Jean Baudrillard Did Not Die
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I'd still say a war took place, in that there was an armed conflict between two factions representing national interests - which is how I'd define a war, I suppose - it was just a very artificial, 'scripted' war, fought for media-led reasons. Does that disqualify it from being a war?
Baudrillard "described the war as the inverse of the Clausewitzian formula: not 'the continuation of politics by other means', but 'the continuation of the absence of politics by other means.' "
"Saddam Hussein was not fighting the Allied Forces, but using the lives of his troops as a form of sacrifice to preserve his power (p. 72 in the 2004 edition); and neither were the Allied Forces fighting Saddam, they were merely dropping 10,000 tonnes of bombs a day as if to prove to themselves there was an enemy to fight (p. 61). So too were the Western media complicit, presenting the war in 'real time' and recycling images of war to propagate the notion that the two enemies were in actual conflict. But, Baudrillard followed, this was not the case: Saddam did not use what military capacity he had (his air force); nor was his power eventually weakened (as he managed to put down the insurgency against him after the war ended). And so, Baudrillard concluded, little politically changed in Iraq: the enemy was not defeated, the victors were not victorious. Ergo, there was no war: the Gulf War did not take place."
swears
preppy-kei
I haven't read Baudrillard's thoughts on this but it makes a lot of sense to me.
How can you have a war without fighting?
Saddam knew he couldn't win, he didn't "fight" the war with his troops, he let thousands of them die pointless deaths at the hands of the Americans in order to gain political sympathy in the wider world. Everybody knew the Iraqis would eventually have to leave Kuwait and that they were no match for the vastly better-equiped US army.
I think his point was that whatever really happened, it wasn't a war - it was a media event which actually left the situation relatively unchanged - no real winners, Saddam still in power etc. So in that sense it didn't happen, despite the reality of the death and destruction. But of course there may have been a little bit of attention-grabbing going on also on his part! [Edit - wrote this while missing the previous few posts]
Good to see that we've removed the straw man of postmodernism (a la Sokal et al) from the debate. Ironically Baudrillard was highly critical and increasingly pessimistic about what he diagnosed as postmodernism, or hyper-reality or the era of the simulacrum or whatever. He was also eerily prescient, pre-9/11, about the symbolic role of terrorism in a society dedicated to pure positivity (in The transparency Of Evil).
Shaviro has a critical but typically insightful article about him here. K-punk, I'd be interested in hearing your response to a relatred criticism of Baudrillard (by Massumi here and possibly Shaviro) about Baudrillard's alleged nostalgia for the pre-hyper-real era, a longing for when signs connected to reality, and resultant dismay with the present, versus the allegedly more radical third way of Deleuze & Guattari's simulacra as a realm of copies-without-original-model.
Good to see that we've removed the straw man of postmodernism (a la Sokal et al) from the debate. Ironically Baudrillard was highly critical and increasingly pessimistic about what he diagnosed as postmodernism, or hyper-reality or the era of the simulacrum or whatever. He was also eerily prescient, pre-9/11, about the symbolic role of terrorism in a society dedicated to pure positivity (in The transparency Of Evil).
Shaviro has a critical but typically insightful article about him here. K-punk, I'd be interested in hearing your response to a relatred criticism of Baudrillard (by Massumi here and possibly Shaviro) about Baudrillard's alleged nostalgia for the pre-hyper-real era, a longing for when signs connected to reality, and resultant dismay with the present, versus the allegedly more radical third way of Deleuze & Guattari's simulacra as a realm of copies-without-original-model.
N
nomadologist
Guest
I agree with K-punk up there, except that I do think you have to reserve a certain amount of the literal value of what Baudrillard is saying when he says "The Gulf War never happened," otherwise it doesn't have the same gestural impact. Baudrillard is very serious about his claim that the model and the map have become one--i.e. that our models/representations and the Real have collapsed into "virtuality." The Gulf War was a virtual war, he seized on it as a perfect illustration of the sort of social/historical/literal "spaces" the virtual inhabits, of how the virtual event transpires.
dHarry--just had to read Shaviro "The Cinematic Body" (which I can make available if anyone wants it) for my Tactile Media class, and I liked it. What else should I read?
