Postmodernists never brings things back to material reality.

Using Althusser I have to do all sorts of philosophical tricks and somersaults that might seem useless to the average worker, but by the end of things they allow for practical things to happen.

Baudrillard and other Postmodernists never actually change things. They go so deep into theory that they end up confined to it.

Lyotard - The death of Metanarratives
Derrida - There is nothing outside of the text
Baudrillard - The simulacrum ... signs relating to other signs with no reference to material reality.

At every juncture these (so-called) intellectuals justify and prop up Capitalism (particularly Post-Industrial Capitalism) by denying there is a material reality in need of changing.

With Althusser I may go deep into theory and into the world of film ... but I do so to bring about real and concrete changes to our world. To take a cinematic example ... I go into the Matrix so I can come back out and try to change the real and concrete world ... postmodernists are content to stay inside the Matrix and effect it in various ways, but have no impact whatsoever to the real world outside of it.


(Sorry if this post is sort of rambling or off topic, I hope some of you find it even sort of useful lol.)

[blake 3:17]

Only Lyotard and Baudrillard can really be considered postmodernists. Derrida's project is a largely negative one as a critique of Platonism that goes on and on. I like some of his work quite a lot and other portions I find excessively dull and repetitive.

Foucault and Althusser are largely responding to the same influences -- Bachelard and Sartre -- and articulating many of the same disagreements in different ways. I suppose the one difference is in the question of actually knowing something, but they're both ultimately iffy on the question.


The reason I get excited about Deleuze and Guattari is that they had a positive project. Or, more accurately, a whole series of chaotic positive projects. Some might work. Most will fail.

[nizan]

to call it a mere 'transfer' is a very simplistic way of putting it. i suppose this comes from you considering the conception of hyperreality as defeatist, whereas it is clear that there is a qualitative difference between the spectacle that the SI recognized and the hyperreal world that baudrillard discussed. obviously we wouldn't have the latter without the former, but baudrillard's work is far more intricate than anything the SI ever wrote and that is precisely because the mechanisms of the hyperreal world are far more intricate than anything before - this is the 'nature' of hyperreality. its less defeatist than it is an account for why anti-systemic movements, demonstrations and whatever else usually amount to nothing in real terms, at least in the 'west'. if debord was alive in 2001, i reckon he'd have to take baudrillard into account.

Intricate doesn't say much of its theoretical worth. Baudrillard knew his trade well, and he very well knew that he would have to add some 'intricacies' to the theory of the SI if it were to be seen purely as academic ideology.

And Debord took him to account in 1968 well enough, we need to dream of what might have been.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

have you read baudrillard post-1980? more importantly, his work on 9/11?

[nizan]

have you read baudrillard post-1980? more importantly, his work on 9/11?

I really don't like hearing what any academic might have to say about 9/11, to be quite honest, but I've read a bit. The whole notion of the absolute event still places far too much credence in the legitimacy of the news ticker, which is not generally something I express much excitement towards. It's not a new trend in presentation, no doubt, most all bourgeois history relies upon the artificiality of its 'events' and great men, but productions of the epoque they remain. I'm not particularly interested in sorting through any progression of events so as to begin to order out the serious and non-serious ones, again, it's the frivolous work of academia that Baudrillard is so talented at. The inverse of popular reporting, the internalized little spectacles of lifetime academic clowns like Baudrillard and Zizek, they all remain well enough locked in the logic of modern class power.

I don't care for the professionals and their opinions, but this is one bit I'm more than happy to allow them.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

you've misunderstood the whole thing. the logic of modern class power? baudrillard is the antithesis of class power and even logic, which is actually bourgeois ideology and methodology in itself. i suggest a re-read.

[nizan]

you've misunderstood the whole thing. the logic of modern class power? baudrillard is the antithesis of class power and even logic, which is actually bourgeois ideology and methodology in itself. i suggest a re-read.

Yes, yes, Baudrillard must be the antithesis of class power, with all his defanged and emasculated references to the spectacle kept well enough in mind, he must certainly be. Once more, he's a critical theorist for those who prefer theory to remain chained to a world of falsehoods, to a spectrum purely defined by adherence to ideological defenses of this world.

"Despite what some would like to believe, we can hardly expect revolutionary innovations from those whose profession is to monopolize the stage under the present social conditions. It is obvious that such innovations can come only from people who have received universal hostility and persecution, not from those who receive government funding."

By any measure, I'm finished with this if a suggestion for a re-read is the best comment I'm to be met with from here.

[Decolonize The Left]

Yes, yes, Baudrillard must be the antithesis of class power, with all his defanged and emasculated references to the spectacle kept well enough in mind, he must certainly be. Once more, he's a critical theorist for those who prefer theory to remain chained to a world of falsehoods, to a spectrum purely defined by adherence to ideological defenses of this world.

"Despite what some would like to believe, we can hardly expect revolutionary innovations from those whose profession is to monopolize the stage under the present social conditions. It is obvious that such innovations can come only from people who have received universal hostility and persecution, not from those who receive government funding."

By any measure, I'm finished with this if a suggestion for a re-read is the best comment I'm to be met with from here.

Forgive me, but plenty of folks on this forum would be willing to make the argument that real anti-capitalist change cannot happen from within capitalist and can only occur from without. In other words, I don't see what is so remarkably un-revolutionary or un-lefist about that quote.

I would also like to say that I'm not defending Baurdrillard; I've just started reading him and am merely enjoying this thread.