Another Bullshit Artist Passes Away

First Derrida bit the dust, and now it's Baudrillard's turn. If you think the title of this post is unfair, just read the following excerpt from the obit and make up your own mind.

Baudrillard advocated the idea that spectacle is crucial in creating our view of events — what he termed "hyperreality." Things do not happen if they are not seen to happen.

He gained fame, and notoriety, in the English-speaking world for his 1991 book "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place." In the first Gulf War, he claimed, nothing was as it appeared.

The public's — and even the military's — view of the conflict came largely through television images; Saddam Hussein was not defeated; the U.S.-led coalition scarcely battled the Iraqi military and did not really win, since little was changed politically in Iraq after all the carnage. All the sound and fury signified little, he argued.

The Sept. 11 attacks, in contrast, were the hyper-real event par excellence — a fusion of history, symbolism and dark fantasy, "the mother of all events."

His views on the attacks sparked controversy. While terrorists had committed the atrocity, he wrote, "It is we who have wanted it. . . . Terrorism is immoral, and it responds to a globalization that is itself immoral."

Although many Americans were puzzled by his views, Baudrillard was a tireless enthusiast for the United States — though he once called it "the only remaining primitive society."

"Santa Barbara is a paradise; Disneyland is a paradise; the U.S. is a paradise," he wrote. "Paradise is just paradise. Mournful, monotonous, and superficial though it may be, it is paradise. There is no other."

"Paradise is just paradise!" Dude, that's, like, deep! To think there are actually hordes of people out there ready to reverentially swallow such nonsensical pseudo-profundities ...

PS: Read the Wikipedia entry on his book "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place" if you haven't had your fill of literary masturbation pretending to intellectual profundity.

Comments

[Kenji]

I like Baudrillard for one reason---He gave the Wachowski Brothers the intellectual foundation for the Matrix trilogy. =)

[Abiola]

I guess I now know who to blame for the confused mess that was the latter two movies then!

[me2i81]

Grand Theft Simulacra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i_bklYy5pM