Jean Baudrillard ( , , ; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulation of concepts such as

simulation A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...

and hyperreality. Baudrillard wrote about diverse subjects, including consumerism,

gender relations A gender role, also known as a sex role, is a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on that person's sex. Gender roles are usually cente ...

critique of economy Critique of political economy or critique of economy is a form of social critique that rejects the various social categories and structures that constitute the mainstream discourse concerning the forms and modalities of resource allocation and ...

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...

, social history, art, Western foreign policy, and

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

. Among his best known works are ''Seduction'' (1978), '' Simulacra and Simulation'' (1981), ''America'' (1986), and ''

The Gulf War Did Not Take Place ''The Gulf War Did Not Take Place'' () is a collection of three short essays by Jean Baudrillard published in the French newspaper ''Libération'' and British paper ''The Guardian'' between January and March 1991. * Part 1, "The Gulf War will not ...

'' (1991). His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism. Baudrillard: "I have nothing to do with postmodernism."MLA Brennan, Eugene. Review of Pourquoi la guerre aujourd’hui?, by Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida. French Studies: A Quarterly Review, vol. 71 no. 3, 2017, p. 449-449. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/666299. APA Brennan, E. (2017). eview of the book Pourquoi la guerre aujourd’hui?, by Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida French Studies: A Quarterly Review 71(3), 449. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/666299. Chicago Brennan, Eugene. Review of Pourquoi la guerre aujourd’hui?, by Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida. French Studies: A Quarterly Review 71, no. 3 (2017): 449-449. muse.jhu.edu/article/666299. Endnote TY - JOUR T1 - Pourquoi la guerre aujourd’hui? by Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida (review) A1 - Brennan, Eugene JF - French Studies: A Quarterly Review VL - 71 IS - 3 SP - 449 EP - 449 PY - 2017 PB - Oxford University Press SN - 1468-2931 UR - https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/8/article/666299 N1 - Volume 71, Number 3, July 2017 ER - Nevertheless, Baudrillard has also ''opposed'' post-structuralism and had distanced himself from postmodernism. Transmodernism is "better terms than “postmodernism”. It is not about modernity; it is about every system that has developed its mode of expression to the extent that it surpasses itself and its own logic. This is what I am trying to analyze." "There is no longer any ontologically secret substance. I perceive this to be nihilism rather than postmodernism. To me, nihilism is a good thing – I am a nihilist, not a postmodernist." "Paul Virilio uses the term 'transpolitical'."

Life

Baudrillard was born in Reims, northeastern France, on 27 July 1929. His grandparents were farm workers and his father a gendarme. During high school (at the Lycée at Reims), he became aware of pataphysics via philosophy professor Emmanuel Peillet, which is said to be crucial for understanding Baudrillard's later thought.Francois L'Yvonnet, ed., Cahiers de l'Herne special volume on Baudrillard, Editions de l'Herne, 2004 He became the first of his family to attend university when he moved to Paris to attend the Sorbonne. There he studied German language and

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

, which led him to begin teaching the subject at several different lycées, both Parisian and provincial, from 1960 until 1966. While teaching, Baudrillard began to publish reviews of literature and translated the works of such authors as Peter Weiss, Bertolt Brecht,

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann. While teaching German, Baudrillard began to transfer to sociology, eventually completing and publishing in 1968 his doctoral thesis ''Le Système des Objets'' ('' The System of Objects'') under the dissertation committee of Henri Lefebvre, Roland Barthes, and

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence ...

. Subsequently, he began teaching Sociology at the Paris X Nanterre, a university campus just outside Paris which would become heavily involved in the events of May 1968. During this time, Baudrillard worked closely with Philosopher Humphrey De Battenburge, who described Baudrillard as a "visionary". At Nanterre he took up a position as ''Maître Assistant'' (Assistant Professor), then ''Maître de Conférences'' (Associate Professor), eventually becoming a professor after completing his accreditation, ''L'Autre par lui-même'' (''The Other by Himself''). In 1970, Baudrillard made the first of his many trips to the United States (

Aspen Aspen is a common name for certain tree species; some, but not all, are classified by botanists in the section ''Populus'', of the '' Populus'' genus. Species These species are called aspens: *'' Populus adenopoda'' – Chinese aspen (C ...

