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The End of Everything: Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007)

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The End of Everything: Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) CHAPTER 14 The End of Everything: Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) Theorist’s Digest Concepts and Theory: Human Nature, Symbols, and Production Commodities as Signs Sign Fetish Concepts and Theory: The Death of Meaning Four Phases of the Sign The Killing Fields of Capitalism Concepts and Theory: Simulating Reality Mass Media and Advertising Seduction and Stimulation Sign Implosion Concepts and Theory: The Postmodern Person Fragmenting Identities Play, Spectacle, and Passivity Summary Taking the Perspective Building Your Theory Toolbox n August 1990, the United States along with 33 other nations declared war on Iraq. The cost of the Gulf War was more than $60 billion and involved over 1 mil- Ilion troops. Though the numbers are still uncertain, it’s estimated that well over 100,000 people died as a result of the campaign. Before the invasion, Jean Baudrillard published an article titled “The Gulf War Will Not Take Place.” During the 299 300 MODERNITY AND POSTMODERNITY campaign Baudrillard published another article,“The Gulf War Is Not Taking Place.” After the war, the new piece by Baudrillard was called “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place.”He later published a book by the same title: The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Baudrillard isn’t saying that guns weren’t fired and people didn’t die. Baudrillard’s point in this provocative book is that for the world this was a mediated war. The mass media provided continuous television coverage, but that coverage was packaged and presented in such a way as to lure audiences to watch (the medium is the message). The “news,”then, was a commodification of what happened on the ground. What the world saw wasn’t the reality of the war but a hyperreality designed to stimulate rather than inform: “It is a masquerade of information: branded faces delivered over to the prostitution of the image, the image of an unintelligible distress. ...It is not war tak- ing place over there but the disfiguration of the world” (Baudrillard, 1995, p. 40) Baudrillard’s striking analysis of the Gulf War is based a postmodern perspective. Often, postmodernism is often confused with poststructuralism, which we con- sidered in Chapter 13. And there are some similarities. Both are concerned with culture generally and language particularly, and both argue that culture and language function without any physical or objective reality in back of them. There are, I think, two main differences between them. First, they each locate the reasons for the lack of reality in different places. Poststructuralism generally considers the intrinsic characteristics of language itself, while social postmodernism usually looks to such factors as capitalism and mass media as the culprits. Second, they each focus on different effects of the state of culture. For instance, Foucault argues that rather than referring to any physical reality, language contains political discourses that function to exercise power over the person. Baudrillard, on the other hand, sees culture as absolutely void of any significance at all, political or otherwise. Any meaning or power in culture has been stripped away by incessant commodification, advertising, and the trivializing effects of mass media. The systems of reference for production, signification, the affect, substance and history, all this equivalence to a “real” content, loading the sign with the burden of “utility,” with gravity—its form of representative equivalence—all this is over with. (Baudrillard, 1976/1993b, p. 6) THEORIST’S DIGEST Brief Biography Jean Baudrillard was born in Reims, France, on July 29, 1929. Baudrillard studied German at the Sorbonne University, Paris, and was professor of German for 8 years. During that time, he also worked as a translator and began his studies in sociology and philosophy. He completed his dissertation in sociology under Henri Lefebvre, a noted Marxist-humanist. Baudrillard began teaching sociology in 1966, eventually moving to the Université de Paris-X Nanterre as professor of sociology. From 1986 to 1990, Baudrillard served as the director of science for Chapter 14 The End of Everything: Jean Baudrillard 301 the Institut de Recherche et d’Information Socio-Économique at the Université de Paris-IX Dauphine. Beginning in 2001, Baudrillard was professor of the philosophy of culture and media criticism at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Baudrillard is the author of several international best sellers, among them are Symbolic Exchange and Death, Simulacra and Simulation, Seduction, America, and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Baudrillard died March 6, 2007. Central Sociological Questions Baudrillard is essentially concerned with the relationship between reality and appearance; this is an issue that has plagued philosophers and theorists for eons. Baudrillard’s unique contri- butions to this problem concern