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The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact
There are few philosophers today cool enough to be referenced in the Matrix , interesting enough to be mentioned on Six Feet Under , and popular enough to get over 606,000 hits on Google. Jean Baudrillard has succeeded in all of this and more. Now, in his latest book, Baudrillard presents his most popular themes--symbolic exchange, hyper-reality, technology and war--and applies them to the current global conflict between "the West and the Rest", including Islam. Ultimately, it is not simply about the war against terror but about the bigger picture of capitalism versus everything else. This book serves as the summation of Baudrillard's work over the last twenty years and is the essential analysis of the fundamental conflict of our time.
215 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
40 people are currently reading
948 people want to read
About the author
Jean Baudrillard
209 books1,967 followersJean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet, 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 hyperreality. Baudrillard wrote about diverse subjects, including consumerism, critique of economy, social history, aesthetics, Western foreign policy, and popular culture. Among his most well-known works are Seduction (1978), Simulacra and Simulation (1981), America (1986), and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991). His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism. Nevertheless, Baudrillard had also opposed post-structuralism, and had distanced himself from postmodernism.
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August 28, 2021
Pataphysics As A Guide to Morals
Baudrillard is a consummate aphorist. Aphorism is tough to summarise much less to comment upon, but here goes:
Religion (faith) promised redemption but delivered divisive hate. Science (representation) promised reality but delivered fragmented illusion. Technology promised prosperity (progress) but delivered seductive hyperreality. In hyperreality truth and reality disappear and are replaced by simulacra - copies for which there are no originals. The only commitment remaining is that to language itself, signs without referents, words without meaning, causes without purpose. Language-fundamentalists now rule the world. Our knowledge is not a mirror of the world but a digital screen that constitutes the world.
This is not a Gnostic myth but a philosophical analysis which leads to a similar conclusion: We are doomed as a species. Our greatest strength, language, is also our instrument of mass suicide. Language does not merely speak us, as Heidegger said; it controls us totally for its own ends. The more we struggle against it, the more it tightens its hold around our collective neck. Yet we resist the recognition. We remain committed to the fanaticism of language despite its obvious trajectory. This is the intelligence of evil. The perfect crime. “[T]he simulacrum is not that which hides the truth, but that which hides the absence of truth.”
Baudrillard’s is a carefully empirical study, the prophetic accuracy of which is difficult to deny. QAnon, Trump rallies, evangelical Christians, suicidal Buddhists, Islamic terrorists, and any of several dozen conspiracy theories are what he predicted. There is not just disagreement on the facts but of what constitutes a fact. There is no rational argument because rationality itself is undefined. Patterns appear in data and can mean anything we want them to mean. Identity, from gender to career, is a matter of individual choice and is therefore as fluid as it is inalienable. Shibboleths about democracy, values, ideals, humanity, spiritual well-being have shown themselves to be what they are: rationalisations for someone’s quest for power. All conceivable modes of expression are absorbed into advertising.
God and the Real were once the ever-receding horizon of human knowledge, limits to be striven toward but never reached. They acted as standards by which advance could be measured. In the virtual reality of the simulacra, there are no such limits and therefore no standards against which to assess knowledge. What can be imagined is immediately incorporated into the world as we experience it. “We are never done with making good the void of truth. Hence the flight forward into ever more simulacra.” At best, the world-as-it-is is a sort of “strange attractor” which acts solely to promote yet more imagination. And that imagination leads to an hypothesis:
Our species-wide infatuation with artificial intelligence is a symptom of our “being incapable of accepting thought (the idea that the world thinks us, the intelligence of evil), we invent the easiest solution, the technical solution: Artificial Intelligence.” This is typical. It is what our species has always done, that is chosen the easy solution:
This is obviously not a book for everyone. And those who might benefit most from it are those least likely to read it, namely, those boosters and promoters of AI in all its forms. They prefer algorithms to aphorisms. Nevertheless, just the suspicion that they are not doing what they think they are doing might generate a bubble of humility in their sea of hubris. Spread the non-algorithmic word.
Postscript 10Apr21: this from the WP. It ain’t going to happen: https://apple.news/AKOtmBh3YQOKqMxdSO...