, Colorado), and in 1973, the first of several trips to

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

, Japan. He was given his first camera in 1981 in Japan, which led to him becoming a photographer. In 1986 he moved to IRIS (Institut de Recherche et d'Information Socio-Économique) at the Université de Paris-IX Dauphine, where he spent the latter part of his teaching career. During this time he had begun to move away from sociology as a discipline (particularly in its "classical" form), and, after ceasing to teach full-time, he rarely identified himself with any particular discipline, although he remained linked to academia. During the 1980s and 1990s his books had gained a wide audience, and in his last years he became, to an extent, an intellectual celebrity, being published often in the French- and English-speaking popular press. He nonetheless continued supporting the Institut de Recherche sur l'Innovation Sociale at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and was '' Satrap'' at the Collège de Pataphysique. Baudrillard taught at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, and collaborated at the Canadian theory, culture, and technology review '' Ctheory'', where he was abundantly cited. He also purportedly participated in the ''International Journal of Baudrillard Studies'' (as of 2022 hosted on

Bishop's University Bishop's University (french: Université Bishop's) is a small English-language liberal arts university in Lennoxville, a borough of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. The founder of the institution was the Anglican Bishop of Quebec, George Mountain ...

domain) from its inception in 2004 until his death. In 1999–2000, his photographs were exhibited at the Maison européenne de la photographie in Paris. In 2004, Baudrillard attended the major conference on his work, "Baudrillard and the Arts", at the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe in

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...

, Germany.

Personal life

Grave of Jean BAUDRILLARD in Montparnasse Cemetery

Baudrillard enjoyed baroque music; a favorite composer was Claudio Monteverdi. He also favored rock music such as ''

The Velvet Underground & Nico ''The Velvet Underground & Nico'' is the debut album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground and German singer Nico, released in March 1967 through Verve Records. It was recorded in 1966 while the band were featured on Andy Warhol's Ex ...

''. Baudrillard did his writing using "his old typewriter, never at the computer". He has stated that a computer is not "merely a handier and more complex kind of typewriter", whereas with a typewriter he has a "physical relation to writing". Baudrillard was married twice. He and his first wife Lucile Baudrillard had two children, Gilles and Anne. In 1970 during his first marriage, Baudrillard met 25 year old Marine Dupuis when she arrived at the Paris Nanterre University where he was a professor. Marine went on to be a media artistic director. They married in 1994 when he was 65. Diagnosed with cancer in 2005, Baudrillard battled the disease for two years from his apartment on Rue Sainte-Beuve, Paris, dying at the age of 77. Marine Baudrillard curates ''Cool Memories'', an association of Jean Baudrillard's friends.

Key concepts

Baudrillard's published work emerged as part of a generation of French thinkers including: Gilles Deleuze, Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Jacques Lacan who all shared an interest in

semiotics Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...

, and he is often seen as a part of the post-structuralist philosophical school. In common with many post-structuralists, his arguments consistently draw upon the notion that signification and meaning are both only understandable in terms of how particular words or "signs" interrelate. Baudrillard thought, as do many post-structuralists, that meaning is brought about through ''systems'' of signs working together. Following on from the structuralist

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

Ferdinand de Saussure, Baudrillard argued that meaning (''value'') is created through ''difference''—through what something is not (so "dog" means "dog" because it is not-"cat", not-"goat", not-"tree", etc.). In fact, he viewed meaning as near enough self-referential: objects, images of objects, words and signs are situated in a web of meaning; one object's meaning is only understandable through its relation to the meaning of other objects; for instance, one thing's prestige relates to another's mundanity. From this starting point Baudrillard theorized broadly about human society based upon this kind of self-referentiality. His writing portrays societies always searching for a sense of meaning—or a "total" understanding of the world—that remains consistently elusive. In contrast to Post-structuralism (such as Michel Foucault), for whom the formations of knowledge emerge only as the result of relations of power, Baudrillard developed theories in which the excessive, fruitless search for total knowledge leads almost inevitably to a kind of delusion. In Baudrillard's view, the (human) subject may try to understand the (non-human) object, but because the object can only be understood according to what it signifies (and because the process of signification immediately involves a web of other signs from which it is distinguished) this never produces the desired results. The subject is, rather, ''seduced'' (in the original Latin sense: ) by the object. He argued therefore that, in the final analysis, a complete understanding of the minutiae of human life is impossible, and when people are seduced into thinking otherwise they become drawn toward a "

simulated A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the ...