Now if I could only finish my actual assignments instead of being dragged into tangential arguments by people who haven't read source texts...
dHarry--just had to read Shaviro "The Cinematic Body" (which I can make available if anyone wants it) for my Tactile Media class, and I liked it. What else should I read?
Now if I could only finish my actual assignments instead of being dragged into tangential arguments by people who haven't read source texts...
N
nomadologist
Guest
if you're still interested in an answer to the Virilio question, here's mine: I'd say Virilio is similar in that he's also a theorist of the "virtual", and ultimately stands on Baudrillard's definition of the "virtual" in forging his own. Virilio is more concerned with the architectures of the virtual, how virtuality has come about through the sort of "societies of control" idea of Foucault's where our spaces (esp the "city") have been restructured around the panopticon model--he is more invested in discussing the ways our physical and social constructions of space have decentered the "subject", taken the subject out of "space" and placed them in "time." there are key differences, but the emphasis on virtuality and the loss of the Real is the same.
the above is heavily paraphrased, so if it doesn't make sense i'll try again..
old goriot
Well-known member
The problem with Baudrillard's analysis is that it is not very well grounded in what actually occurred. Saddam did not sacrifice his troops, his lines of communication were cut off in the wake of the bombing campaign. The bombing was in fact highly strategic and not merely a show of force, however it may have been utilized in the media. The bombing was so successful in disabling Saddam's government and forcing the Iraqi army out of Kuwait that the Americans were unable to justify further aggressions. There is no doubt in my mind that Bush Sr. did not come away from that conflict thinking "Mission Accomplished" despite how successfully the war was manufactured in the media. also, I'm pretty sure the Iraqi air force "in bunkers under the sand" story that Baudrillard must be basing his argument about Saddam's air force on turned out to be completely untrue. If I recall, it was actually evoked by American politicians seeking to launch a full scale ground invasion.
My argument is that there was a war in the full sense of the word, and it was so lop-sided and the casus belli so narrow that it was resolved almost instantly, and did not acquire the urgency that the American government would have liked. There are boxing matches that end in less than 2 minutes, with little boxing involved and no real struggle - in some cases one of the boxers might even lose on purpose. It doesn't mean they aren't boxing matches.
N
nomadologist
Guest
I think you're completely missing B's point. Baudrillard is also saying nothing happens, in the sense that we've lost the Real. He focuses on the Gulf War because it is such a perfect illustration of "the virtual" as he theorized it earlier.
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
[Response to DHarry]
Well, I would agree that Baudrillard is nostalgic, but not for a time when signs connected with reality. It is we who are fixated on the connections between sign and reality. As the Shaviro article makes clear, what the 'primitive' societies which Baudrillard celebrated had was the categories of the illusory and/ or the symbolic, categories which we have eliminated. We seek reality, yet the murder of the real and the destruction of the illusory are simultaneous. Without the illusory, the real disappears.
(Baudrillard himself accuses D/G of nostalgia; he thinks they belong to an obsolete era of production and desire, which he associates with the 'Promethean' period of the 19C. Some of the best passages in Forget Foucault are Baudrillard's attacks on D/G.)
The thing is, when you look at the contemporary cultural scene, do you witness a ceaseless productive energy that can barely be contained or restrained, a la D/G? It seems to me that Baudrillard's language of stasis, sclerosis, exhaustion much better captures the state of things. Think of pop: the fact it can seemingly go on forever, continue to be successful, while the rate of innovation cools to the point of complete stasis. In a word: Razorlight.
It could be argued that D/G's analysis remains locked in the 60s, whereas - for better or worse - Baudrillard is the prophet of the 90s and 00s.
Well, I would agree that Baudrillard is nostalgic, but not for a time when signs connected with reality. It is we who are fixated on the connections between sign and reality. As the Shaviro article makes clear, what the 'primitive' societies which Baudrillard celebrated had was the categories of the illusory and/ or the symbolic, categories which we have eliminated. We seek reality, yet the murder of the real and the destruction of the illusory are simultaneous. Without the illusory, the real disappears.