Baudrillard is a consummate aphorist. Aphorism is tough to summarise much less to comment upon, but here goes:
Religion (faith) promised redemption but delivered divisive hate. Science (representation) promised reality but delivered fragmented illusion. Technology promised prosperity (progress) but delivered seductive hyperreality. In hyperreality truth and reality disappear and are replaced by simulacra - copies for which there are no originals. The only commitment remaining is that to language itself, signs without referents, words without meaning, causes without purpose. Language-fundamentalists now rule the world. Our knowledge is not a mirror of the world but a digital screen that constitutes the world.
This is not a Gnostic myth but a philosophical analysis which leads to a similar conclusion: We are doomed as a species. Our greatest strength, language, is also our instrument of mass suicide. Language does not merely speak us, as Heidegger said; it controls us totally for its own ends. The more we struggle against it, the more it tightens its hold around our collective neck. Yet we resist the recognition. We remain committed to the fanaticism of language despite its obvious trajectory. This is the intelligence of evil. The perfect crime. “[T]he simulacrum is not that which hides the truth, but that which hides the absence of truth.”
Baudrillard’s is a carefully empirical study, the prophetic accuracy of which is difficult to deny. QAnon, Trump rallies, evangelical Christians, suicidal Buddhists, Islamic terrorists, and any of several dozen conspiracy theories are what he predicted. There is not just disagreement on the facts but of what constitutes a fact. There is no rational argument because rationality itself is undefined. Patterns appear in data and can mean anything we want them to mean. Identity, from gender to career, is a matter of individual choice and is therefore as fluid as it is inalienable. Shibboleths about democracy, values, ideals, humanity, spiritual well-being have shown themselves to be what they are: rationalisations for someone’s quest for power. All conceivable modes of expression are absorbed into advertising.
God and the Real were once the ever-receding horizon of human knowledge, limits to be striven toward but never reached. They acted as standards by which advance could be measured. In the virtual reality of the simulacra, there are no such limits and therefore no standards against which to assess knowledge. What can be imagined is immediately incorporated into the world as we experience it. “We are never done with making good the void of truth. Hence the flight forward into ever more simulacra.” At best, the world-as-it-is is a sort of “strange attractor” which acts solely to promote yet more imagination. And that imagination leads to an hypothesis:
“... the world does not exist in order for us to know it or, more exactly, knowledge itself is part of the illusion of the world. This is the very principle of the world that thinks us. The question of whether there is an objective reality does not even arise: the intelligence of the world is the intelligence of the world that thinks us.”
Our species-wide infatuation with artificial intelligence is a symptom of our “being incapable of accepting thought (the idea that the world thinks us, the intelligence of evil), we invent the easiest solution, the technical solution: Artificial Intelligence.” This is typical. It is what our species has always done, that is chosen the easy solution:
“Against the hypothesis of uncertainty: the illusion of truth and reality. Against the hypothesis of destiny: the illusion of freedom. Against the hypothesis of evil [Mal]: the illusion of mis-fortune [malheur]. Against the hypothesis of thought, the illusion of Artificial Intelligence. Against the hypothesis of the event: the illusion of information. Against the hypothesis of becoming: the illusion of change.”
This is obviously not a book for everyone. And those who might benefit most from it are those least likely to read it, namely, those boosters and promoters of AI in all its forms. They prefer algorithms to aphorisms. Nevertheless, just the suspicion that they are not doing what they think they are doing might generate a bubble of humility in their sea of hubris. Spread the non-algorithmic word.
Postscript 10Apr21: this from the WP. It ain’t going to happen: https://apple.news/AKOtmBh3YQOKqMxdSO...