" version of reality, or, to use one of his

neologism A neologism Ancient_Greek.html"_;"title="_from_Ancient_Greek">Greek_νέο-_''néo''(="new")_and_λόγος_/''lógos''_meaning_"speech,_utterance"is_a_relatively_recent_or_isolated_term,_word,_or_phrase_that_may_be_in_the_process_of_entering_com ...

s, a state of " hyperreality." This is not to say that the world becomes unreal, but rather that the faster and more comprehensively societies begin to bring reality together into one supposedly coherent picture, the more insecure and unstable it looks and the more fearful societies become. Reality, in this sense, "dies out." Accordingly, Baudrillard argued that the excess of signs and of meaning in late 20th century "global" society had caused (quite paradoxically) an effacement of reality. In this world neither liberal nor Marxist utopias are any longer believed in. We live, he argued, not in a " global village", to use Marshall McLuhan's phrase, but rather in a world that is ever more easily petrified by even the smallest event. Because the "global" world operates at the level of the exchange of signs and commodities, it becomes ever more blind to ''symbolic'' acts such as, for example, terrorism. In Baudrillard's work the symbolic realm (which he develops a perspective on through the

anthropological Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

work of

Marcel Mauss Marcel Mauss (; 10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950) was a French sociologist and anthropologist known as the "father of French ethnology". The nephew of Émile Durkheim, Mauss, in his academic work, crossed the boundaries between sociology and ...

and Georges Bataille) is seen as quite distinct from that of signs and signification. Signs can be exchanged like commodities; symbols, on the other hand, operate quite differently: they are exchanged, like gifts, sometimes violently as a form of potlatch. Baudrillard, particularly in his later work, saw the "global" society as without this "symbolic" element, and therefore symbolically (if not militarily) defenseless against acts such as the Rushdie Fatwa or, indeed, the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States and its military and economic establishment.

The object value system

Jean Baudrillard, Pour une critique de l'economie maitrier

In his early books, such as '' The System of Objects'', ''For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign'', and ', Baudrillard's main focus is upon consumerism, and how different objects are consumed in different ways. At this time Baudrillard's political outlook was loosely associated with

Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

(and Situationism), but in these books he differed from

in one significant way. For Baudrillard, as for the situationists, it was consumption rather than production that was the main driver of

capitalist society Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private pr ...

. Baudrillard came to this conclusion by criticising Marx's concept of " use-value." Baudrillard thought that both Marx's and Adam Smith's economic thought accepted the idea of genuine needs relating to genuine uses too easily and too simply. Baudrillard argued, drawing from Georges Bataille, that needs are constructed, rather than innate. He stressed that all purchases, because they always signify something ''socially'', have their fetishistic side. Objects always, drawing from Roland Barthes, "say something" about their users. And this was, for him, why consumption was and remains more important than production: because the "ideological genesis of needs" precedes the production of goods to meet those needs. He wrote that there are four ways of an object obtaining value. The four value-making processes are:Baudrillard, Jean. 1983. ''For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign''. London: Verso Books. . # The functional value: an object's instrumental purpose (use value). Example: a pen writes; a refrigerator cools. # The exchange value: an object's economic value. Example: One pen may be worth three pencils, while one refrigerator may be worth the salary earned by three months of work. # The symbolic value: an object's value assigned by a subject ''in relation to another subject'' (i.e., between a giver and receiver). Example: a pen might symbolize a student's school graduation gift or a commencement speaker's gift; or a diamond may be a symbol of publicly declared marital love. # The sign value: an object's value within a ''system'' of objects. Example: a particular pen may, while having no added functional benefit, signify prestige relative to another pen; a diamond ring may have no function at all, but may suggest particular social values, such as taste or class. Baudrillard's earlier books were attempts to argue that the first two of these values are not simply associated, but are disrupted by the third and, particularly, the fourth. Later, Baudrillard rejected Marxism totally ('' The Mirror of Production'' and ''Symbolic Exchange and Death''). But the focus on the difference between sign value (which relates to commodity exchange) and symbolic value (which relates to Maussian gift exchange) remained in his work up until his death. Indeed, it came to play a more and more important role, particularly in his writings on world events.