(Baudrillard himself accuses D/G of nostalgia; he thinks they belong to an obsolete era of production and desire, which he associates with the 'Promethean' period of the 19C. Some of the best passages in Forget Foucault are Baudrillard's attacks on D/G.)
The thing is, when you look at the contemporary cultural scene, do you witness a ceaseless productive energy that can barely be contained or restrained, a la D/G? It seems to me that Baudrillard's language of stasis, sclerosis, exhaustion much better captures the state of things. Think of pop: the fact it can seemingly go on forever, continue to be successful, while the rate of innovation cools to the point of complete stasis. In a word: Razorlight.
It could be argued that D/G's analysis remains locked in the 60s, whereas - for better or worse - Baudrillard is the prophet of the 90s and 00s.
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N
nomadologist
Guest
I think pop is more rhizomatic than anything, now more than ever with the rise of music like hip-hop, reggaeton, even some grime...
(of course, I'd prefer to think this, because Baudrillard was never one for "solutions", and I'm sick of elegies to some past that never existed a la Heidegger and of the apocalypse of my grandparents' generation a la Baudrillard. what happens after the apocalypse? i'd rather believe we can make *something* happen...)
(of course, I'd prefer to think this, because Baudrillard was never one for "solutions", and I'm sick of elegies to some past that never existed a la Heidegger and of the apocalypse of my grandparents' generation a la Baudrillard. what happens after the apocalypse? i'd rather believe we can make *something* happen...)
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N
nomadologist
Guest
also, the ceaseless productive energy doesn't happen on a cultural level, necessarily, for D&G--it happens on the level of the individual desiring machine. this is what bores me about post-structuralism at a certain point: why does everything have to happen culturally in order to be at all signficant?
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k-punk
Spectres of Mark
Yes, but it is important not to fall into the trap of the Socialist Realist bookburners and imply that Baudrillard was denying that actual people died. The point is that actual people died as part of a video-game.
old goriot
Well-known member
Well, I wasn't responding to B's point. I was responding to the parade of false assertions upon which his use of the Gulf War as a perfect illustration of "the virtual" is based, as presented by Dharry.
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
sums up everything I'm talking about... globally dominant for twenty years, but now sclerotic, exhausted, static, showing no signs of going away...
N
nomadologist
Guest
Right. This is why I think it's important to read Baudrillard yourself--it's probably counterintuitive to most people to think that he can have his cake and eat it, too, so to speak, without having read the more nuanced points firsthand.
I have no idea why science was dragged into this for so long, now, and I don't think I'm going to bother looking back to figure it out...
I have no idea why science was dragged into this for so long, now, and I don't think I'm going to bother looking back to figure it out...
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
So there can be vibrant, energised desiring machines on an individual level, but scleroticised, exhausted, cultures on the collective level? Isn't this why desire is irrelevant? This sounds like a one-line summary of everything that's wrong with Deleuzianism.
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
In the first case, something happened, but was it really a 'match'?
And if someone actually loses on purpose, we are surely not witnessing a match at all - what we are seeing is a simulation, precisely.
N
nomadologist
Guest
Is it? Or has everyone's music consumption hit some sort of frantic fever pitch where people expect more and more novelty more often? Think about the music industry 50 years ago: far, far fewer albums were released in general. I can't say that I think there were fewer amazing albums, but I don't think there were more, either.
I think every so often a really great hip-hop album comes out, but we've been glutted with so much music with so little reward, the illusion is that there is nothing good or worthwhile. The need for novelty in music, and some sort of steady stream (a great album should come out per week? per month?) is as much a byproduct of capitalism as anything...it also ends up smacking of the nostalgia for heirarchies and phallogocentrism, when I hear this sort of attitude about music...
What D&G are fighting for more than anything is an aesthetic economy that is completely indifferent to novelty and the marketplace in such a boring way. In the future music won't be big. It'll be small. There won't be continuums. Or big hits. But there will be good music.
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