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September 30, 2022Ako ostavimo po strani nasumično blebetanje o pojedinim stvarima, ova knjiga bavi se vrlo zanimljivo i možda presudnom temom za savremeni svet, a koja se u najopštijem smislu može nazvati - stvarnošću. Bodrijar uočava i čini se ispravono, da je dinamika odnosma između Realnog i Virtuelnog isprepletena u toj meri da Virtuelno briše Realno, a da mešavina ove dve dimenzije daje ono što francuski filozof naziva Integralnom stvarnošću. Osobin ove nove stvarnosti jeste da ona postoji na neki vrlo uvrnut način, obzirom da se uvek javlja kao nešto drugo od onoga što jeste, te da gubi mogućnost predstavlja svoje biti. Stvarnost je uvek negde drugde za Bodrijara, a njen izostanak uzrokovan je upravo radom Virtuelnog i mešanjem Virtuelnog u stvarno. Svet nije onakav kakav jeste, već onakvim kakvim nam se čini, odnosno onakav je kakavim ga čini Virtuelno. Još jedan bitan pojam u tom nasumičnom i isprekidanom lancu jeste aktuelnost koju stvara vitruelno. Za Bodrijara, a to nikada nije bilo tačnije nego što je to slučaj danas, postoje aktuelni događaji lišeni bilo kakvih odlika, koji dolaze iz polja Virtuelnog. Reprezentacija rata u medijima, recimo, nije više dobra ili loša, već je samo aktuelna ili neaktuelna. U tom smislu Virtuelno potiskuje stvarno i dolazi na njegovo mesto i to ne kao kvalitet, već kao samo privremena, a reklo bi se i kratkotrajna slika o svetu. Ili što bi rekao jedan pesnik čijeg imena namerno neću da se setim "Ništa nije ono što jeste, sve je nešto drugo"
April 7, 2009
Fascinating. There's a lot going on in this book, so it's difficult to pin it down into a 'main idea'. But that's typical Baudrillard. One thought that sticks after reading this book: the rapid growth of information - and increasing ease of access to information - does not, contrary to popular assumption, increase our knowledge or our prospects for freedom. It just makes it more difficult to tell what is and isn't 'really' going on.
August 23, 2019
Hakkında iyi/kötü bir şey söylemeye gerçekten çapım yetmez. Okurken epey yoruldum; bu kadar sık not aldıran, satırlarına sayısız soru işaretleri bıraktıran başka bir yazar tanımadım sanırım. Okumak bir hafta sürdü, okumakla zihnimde canlanan soruları bir ömür düşünmeye devam edeceğim. Sızı artıran cinsten.
May 8, 2020
The concept of Integral Reality, the idea of an exess of reality, an excess of things, of news, of ideas (but poorness of "soul") really resonates with my experience of my society, my life on an intuitive level. In times of the coronavirus I was amazed by the clarivoiance of the writer " It is duality that fractures Integral Reality, that smashes every unitary or totalitarian system by emptiness, crashes, viruses or terrorism".
There were some chapters that all together I did not understand, or perhaps they did not resonate with me at the time of reading but I'd like to come back to them.
Baudrillard Makes reference to many interesting authors and intellectuals in the book and I've discovered some new books I look forward to reading.
Although the analysis of the state of affairs is bleak (the first edition is from 2005 and things have gotten even more "real" since then) and Baudrillard does not offer any positive answers the book is recomforting. It renforced my nostalgia for a time of simplicity, for taking things as they are without overanalysis.
There were some chapters that all together I did not understand, or perhaps they did not resonate with me at the time of reading but I'd like to come back to them.
Baudrillard Makes reference to many interesting authors and intellectuals in the book and I've discovered some new books I look forward to reading.
Although the analysis of the state of affairs is bleak (the first edition is from 2005 and things have gotten even more "real" since then) and Baudrillard does not offer any positive answers the book is recomforting. It renforced my nostalgia for a time of simplicity, for taking things as they are without overanalysis.
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March 19, 2008I've read a lot along the same lines so am probably laying myself open to cries of 'leftie', or worse, but I can't be the only one for whom the notion of "too /[much]/ reality" strikes a chord? In a society where 'newspapers' don't report 'news' and periodicals are so skewed as to be unsuitable as references it seems that Baudrillard's view (though the book's 'answer' may not be mine) has too much to offer to not be part of the mainstream debate.
November 10, 2024
Bu kitapları anlamak için daha çok kitap okumam lazım. Güzel bir döngü yaratıyorlar.