''Simulacra and Simulation''

As Baudrillard developed his work throughout the 1980s, he moved from economic theory to mediation and mass communication. Although retaining his interest in

Saussurean Ferdinand de Saussure (; ; 26 November 1857 – 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is wi ...

and the logic of symbolic exchange (as influenced by anthropologist

), Baudrillard turned his attention to the work of Marshall McLuhan, developing ideas about how the nature of social relations is determined by the forms of communication that a society employs. In so doing, Baudrillard progressed beyond both Saussure's and Roland Barthes's formal semiology to consider the implications of a historically understood version of structural semiology. According to Kornelije Kvas, "Baudrillard rejects the structuralist principle of the equivalence of different forms of linguistic organization, the binary principle that contains oppositions such as: true-false, real-unreal, center-periphery. He denies any possibility of a (mimetic) duplication of reality; reality mediated through language becomes a game of signs. In his theoretical system all distinctions between the real and the fictional, between a copy and the original, disappear". Simulation, Baudrillard claims, is the current stage of the simulacrum: all is composed of references with no referents, a hyperreality. Baudrillard argues that this is part of a historical progression. In the Renaissance, the dominant simulacrum was in the form of the counterfeit, where people or objects appear to stand for a real referent that does not exist (for instance, royalty, nobility, holiness, etc.). With the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

, the dominant simulacrum becomes the product, which can be propagated on an endless production line. In current times, the dominant simulacrum is the model, which by its nature already stands for endless reproducibility, and is itself already reproduced.

The end of history and meaning

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, one of Baudrillard's most common themes was historicity, or, more specifically, how present-day societies utilise the notions of progress and modernity in their political choices. He argued, much like the political theorist Francis Fukuyama, that history had ended or "vanished" with the spread of

globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...

; but, unlike Fukuyama, Baudrillard averred that this end should not be understood as the culmination of history's progress, but as the collapse of the very ''idea'' of historical progress. For Baudrillard, the end of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

did not represent an ideological victory; rather, it signaled the disappearance of utopian visions shared between both the political Right and Left. Giving further evidence of his opposition toward Marxist visions of global communism and liberal visions of

global civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.Alan Sokal, Baudrillard wrote that the speed society moved at had destabilized the linearity of history: "we have the particle accelerator that has smashed the referential orbit of things once and for all." In making this argument Baudrillard found some affinity with the postmodern philosophy of Jean-François Lyotard, who argued that in the late 20th century there was no longer any room for " metanarratives." (The triumph of a coming communism being one such metanarrative.) But, in addition to simply lamenting this collapse of history, Baudrillard also went beyond Lyotard and attempted to analyse how the idea of positive progress was being employed in spite of the notion's declining validity. Baudrillard argued that although genuine belief in a universal endpoint of history, wherein all conflicts would find their resolution, had been deemed redundant, universality was still a notion utilised in world politics as an excuse for actions. Universal values which, according to him, no one any longer believed universal were and are still rhetorically employed to justify otherwise unjustifiable choices. The means, he wrote, are there even though the ends are no longer believed in, and are employed in order to hide the present's harsh realities (or, as he would have put it, unrealities). "In the Enlightenment,

universalization Universalisation (cultural studies) Lorna Jean Edmonds and WE (Ted) Hewitt introduced a definition of universalization as an incipient concept describing the next phase of human development, marking the transition from trans-national to interpl ...

was viewed as unlimited growth and forward progress. Today, by contrast, universalization is expressed as a forward ''escape''." This involves the notion of " escape velocity" as outlined in ''The Vital Illusion'' (2000), which in turn, results in the postmodern ''fallacy of escape velocity'' on which the postmodern mind and critical view cannot, by definition, ever truly break free from the all-encompassing " self-referential" sphere of discourse.

Hyperreality

Political commentary

On the Bosnian War

Baudrillard reacted to the West's indifference to the Bosnian War in writings, mostly in essays in his column for '' Libération''. More specifically, he expressed his view on Europe's unwillingness to respond to "aggression and genocide in Bosnia," in which "New Europe" revealed itself to be a "sham." He criticized the Western media and intellectuals for their passivity, and for taking the role of bystanders, engaging in ineffective, hypocritical and self-serving action, and the public for its inability to distinguish ''simulacra'' from real world happenings, in which real death and destruction in Bosnia seemed unreal. He was determined in his columns to openly name the perpetrators, Serbs, and call their actions in Bosnia aggression and genocide.

