nomos
Administrator
it was 1976, so a bit early.Dunno if there is a link from Ramm's side - but can ask , was getting ready to call him right now matter of fact.
Hmmm, when was 'Symbolic' written ?
i've just pm'd you though
it was 1976, so a bit early.Dunno if there is a link from Ramm's side - but can ask , was getting ready to call him right now matter of fact.
Hmmm, when was 'Symbolic' written ?
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?
"Saddam liquidates the communists, Moscow flirts even more with him; he gases the Kurds, it is not held against him; he eliminates the religious cadres, the whole of Islam makes peace with him.... Even ... the 100,000 dead will only have been the final decoy that Saddam will have sacrificed, the blood money paid in forfeit according to a calculated equivalence, in order to conserve his power. What is worse is that these dead still serve as an alibi for those who do not want to have been excited for nothing: at least these dead will prove this war was indeed a war and not a shameful and pointless hoax...."
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?
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
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."
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.
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.
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.
hip-hop
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.
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.
sums up everything I'm talking about... globally dominant for twenty years, but now sclerotic, exhausted, static, showing no signs of going away...