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March 6, 2021"The disappearance of God has left us facing reality and the ideal prospect of transforming this real world. And we have found ourselves confronted with the undertaking of realizing the world, of making it become technically, integrally real. Now, the world, even freed from all illusion, does not lend itself at all to reality. The more we advance in this undertaking, the more ambiguous it becomes, the more it loses sight of itself. Reality has barely had time to exist and already it is disappearing ... "
"Duchamp's Fountain is the emblem of our modern hyperreality, the product of a violent counter-transference of all poetic illusion on to pure reality, the object 'transferred' on to itself, short-circuiting any possible metaphor. The world has acquired such a degree of reality that it is bearable only by a perpetual denial, with 'This is not a world' - reminiscent of Magritte's 'This is not a pipe' - operating as the surrealist denial of self-evidence itself, this dual movement
of the absolute, definitive obviousness of the world and the equally radical denial of that obviousness dominating the trajectory of modern art. And not just the trajectory of art, but of all our deep perceptions, of our entire mental apprehension of the world."
"'Does reality exist? Are we in a real world?' - this is the leitmotiv of our entire present culture. But it merely expresses the fact that we can no longer bear this world, which is so prey to reality, except by way of a radical denial. And this is logical: since the world can no longer be justified in another world, it has to be justified here and now in this one by lending itself force of reality, by purging itself of any illusion."
"The Real is growing like the desert. 'Welcome to the Desert of the Real'"
"Integral Reality is also to be found in integral music: the sort
you find in quadraphonic spaces or can 'compose' on a computer. The music in which sounds have been clarified and expurgated and which, shorn of all noise and static, is, so to speak, restored to its technical perfection. The sounds of such music are no longer the play of a form, but the actualization of a programme. It is a music reduced to a pure wavelength, the final reception of which, the tangible effect on the listener, is exactly programmed too, as in a closed circuit. It is,
in a sense, a virtual music, flawless and without imagination, merging into its own model, and even the enjoyment of it is virtual enjoyment. Is this still music? The question must be open to doubt, since they have actually come up with the idea of reintroducing noise into it to make it more 'musical'."
"Unintelligence of evil, absence of insight into things by evil and therefore always the same discourse on the 'foul beast' and the same naivete in the analysis of present events.
Our whole system of values excludes this predestination of evil. Yet all it has invented, at the end of its burdensome therapy on the human species, is another way of making it disappear,
that is to say, of ironically carrying the possibility of happiness to its opposite term, that of the perfect crime, that of integral misfortune, which was somehow waiting for it just at the end.
For you cannot liberate good without liberating evil, and that liberation is even more rapid than the liberation of good. It is, in fact, no longer exactly a struggle between good and
evil. It's a question of transparency. Good is transparent: you can see through it. Evil, by contrast, shows through: it is what you see when you see through."
"Duchamp's Fountain is the emblem of our modern hyperreality, the product of a violent counter-transference of all poetic illusion on to pure reality, the object 'transferred' on to itself, short-circuiting any possible metaphor. The world has acquired such a degree of reality that it is bearable only by a perpetual denial, with 'This is not a world' - reminiscent of Magritte's 'This is not a pipe' - operating as the surrealist denial of self-evidence itself, this dual movement
of the absolute, definitive obviousness of the world and the equally radical denial of that obviousness dominating the trajectory of modern art. And not just the trajectory of art, but of all our deep perceptions, of our entire mental apprehension of the world."
"'Does reality exist? Are we in a real world?' - this is the leitmotiv of our entire present culture. But it merely expresses the fact that we can no longer bear this world, which is so prey to reality, except by way of a radical denial. And this is logical: since the world can no longer be justified in another world, it has to be justified here and now in this one by lending itself force of reality, by purging itself of any illusion."
"The Real is growing like the desert. 'Welcome to the Desert of the Real'"
"Integral Reality is also to be found in integral music: the sort
you find in quadraphonic spaces or can 'compose' on a computer. The music in which sounds have been clarified and expurgated and which, shorn of all noise and static, is, so to speak, restored to its technical perfection. The sounds of such music are no longer the play of a form, but the actualization of a programme. It is a music reduced to a pure wavelength, the final reception of which, the tangible effect on the listener, is exactly programmed too, as in a closed circuit. It is,
in a sense, a virtual music, flawless and without imagination, merging into its own model, and even the enjoyment of it is virtual enjoyment. Is this still music? The question must be open to doubt, since they have actually come up with the idea of reintroducing noise into it to make it more 'musical'."