the effects of mass media and advertising. Baudrillard, then, is deeply curious about the effects of mass media on culture and the problem of representa- tion: Has capitalist-driven mass media pushed appearance to the front stage in such a way as to destroy reality? Is there a difference between image and reality in postmodernity? Simply Stated Culture is meant to express social meanings and create social relationships, both of which hap- pen through the use of symbols. And symbols work as they are intended when connected to real people in real situations. However, as a result of commodification, advertising, and mass media, cultural symbols have been cut off from their social embeddness and have become free- floating, without any specific social reference. Because human nature is principally oriented toward symbolic meaning, people have been left without any real meaning. This void is filled with mass media and electronic stimulations, which need to be produced in ever more spec- tacular and plasticine fashion. The person himself or herself is left without any solid, social identities and must cobble together an image-based self. Key Ideas Postmodern, human nature, symbolic exchange, use-value, exchange-value, sign-value, com- modity fetish, sign fetish, consumer society, labor of consumption, simulacrum, free-floating signifiers, hyperreality, death of the subject, fragmenting identities Concepts and Theory: Human Nature, Symbols, and Production Baudrillard is both fun and frustrating, and usually at the same time. He, more than any other postmodern writer I know, exemplifies what he is writing about. “Baudrillard’s writings are a kind of intellectual Disneyland, neither true nor false” (Danto, 1990, p. 48). Baudrillard is part of the postmodern landscape. Reading his many books and articles is an experience in cultural implosion. Yet at the same time, he tells us something about the society and people living in postmodernity, some- thing very few say with as much insight or art. Baudrillard’s writings are part play 302 MODERNITY AND POSTMODERNITY and part purpose. Yet we’re going to say something definite and hopefully meaning- ful about Baudrillard in this chapter. We’re going to focus on the purposeful part of his writings—but keep in mind the playful part too (think about it: I’m proposing to say something meaningful about meaninglessness). To understand Baudrillard, we must begin with his view of human nature; and he began with Marx. Though Baudrillard began as a Marxist, the disappointing results of the 1968 student uprisings made him question economic Marxism. Baudrillard ends up viewing Marxism as actually substantiating certain aspects of the capitalist mental- ity. There are a few ways that Baudrillard sees Marx as doing this. First, his theory of species being argues that human beings are by nature economic producers, and that true consciousness comes through being intimately involved in the production process. The product of this kind of species production acts like a mirror that reflects human nature back to people. In making this kind of argument, Marx is giving ultimate legitimation to the entire capitalist scheme of production. Marx reduced humankind to economic producers, just the way capitalism does. Baudrillard (1973/1975) argues that “in order to find a realm beyond economic value (which is in fact the only revolutionary perspective), then the mirror of pro- duction in which all Western metaphysics is reflected, must be broken” (p. 47, emphasis original). The way Baudrillard breaks this mirror is by focusing on humankind’s symbolic nature. Baudrillard argues that humans are basically oriented toward symbolic exchange: the exchange of gifts, actions, signs, and so on for their symbolic rather than material value. Here, Baudrillard is making the same kind of argument about human nature that Durkheim (1912/1995) did: Humans are symbolic creatures oriented toward meaning rather than production. A good example of the value of symbolism in traditional societies is the preva- lence of transition rituals, as in the conversion from boy to manhood. In the ritual of attaining manhood, the actual behaviors themselves are immaterial, whether it is wrapping a sack of fire ants around the hands or mutilating the penis. Any object or set of behaviors can have symbolic value. What matters is what the ritualized actions symbolize for the group. Symbolic exchange formed part of daily life in pre- capitalist societies: the exchange of food, jewelry, titles, clothing, and so on were all involved in a symbolic “cycle of gifts and countergifts” (Baudrillard, 1973/1975, p. 83). Symbolic exchange thus established a community of symbolic meanings and recip- rocal relations among a group of people. Baudrillard also claims that human nature is wrapped up in excess. Like Marx, Baudrillard sees humanity as capable of creating their own needs. That is, the needs of other animals are set; but the potential needs of humans are without limit. For example, today I “need” an iPod and an HDTV plasma screen; a few years ago I didn’t. And I can’t even begin to imagine what I will need in 5 years.
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