Jean Baudrillard Did Not Die

[nomadologist]

it's like humans will do what they want to do, and use whatever "grand narrative" happens to be popular at the time to make a case for it being OK.

that sounds more like Lyotard

 

[nomadologist]

the attendent social and ethical considerations. If you want to talk about them, that's fine, but it's a whole different kettle of fish.

THAT'S WHAT THE "post-modernists" are TALKING ABOUt. AS i've NOTEd again adn agian and again

argh this seems pointless

 

[Mr. Tea]

A lot of great minds (my boyfriend's grandfather, for example, a German scientist educated at MIT) respectfully DECLINED to work on the Manhattan projected, because they OBJECTED to it ETHICALLY.

And? I said nuclear weaponry is clever science, I didn't say it was morally good science.

Questions of morality belong in ethics, politics, law, religion, whatever. I should hope most scientists try to be ethical people in their personal lives, and (as in the example you gave) in their research careers, where appropriate. Scientists trying to cure cancer or find clean energy sources vastly outnumber those working on doomsday weapons, after all. But morality has no place in science itself - scientists try to develop theories that are right, not theories that are good, because the latter makes no sense.

 

[Guybrush]

Their experiments determining the "inherent racial inferiority" of Jews were scientific? Since when?

Since never. But they did conduct some, beastly, experiments which were scientific.

I put 'belief system' in inverted commas because, as the term is usually used, it describes a set of unjustified beliefs. God created the world 6,000 years ago, the Earth floats through space on the back of a giant tortoise, blowing up that school bus will get you into Heaven. Whatever. I believe that my body is made of atoms and that we're whizzing through space on a ball of rock in a huge conglomeration of stars because I have very good reasons to believe those things. They're justified beliefs, hence my assertion that science is not a belief system like a religion or a political dogma, even if it is a 'belief system' of sorts. I find the term distasteful because it is often used by those attacking science and/or who do not understand it.

I have seen this reasoning before, and I think a better—i.e. less vulnerable—defence is to say that: yes, it is a belief system, but one which has given us this and that (and this and that...). That is to say, that it is a greater belief system because of its greater accomplishments.

 

[nomadologist]

Since never. But they did conduct some, beastly, experiments which were scientific.

For example...?

 

[nomadologist]

And? I said nuclear weaponry is clever science, I didn't say it was morally good science.

Questions of morality belong in ethics, politics, law, religion, whatever. I should hope most scientists try to be ethical people in their personal lives, and (as in the example you gave) in their research careers, where appropriate. Scientists trying to cure cancer or find clean energy sources vastly outnumber those working on doomsday weapons, after all. But morality has no place in science itself - scientists try to develop theories that are right, not theories that are good, because the latter makes no sense.

What the fuck are you talking about, at this point? Nothing that relates to the original topic whatsoever. The humanities talk about the ETHICAL/POLITICAL/MORAL implications of science--Baudrillard operates within the HUMANITIES.

No one claims Baudrillard is a scientist.

 

[swears]

Are there any thinkers or social theorists that identify themselves as postmodernists?
It always seems to be used as a pejorative against others.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Well, sure. We believe it because it *works*. And on the odd occasion that it doesn't work, we find a new theory that works better. And so on and so forth.

 

[Mr. Tea]

For example...?

They developed some pretty nifty rocket technology that flattened much of east London, and eventually formed the basis of the American space programme.

 

[nomadologist]

Are there any thinkers or social theorists that identify themselves as postmodernists?
It always seems to be used as a pejorative against others.

No, Swears: very few theorists identify themselves as "post-modern" or "post-modernists." That's why I can't STAND to see that term thrown around and tossed at anything that was written after 1950. It's just plain sloppy to do so, and yes, tends to be done pejoratively.

Thank you for posting on topic.

 

[nomadologist]

They developed some pretty nifty rocket technology that flattened much of east London, and eventually formed the basis of the American space programme.

Which rocket technology?

 

[zhao]

what's more, people's "faith" in science necessarily excludes other vital ways of looking at the world, ways derived from thousands of years of accumulated human understanding and experience; ways which have been demonized as "superstition". for instance the Mayan calender is more sophisticated and useful to human life than much of what modern technology has to offer - but it is discarded as silly nonsense.

but all of these "superstitions" are in recent times more and more validated by science itself - in the sub-atomic level euclidean geometry and logic fails.

science reinforces the irrational belief that the universe operates according to more or less one set of rules, which is just not so. it also promotes the pompous delusion of humans that it is possible to "know" and "explain" all phenomenon through its lense. which is simply not the case.

at the expense of the "spiritual dimension" science has taken its place as the "master Narrative" of these modern times, and I think all of the ills of this world, from destruction of the environment to war crimes, can be attributed to this loss of spiritual connection and meaning, to the world's over-dependence on "reason", "rationality", and the scientific method (which is not as objective as it seems, atleast in its application).

what we need to save the world is more irrationality, non-sense, and un-reason (dada?), more intuition, mystery... basically all characteristics of what is traditionally the realm of the feminine.

whoever it was that said in another thread that women should not become more like men, but men should become more like women - is spot on.

 

[Guybrush]

For example...?