On the Persian Gulf War

Baudrillard's provocative 1991 book, ''

'',Baudrillard, Jean. 2004

991 Year 991 ( CMXCI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events * March 1: In Rouen, Pope John XV ratifies the first Truce of God, between Æthelred the Unready and Richard I of ...

''. raised his public profile as an academic and political commentator. He argued that the first

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

was the inverse of the

Clausewitz Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (; 1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral", in modern terms meaning psychological, and political aspects of waging war. His m ...

ian formula: not "the continuation of politics by other means," but "the continuation of the absence of politics by other means." Accordingly,

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...

was not fighting the Coalition, but using the lives of his soldiers as a form of sacrifice to preserve his power. The Coalition fighting the Iraqi military was merely dropping 10,000 tonnes of bombs daily, as if proving to themselves that there was an enemy to fight. So, too, were the Western media complicit, presenting the war in real time, by recycling images of war to propagate the notion that the U.S.-led Coalition and the Iraqi government were actually fighting, but, such was not the case. Saddam Hussein did not use his military capacity (the Iraqi Air Force). His power was not weakened, evinced by his easy suppression of the 1991 internal uprisings that followed afterwards. Over all, little had changed. Saddam remained undefeated, the "victors" were not victorious, and thus there was no war—i.e., the Gulf War did not occur. The book was originally a series of articles in the British newspaper ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' and the French newspaper '' Libération'', published in three parts: "The Gulf War Will Not Take Place," published during the American military and rhetorical buildup; "The Gulf War Is Not Taking Place," published during military action; and "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place" published afterwards. Some critics, like Christopher Norris accused Baudrillard of instant revisionism; a denial of the physical action of the conflict (which was related to his denial of reality in general). Consequently, Baudrillard was accused of lazy amoralism, cynical scepticism, and Berkelian

subjective idealism Subjective idealism, or empirical idealism, is a form of philosophical monism that holds that only minds and mental contents exist. It entails and is generally identified or associated with immaterialism, the doctrine that material things do n ...

. Sympathetic commentators such as William Merrin, in his book ''Baudrillard and the Media'', have argued that Baudrillard was more concerned with the West's technological and political dominance and the globalization of its commercial interests, and what that means for the present possibility of war. Merrin argued that Baudrillard was not denying that something had happened, but merely questioning whether that something was in fact war or a bilateral "atrocity masquerading as a war." Merrin viewed the accusations of amorality as redundant and based on a misreading. In Baudrillard's own words:

On the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001

In his essay, "The Spirit of Terrorism," Baudrillard characterises the terrorist attacks of

11 September 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

on the World Trade Center in New York City as the "absolute event."Baudrillard, Jean. 0012010.
The Spirit of Terrorism
" translated by R. Bloul. European Graduate School. . Baudrillard contrasts the "absolute event" of 11 September 2001 with "global events," such as the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and World Cup. The essay culminates in Baudrillard regarding the U.S.-led

as a " non-event," or an "event that did not happen." Seeking to understand them as a reaction to the technological and political expansion of capitalist globalization, rather than as a war of religiously based or civilization-based warfare, he described the absolute event and its consequences as follows: In accordance with his theory of society, Baudrillard portrayed the attacks as a symbolic reaction to the inexorable rise of a world based on commodity exchange.

Reception

This stance was criticised on two counts. Richard Wolin (in ''The Seduction of Unreason'') forcefully accused Baudrillard and Slavoj Žižek of all but celebrating the terrorist attacks, essentially claiming that the United States received what it deserved. Žižek, however, countered that accusation to Wolin's analysis as a form of intellectual barbarism in the journal ''

Critical Inquiry ''Critical Inquiry'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the humanities published by the University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Department of English Language and Literature ( University of Chicago). While the topics and histo ...