"Unintelligence of evil, absence of insight into things by evil and therefore always the same discourse on the 'foul beast' and the same naivete in the analysis of present events.
Our whole system of values excludes this predestination of evil. Yet all it has invented, at the end of its burdensome therapy on the human species, is another way of making it disappear,
that is to say, of ironically carrying the possibility of happiness to its opposite term, that of the perfect crime, that of integral misfortune, which was somehow waiting for it just at the end.
For you cannot liberate good without liberating evil, and that liberation is even more rapid than the liberation of good. It is, in fact, no longer exactly a struggle between good and
evil. It's a question of transparency. Good is transparent: you can see through it. Evil, by contrast, shows through: it is what you see when you see through."
February 1, 2023
It is a tremendous book that is a continuation of Baudrillard's book The Transparency of Evil, which he wrote about extreme phenomena. Baudrillard treats the image of evil as more human-centered than mystical interpretation, and associates what is good or bad with its responsibility without any deviation. Therefore, in this work, he continues his opposition attitude, which he developed through the trans-modern economy, aesthetics, politics and sexualism of western civilization and capitalism, which he discussed in his book Transparency of Evil, with the concepts of "satan" and "demonization" in this work. At this point, he tells us how much the system can enslave people voluntarily, and in doing so, how much we are prisoners of the hole we have dug ourselves. And we consider ourselves to be the master of the hole we have dug.
The phenomenon that Baudrillard imagines as the devil in this work is not what we call the self, but the phenomena of capitalism and western culture that activate our own self and involuntarily feed on our helplessness and unhappiness that we live in our master-slave world accordingly.
It shows us the tragedy experienced by a person who thinks that he is free because he made this decision of his own free will, but cannot accept that he is nothing more than a slave, and the irreversibility of this tragedy. Nowadays, the Internet, the press, art, cinema, faith, religion, etc. define that everything actually disappears in the face of these endless desires of the selves who satisfy their cat through many human phenomena and as souls possessed by the devil. The book is a valuable work that addresses the dilemmas of today's people in every aspect and clearly gives the messages of what kind of world we will live in in the future. I say definitely read it.
The phenomenon that Baudrillard imagines as the devil in this work is not what we call the self, but the phenomena of capitalism and western culture that activate our own self and involuntarily feed on our helplessness and unhappiness that we live in our master-slave world accordingly.
It shows us the tragedy experienced by a person who thinks that he is free because he made this decision of his own free will, but cannot accept that he is nothing more than a slave, and the irreversibility of this tragedy. Nowadays, the Internet, the press, art, cinema, faith, religion, etc. define that everything actually disappears in the face of these endless desires of the selves who satisfy their cat through many human phenomena and as souls possessed by the devil. The book is a valuable work that addresses the dilemmas of today's people in every aspect and clearly gives the messages of what kind of world we will live in in the future. I say definitely read it.
October 27, 2021
This and Agony of Power are must reads for anyone who wants to start looking at neoliberal power from a long term systemic lens. It's not always super uplifting! I do think it's an important way of looking at it though. It's easy to get caught up in conspiracy and the feeling like there are important people in towers with money pulling all the strings. That's not NOT happening, but as he makes clear in this book and others like it, evil is right in front of you. It forces the narrative on you. It's the loan system perpetually keeping people in poverty. It's the taking up your awareness with all the propaganda on our devices. Intelligence, in and of itself, is defined by the apparatus of power. The medium has become transparent and yet more submersing than the message.
July 4, 2020
I found myself reading full pages without anything sinking in but every once in a while I’d fall upon a sentence that made sense, sometimes even came off as brilliant. I felt like I was hanging out with someone thinks they are so edgy and smart but is just throwing a bunch of concepts together, like a philosopher magnetic set on a fridge.
November 13, 2020
"It is absurd, then, to say that contemporary art is worthless and that there's no point to it, since that is its vital function: to illustrate our uselessness and absurdity. Or, more accurately, to make that decay its stock in trade, while exorcizing it as spectacle."
January 28, 2021
"Što se više nagriza, banalizira, interaktivira svakodnevni život, to se više treba suprotstaviti tom kretanju složenim i početnim pravilima igre.
Što se više stvarnost miri sa svojim pojmom u bespredmetnoj općenitosti, tim više treba potražiti početni rascjep i snagu iluzije.