I have to get back to you for such. I have read that there were a lot experiments conducted in concentration camps, for example. Really, this should be a bit of a non-discussion: OF COURSE there must have been some experiments which were scientific given the vast number of experiments that were conducted.

 

[Mr. Tea]

What the fuck are you talking about, at this point? Nothing that relates to the original topic whatsoever. The humanities talk about the ETHICAL/POLITICAL/MORAL implications of science--Baudrillard operates within the HUMANITIES.

No one claims Baudrillard is a scientist.

I'd have thought it was failry clear what I was talking about, although as you say it is pretty far off the original topic. Unless anyone wants to cary on this discussion in another thread I am happy to leave at this point and let people get back to talking about this guy.

Edit: OK, so I lied. I really am going home now, though.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Which rocket technology?

The V2. Wernher von Braun led the team that designed them and later worked for NASA as their chief rocket expert. Along with Edward 'H-Bomb' Teller he's regarded as the main inspiration for Dr. Strangelove.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

Also, for Guybrush's benefit, I'd have to say that (from what I know of this grisly subject) the Nazis' human experiments were without much real scientific merit. Some were simple tests of human endurance of cold, pressure etc., while Mengele's even sicker stuff is generally acknowleged as being pure torture with no scientific basis whatsoever.
That said, they developed some technology that was far ahead of its time, everything from colour cine film to a rudimentary night-vision scope.

 

[Mr. Tea]

at the expense of the "spiritual dimension" science has taken its place as the "master Narrative" of these modern times, and I think all of the ills of this world, from destruction of the environment to war crimes, can be attributed to this loss of spiritual connection and meaning, to the world's over-dependence on "reason", "rationality", and the scientific method (which is not as objective as it seems, atleast in its application).

what we need to save the world is more irrationality, non-sense, and un-reason (dada?), more intuition, mystery... basically all characteristics of what is traditionally the realm of the feminine.

I can kind of see where you're coming from, zhao, but I couldn't disagree more. Is it not for 'spiritual' reasons that the Spanish Inquisition, the Aztec human sacrifices and al-Qu'eda exist(ed)? Were the Nazis not 'irrational'?

I'm firmly in the anti-superstition, anti-religion, anti-bullshit camp. That does NOT mean I think the Mayan calender, for example, is bullshit - far from it, it's an absolutely astounding piece of astronomy and applied mathematics. But remember they developed it to calculate how often they needed to kill people in order to keep the rain god happy, and that's bullshit of the highest order. Some postmodernists' rejection of rationality and reason is another big problem I have with it.

Edit: also, the female scientists I know (and I know a few) wouldn't take kindly to your characterisation of 'irrationality' and 'non-sense' as inherently 'feminine'. Or is this just another way of saying it's generally women that read the astrology columns in trashy magazines?

 

[zhao]

anyhow, we are endlessly annoying Ms. Nomad. back to topic:

if it's possible, what would you (nomad? k-punk?) say were Baudrillard's top contributions? the un/super/real concepts? his analysis of postmodernism and virtual reality?

also, what are some similarities between his work and Virilio's? (to me they seem very different)

EDIT: nevermind on the main contributions. I'm doing my own research. thanks

 

[k-punk]

Science and the status of science strike me as more the purview of Lyotard than of Baudrillard.

To get back on-topic, it was asked - so long ago I forget by whom - why Baudrillard said that the Gulf War did not happen?

I think there were two philosophical questions Baudrillard wanted us to consider when we made that claim: 1. What is a war? and 2. What is an event?

Something transpired; clearly Baudrillard was not making an empirical denial of the facts of the US-led attack on Iraq. But it wasn't a 'war', since on the one side (the Allies) there was overkill; on the other side (Saddam), there was only a 'sacrificial' giving up of troops (Saddam didn't use all of the resources at this disposal). There was an exchange of signs - and, grotesquely but inevitably, real deaths are significant in the logic of this exchange only insofar as they function as signs - but nothing happened; everything went according to a pre-designed script, synchronized to CNN schedules. It wasn't an event, it was a snuff movie on a grand scale.

Now Baudrillard's point about the real is to do with the inability to get to a real 'in itself'. Modern culture is fixated upon 'reality', Baudrillard says, but it is faced with paradoxes whenever it attempts to confront that reality in the raw as it were. The obvious example is reality TV; Baudrillard's example is the 'fly on the wall' documentary. Do such documentaries give us an accurate picture, or has the presence of the camera completely altered how people behave? The situation is undecidable. But if such cultural products - ostensibly stripped of all artifice and fictionality - do not give us 'reality' what would?

Another example. The opinion poll. Do opinion polls simply reflect or represent a pre-existing reality? No - even if they accurately record people's views, that very recording cannot but intervene in the very process they are supposedly only representing.

Both these examples are what Baudrillard means by hyperreality. Not the departure, the diminution, the evaporation of reality, but its metastization - the more real than real.

 

[k-punk]

An interesting fact that Baudrillard produces in the Gulf War book that it is worth citing. Statistically, the US soldiers who fought in the Gulf War would have been at more risk of death if they had stayed in the States as civilians (because of car accidents, mainly).

 

[zhao]

Given his postulate, of the erosion of meaning via its excess,

I like him a little better already!

I think I got some of my anti-Baudrillard sentiments from a professor in college that was hard-line Foucaultian...