'', saying that Wolin failed to see the difference between fantasising about an event and stating that one is deserving of that event. Merrin (in ''Baudrillard and the Media'') argued that Baudrillard's position affords the terrorists a type of moral superiority. In the journal '' Economy and Society'', Merrin further noted that Baudrillard gives the symbolic facets of society unfair privilege above semiotic concerns. Second, authors questioned whether the attacks were unavoidable. Bruno Latour, in ''Critical Inquiry,'' argued that Baudrillard believed that their destruction was forced by the society that created them, alluding to the notion that the Towers were "brought down by their own weight." In Latour's view, this was because Baudrillard conceived only of society in terms of a symbolic and semiotic dualism. Latour lamented of Baudrillard, "What has become of critique when a book that claims that no plane ever crashed into the Pentagon can be a bestseller? I am ashamed to say that the author was French, too.".

Debate with Jacques Derrida

19 February 2003, with the

2003 invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including ...

impending, moderated a debate entitled ''"Pourquoi La Guerre Aujourd’hui?"'' between Baudrillard and Jacques Derrida, co-hosted by ''Major's Institute for Advanced Studies in Psychoanalysis'' and '' Le Monde Diplomatique''. The debate discussed the relation between terrorist attacks and the invasion. On the Iraq War, University of Oklahoma professor Vincent Leitch states that "Where Baudrillard situates 9/11 as the primary motivating force, Derrida argues that the Iraq War was planned long before 9/11, and that 9/11 plays a secondary role".

''The Agony of Power''

During 2005, Baudrillard wrote three short pieces and gave a brief magazine interview, all treating similar ideas; following his death in 2007, the four pieces were collected and published posthumously as ''The Agony of Power'', a polemic against power itself. The first piece, "From Domination to Hegemony", contrasts its two subjects, modes of power; domination stands for historical, traditional power relations, while hegemony stands for modern, more sophisticated power relations as realized by states and businesses. Baudrillard decried the "cynicism" with which contemporary businesses openly state their

business model A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners from 45 countries, self-published, 2010 in economic, soci ...

s. For example, he cited French television channel TF1 executive Patrick Le Lay who stated that his business' job was "to help

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance bar, temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pembe ...

sell its products." Baudrillard lamented that such honesty pre-empted and thus robbed the Left of its traditional role of critiquing governments and businesses: "In fact, Le Lay takes away the only power we had left. He steals our denunciation."Baudrillard, Jean.

007 The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

2010. ''The Agony of Power'', translated by A. Hodges, Semiotext(e) Intervention Series 6. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e). . Consequently, Baudrillard stated that "power itself must be abolished—and not solely in the refusal to be dominated…but also, just as violently, in the refusal to dominate." The latter pieces included further analysis of the September 11 terrorist attacks, using the metaphor of the Native American potlatch to describe both American and Muslim societies, specifically the American state versus the hijackers. In the pieces' context, "potlatch" referred not to the gift-giving aspect of the ritual, but rather its wealth-destroying aspect: "The terrorists' potlatch against the West is their own death. Our potlatch is indignity, immodesty, obscenity, degradation and abjection." This criticism of the West carried notes of Baudrillard's simulacrum, the above cynicism of business, and contrast between Muslim and Western societies:

We
he West He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
throw this indifference and abjection at others like a challenge: the challenge to defile themselves in return, to deny their values, to strip naked, confess, admit—to respond to a nihilism equal to our own.

Reception

One of Baudrillard's editors, Mark Poster, remarked: Poster, Mark. 2002. "Introduction" in ''Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings'' (2nd ed.), edited by M. Poster. Stanford: Stanford University Press. . But Poster still argued for his contemporary relevance; he also attempted to refute the most extreme of Baudrillard's critics, the likes of Alan Sokal and Christopher Norris who see him as a purveyor of a form of reality-denying irrationalism: Only one of the two major confrontational books on Baudrillard's thought—Christopher Norris's ''Uncritical Theory: Postmodernism, Intellectuals and the Gulf War''—seeks to reject his media theory and position on "the real" out of hand. The other—postmodern theorist Douglas Kellner's ''Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond''—seeks rather to analyse Baudrillard's relation to postmodernism (a concept with which Baudrillard has had a continued, if uneasy and rarely explicit, relationship) and to present a Marxist counter. Regarding the former, William Merrin (discussed above) published more than one denunciation of Norris' position. The latter Baudrillard himself characterised as reductive. Kellner commented that Baudrillard's views were 'ultra-leftist' in his writing of ''Symbolic Exchange and Death''. Baudrillard later admitted that his views could be classified as right-wing "in objective terms", but found the Left–right political spectrum arbitrary. Mark Fisher pointed out that Baudrillard "is condemned, sometimes lionised, as the melancholic observer of a departed reality", asserting that Baudrillard "was certainly melancholic". Poster stated that "As the politics of the sixties receded so did Baudrillard's radicalism: from a position of firm leftism he gradually moved to one of bleak fatalism." Richard G. Smith, David B. Clarke and Marcus A. Doel instead consider Baudrillard "an extreme optimist". In an exchange between critical theorist McKenzie Wark and European Graduate School professor Geert Lovink, Wark remarked of Baudrillard that "Everything he wrote was marked by a radical sadness and yet invariably expressed in the happiest of forms." Chris Turner's English translation of Baudrillard's ''Cool Memories: 1980-1985'' writes, "I accuse myself of... being profoundly carnal and melancholy...AMEN".