Ako svijet ne možemo učiniti predmetom naših želja, barem ga možemo učiniti predmetom višeg ugovora koji izmiče upravo našim željama.
Svaki stvoreni predmet, bio on vizualan ili analitičan, konceptualan ili fotografski, mora iznova prepoznati sve dimenzije igre u samo jednoj dimenziji: alegorijsko, reprezentativno (mimicry/mimezis), agonalno (agôn), slučajno (alea), i vrtoglavo (ilinx). *vidjeti teoriju igara Rogera Cailloisa (Les Jeux et Les Hommes)*
Ponovo sastaviti spektar.
Djelo, predmet, arhitektura, fotografija, ali naravno i zločin, događaj moraju biti: alegorija nečega, izazov nekomu, pokrenuti slučajnost i izazvati vrtoglavicu."
Što se više stvarnost miri sa svojim pojmom u bespredmetnoj općenitosti, tim više treba potražiti početni rascjep i snagu iluzije.
Ako svijet ne možemo učiniti predmetom naših želja, barem ga možemo učiniti predmetom višeg ugovora koji izmiče upravo našim željama.
Svaki stvoreni predmet, bio on vizualan ili analitičan, konceptualan ili fotografski, mora iznova prepoznati sve dimenzije igre u samo jednoj dimenziji: alegorijsko, reprezentativno (mimicry/mimezis), agonalno (agôn), slučajno (alea), i vrtoglavo (ilinx). *vidjeti teoriju igara Rogera Cailloisa (Les Jeux et Les Hommes)*
Ponovo sastaviti spektar.
Djelo, predmet, arhitektura, fotografija, ali naravno i zločin, događaj moraju biti: alegorija nečega, izazov nekomu, pokrenuti slučajnost i izazvati vrtoglavicu."
October 14, 2021
(although phenomenal, this is not a book to start reading philosophy with!)
it starts of with a philosophical analysis of the current societal situation and ends it with what he thinks are the necessary personal metaphysics to oppose the totalizing trends of today.
at some point (especially in the chapter violence done to the image) it becomes a very bleak read, and although one might be tempted to give up, it really is worth staying with the thought.
he takes us through the meaning of meaning, happiness, imagination, time and history, representation, evil, tragedy, banality, excess, money, art, language, poetry, security, power, politics, phenomenology... and precisely because of this broad variety of topics and the ability to see parallels and his rejection of coddling the modern subject by absolving us of responsibility it will be put on my favourites shelf.
not going into content any further because to expose any particular part would do injustice to the rest :)
about the style - well, this is why i deducted one star and it's sort of against one of his messages as he espouses the role of poetry and the metaphorical expression and i really would agree, but i think he takes it a bit to far in practice. he really makes you take every individual sentence as an eclectic, poetic whole that has to be contemplated. on the up side, this makes the book short in terms of the number of characters, but definitely not in time spent reading.
actually, you know what, the style is great as it is. five stars.
to sum up:
struggling to be brief, i become obscure. but he who has eyes will see.
it starts of with a philosophical analysis of the current societal situation and ends it with what he thinks are the necessary personal metaphysics to oppose the totalizing trends of today.
at some point (especially in the chapter violence done to the image) it becomes a very bleak read, and although one might be tempted to give up, it really is worth staying with the thought.
he takes us through the meaning of meaning, happiness, imagination, time and history, representation, evil, tragedy, banality, excess, money, art, language, poetry, security, power, politics, phenomenology... and precisely because of this broad variety of topics and the ability to see parallels and his rejection of coddling the modern subject by absolving us of responsibility it will be put on my favourites shelf.
not going into content any further because to expose any particular part would do injustice to the rest :)
about the style - well, this is why i deducted one star and it's sort of against one of his messages as he espouses the role of poetry and the metaphorical expression and i really would agree, but i think he takes it a bit to far in practice. he really makes you take every individual sentence as an eclectic, poetic whole that has to be contemplated. on the up side, this makes the book short in terms of the number of characters, but definitely not in time spent reading.
actually, you know what, the style is great as it is. five stars.
to sum up:
struggling to be brief, i become obscure. but he who has eyes will see.
August 30, 2007
Nice book of a French philosopher that left us few months ago...
Probably better known for the inspiration he gave, with his studies, for "The Matrix" saga (something that Baudrillard has always rejected), this 'egghead' comes from the school of Deleuze and from the so called "Nietzsche-renaissance", and focused his researches on the relationship between men and reality...
This book analyzes the crisis of modern men through our loss of imagination and illusions, things sacrified in modern societies to something that we could call "Integral Reality": a reality that killed God and religion, where everything is well known and explicable in a scientific way...
Just one lack, for this essay: sometimes it loses the philosophical way and pays too much attention to mainstream issues.
Probably better known for the inspiration he gave, with his studies, for "The Matrix" saga (something that Baudrillard has always rejected), this 'egghead' comes from the school of Deleuze and from the so called "Nietzsche-renaissance", and focused his researches on the relationship between men and reality...
This book analyzes the crisis of modern men through our loss of imagination and illusions, things sacrified in modern societies to something that we could call "Integral Reality": a reality that killed God and religion, where everything is well known and explicable in a scientific way...
Just one lack, for this essay: sometimes it loses the philosophical way and pays too much attention to mainstream issues.
April 7, 2008
It looks bad for mankind. "Why is there nothing instead of something."
Currently reading
March 5, 2009not quite your muni read.
November 3, 2013
For Baudrillard followers or scholars who want the nuances...the prophet's final gloss on what came much earlier.
January 29, 2024
Baudrillard parece que llega al punto culmen de su teoría en cuestión de simulacros y simulación, ya no sólo con una carga crítica (por no decir radical como él mismo lo indicas) hacia los sistemas hegemónicos. Pues toma una apuesta que se dirige más hacia la extrañeza de la alteridad, la potencialidad del exotismo en el concepto del Mal; extrayendo un catalizador que irá en divergencia para hacer de los sistemas un punto de inflexión, un punto de implosión. Aludiendo al pensamiento, a la creación, a la negación y a la radicalidad del azar. Me quedo con esta cita que él mismo hace de Lichtenberg:
"Él podía refractar un pensamiento, considerado simple por todos, en otros cien, como refracta el prisma a la luz del sol, todos más bellos unos que otros; y luego reunir una multitud de otros, para recrear la luz blanca del sol, allí donde otros sólo veían desorden y confusión".
Bueno, qué digo, también con esta cita que hace del pabellón de oro de Mishima:
"lo que caracteriza al infierno es que en él uno distingue todo, hasta la cosa más pequeña, con la última nitidez".
En pocas palabras: qué librazo.
"Él podía refractar un pensamiento, considerado simple por todos, en otros cien, como refracta el prisma a la luz del sol, todos más bellos unos que otros; y luego reunir una multitud de otros, para recrear la luz blanca del sol, allí donde otros sólo veían desorden y confusión".
Bueno, qué digo, también con esta cita que hace del pabellón de oro de Mishima:
"lo que caracteriza al infierno es que en él uno distingue todo, hasta la cosa más pequeña, con la última nitidez".
En pocas palabras: qué librazo.
February 23, 2025
Knjiga da se zamisliš...
Objavljena 2004. godine, dakle prije 21 godinu, a nije izgubila na značaju. Mi se jednako opiremo stvarnosti i trudimo se stvoriti što čvršći i veći "oklop" oko nas. Nismo više zadovoljni realnošću, pa smo odlučili da stvorimo novu – hiperrealnost. Stvarajući hiperrealnost, zamišljali smo slobodu, međutim dobili smo prikriveno ropstvo. Misleći da je slobodan u svom novom "univerzumu", neoprezno šeta po virtualnosti i nesvjesno pristaje na zatvor. No, vješto osuđujemo svakoga ko poklekne i upusti se u spektakl, a pritom ne razmišljamo da nam je dijagnosticiran štokholmski sindrom. Složili se sa Bodrijarom ili ne, moramo sebi priznati da smo društvo nagomilavanja, preopterećenja i anksioznog pogleda prema životu. Zlo na koje Bodrijar napominje nije haotično niti je krvavo, ono se prožima kroz sve sfere našeg društva. Postalo je izuzetno inteligentno, diskretno i neupadljivo. Žive će nas pojesti, a neumornoj zvijeri nudimo još i desert.