Legacy

Native American (

Anishinaabe The Anishinaabeg (adjectival: Anishinaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe (including Saulteaux and Oji-Cree), Odawa, Potawa ...

) writer Gerald Vizenor made extensive use of Baudrillard's concepts of simulation in his critical work.

In popular culture

The Wachowskis Lana Wachowski (born June 21, 1965, formerly known as Larry Wachowski) and Lilly Wachowski (born December 29, 1967, formerly known as Andy Wachowski) are American film and television directors, writers and producers. The sisters are both trans ...

said that Baudrillard influenced '' The Matrix'' (1999), and Neo hides money and disks containing information in ''Simulacra and Simulation''. Adam Gopnik wondered whether Baudrillard, who had not embraced the movie, was "thinking of suing for a screen credit," but Baudrillard himself disclaimed any connection to ''The Matrix'', calling it at best a misreading of his ideas. Some reviewers have noted that

Charlie Kaufman Charles Stuart Kaufman (; born November 19, 1958) is an American filmmaker and novelist. He wrote the films '' Being John Malkovich'' (1999), '' Adaptation'' (2002), and '' Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'' (2004). He made his directorial ...

's film '' Synecdoche, New York'' seems inspired by Baudrillard's ''Simulacra and Simulation''. The album '' Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?'' by rock band Deerhunter was influenced by Baudrillard's essay of the same name.

Bibliography

Books (English translations)

* 1968. '' The System of Objects'' * 1970. ' * 1972. ''For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign'' * 1973. '' The Mirror of Production'' * 1976. ''Symbolic Exchange and Death'' * 1977. ''Forget Foucault'' * 1979. ''Seduction'' * 1981. '' Simulacra and Simulation'' * 1982. '' In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities'' * 1983. ''Fatal Strategies'' * 1983. ''Simulations'' * 1986. ''America'' * 1987. ''Cool Memories 1980-1985'' * 1987. ''The Ecstasy of Communication'' * 1990. ''The Transparency of Evil'' * 1991. ''

'' * 1992. ''The Illusion of the End'' * 1995. ''The Perfect Crime'' * 1996. ''Cool Memories II 1987-1990'' * 1997. ''Fragments: Cool Memories III 1990-1995'' * 1998. ''Paroxysm: Interviews with Philippe Petit'' * 1999. ''Impossible Exchange'' * 2000. ''Passwords'' * 2000. '' The Singular Objects of Architecture'' * 2000. ''The Vital Illusion'' * 2002. ''The Spirit of Terrorism And Requiem for the Twin Towers'' * 2003. ''Fragments (Interviews with François L'Yvonnet)'' * 2003. ''Cool Memories IV 1995-2000'' * 2005. ''The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact'' * 2005. ''The Conspiracy of Art'' * 2006. ''Utopia Deferred: Writings for Utopie (1967–1978)'' * 2006. ''Cool Memories V 2000-2004'' * 2007. ''Exiles from Dialogue'' * 2008. ''Radical Alterity'' * 2009. ''Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?'' * 2010. ''Carnival and Cannibal, or the Play of Global Antagonisms'' * 2010. ''The Agony of Power'' * 2011. ''Telemorphosis'' * 2014. ''Screened Out'' * 2014. ''The Divine Left: A Chronicle of the Years 1977–1984''

Articles and essays

*1996. "No Pity for Sarajevo; The West's Serbianization; When the West Stands In for the Dead." Pp. 79–89 in ''This Time We Knew: Western Responses to Genocide in Bosnia''. NYU Press. . *2001.
The Spirit of Terrorism
" '' Telos'' 121(Fall):134–42. * 2005.
Divine Europe
" ''Telos'' 131(Summer):188–90. * 2006.
The Pyres of Autumn
" '' New Left Review'' 2(37).
The violence of images, violence against the image.
* ''Radical Thought'' ( CTheory) **https://web.archive.org/web/20160513042009/http://ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=67 *

Interviews

* Heinz-Norbert Jocks, Jocks, Heinz-Norbert: ''Die Fotografie und die Dinge. Ein Gespräch mit Jean Baudrillard.'' In: ''Kunstforum International.'', No: 172, ''Das Ende der Fotografie.'' Editor: Heinz-Norbert Jocks, 2004, p. 70–83. * Smith, Richard G., David B. Clarke, eds. 2015.
Jean Baudrillard: From Hyperreality to Disappearance: Uncollected Interviews
'. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press. . * Smith, Richard G., David B. Clarke, eds. 2017.

'. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press. .

Audio CDs

* 1997. ''Die Illusion des Endes – Das Ende der Illusion'' 8 minutes + booklet Jean Baudrillard & Boris Groys. Cologne: supposé. * 2006. ''Die Macht der Verführung'', 5 minutes Cologne: supposé. .

Notes

References

External links

Jean Baudrillard Biography
Archived from th
original
on 20 December 2009. Faculty page at European Graduate School (biography, bibliography, photos and videos). * *
Jean Baudrillard (1981; translated 1994 by Sheila Glaser), Simulacra and Simulation
archived fro
the original
on 21 May 2013.
Baudrillard; Cultura, Simulacro y régimen de mortandad en el Sistema de los Objetos , EIKASIA
PDF (in Spanish) Adolfo Vásquez Rocca * *
International Journal of Baudrillard Studies
'' Retrieved 9 March 2022
Cool Memories
association of Baudrillard's friends * Bacon's Essays/Of Simulation and Dissimulation by Anglican philosopher

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

Terror And Performance - Asymmetric Warfare, Martyrdom, And Necropolitics
An application of Achille Mbembe's study of

Necropolitics Necropolitics is the use of social and political power to dictate how some people may live and how some must die. The deployment of necropolitics creates what Achille Mbembe calls ''deathworlds'', or "new and unique forms of social existence in wh ...

to Baudrillard's notion of death. {{DEFAULTSORT:Baudrillard, Jean 1929 births 2007 deaths 20th-century French economists 20th-century French essayists 20th-century French male writers 20th-century French philosophers 20th-century French historians 21st-century French essayists 21st-century French male writers 21st-century French philosophers 21st-century French economists 21st-century French historians Accelerationism Anti-consumerists Aphorists Architectural theoreticians Architecture critics Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery Continental philosophers Critical theorists Critics of Marxism Critics of political economy Cultural critics Epistemologists European Graduate School faculty French anti-capitalists French architectural historians French architecture writers French art historians French male essayists French male non-fiction writers French photographers French social commentators French sociologists Hyperreality theorists Mass media theorists Media critics Metaphilosophers Metaphysicians Moral philosophers Ontologists Pataphysicians Writers from Reims Philosophers of art Philosophers of culture Philosophers of death Philosophers of economics Philosophers of education Philosophers of ethics and morality Philosophers of history Philosophers of language Philosophers of nihilism Philosophers of psychology Philosophers of science Philosophers of social science Philosophers of technology Philosophers of war Philosophy writers Political philosophers Social critics Social philosophers Terrorism studies Theorists on Western civilization University of Paris alumni Writers about activism and social change Writers about globalization Writers about religion and science 20th-century French poets 21st-century French poets French male poets

Life

Personal life

Key concepts

The object value system

''Simulacra and Simulation''

The end of history and meaning

Hyperreality

Political commentary

On the Bosnian War

On the Persian Gulf War

On the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001

Reception

Debate with Jacques Derrida

''The Agony of Power''

Reception

Legacy

In popular culture

Bibliography

Books (English translations)

Articles and essays

Interviews

Audio CDs

See also

Notes

References

External links