Objavljena 2004. godine, dakle prije 21 godinu, a nije izgubila na značaju. Mi se jednako opiremo stvarnosti i trudimo se stvoriti što čvršći i veći "oklop" oko nas. Nismo više zadovoljni realnošću, pa smo odlučili da stvorimo novu – hiperrealnost. Stvarajući hiperrealnost, zamišljali smo slobodu, međutim dobili smo prikriveno ropstvo. Misleći da je slobodan u svom novom "univerzumu", neoprezno šeta po virtualnosti i nesvjesno pristaje na zatvor. No, vješto osuđujemo svakoga ko poklekne i upusti se u spektakl, a pritom ne razmišljamo da nam je dijagnosticiran štokholmski sindrom. Složili se sa Bodrijarom ili ne, moramo sebi priznati da smo društvo nagomilavanja, preopterećenja i anksioznog pogleda prema životu. Zlo na koje Bodrijar napominje nije haotično niti je krvavo, ono se prožima kroz sve sfere našeg društva. Postalo je izuzetno inteligentno, diskretno i neupadljivo. Žive će nas pojesti, a neumornoj zvijeri nudimo još i desert.
September 2, 2023
Like many of Baudrillard's writings, there is a lot to absorb and much that feels almost theatrical, performative even. I won't ever say I understand his books as collective entities, as Baudrillard tends to leave the centrality of his point and go off on tangents that can be hard to follow, let alone tie back to his central idea(s). Similar to previous books by Baudrillard, this one is stellar for the first half, at least, but then my interest, or maybe my ability to follow his arguments?, waned significantly. All told, this is a book that demands attention, maintaining a high level of scholarship throughout. Easy to dismiss when taken out of context, Baudrillard is a fascinating thinker and cultural critic.
March 20, 2019
This, the "closing text" in the "cycle of 'theory-fictions'" beginning with Fatal Strategies, is likely the most significant of Baudrillard's books in his last decade of writing. The Intelligence of Evil finds him fiercely independent, yet indebted to writers who came before him; dauntingly subtle, yet unabashedly straightforward; and unmatched in both his timeliness and untimeliness. While Baudrillard's penultimate reflections on Evil, God, disappearance and becoming are beautiful and touching, he was proudly unrepentant to the end: expect no deathbed conversion nor recompense.
Chris Turner's illuminating introduction also deserves special notice.
Chris Turner's illuminating introduction also deserves special notice.
July 15, 2022
Hard to peg what it was about at first but was all tied up at close to the end. And then untangled itself somewhat again. Basically, it’s the idea that we need evil because… well I forget why he said. But what Christian HASN’T said that we need bad to exist to appreciate the good or otherwise hedonism would rot our brain and then said they never did?
August 13, 2023
No one is ever really prepared for a violent countertransference...
Also, you can't be reading this without some alcohol.
Truckfighters: Desert Cruiser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLMPA...
Also, you can't be reading this without some alcohol.
Truckfighters: Desert Cruiser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLMPA...
September 12, 2019
Olmaz olsun böyle Matrix!
July 28, 2020
Extremely prescient during these weird days
March 18, 2021
Literally, an underrated masterpiece which should have been addressed more since long and despite the supposed 'end' of the war.
January 29, 2022
Thought-provoking and well-written, this book is a roller coaster ride, delivered with great lucidity. Can’t wait to read more of Baudrillard’s books.
October 20, 2024
the Baudrillard technique: say something outrageously counter-intuitive, give no evidence or reason, then proceed to riff off this non-sequitur as if it's a well-established fact obvious to anyone with common sense
of all the late period works this is the one where Baudrillard seems most self-conscious of the popular perception of his work as flippant, proclamatory, of his position less as a "serious" philosopher and more as a provocateur and cultural critic.
loved the rightly celebrated chapter in which Baudrillard launches a scathing attack against the world of fine art, specifically the New York contemporary scene. it is depressing if unsurprising to consider how little has changed since this was published. i suppose this is nothing new, after all the 1930s frankfurt school already anticipated arts loss of aura, its total absorption into the desacralizing vacuum of market speculation. once everything is art, nothing is. when the artfulness/artlessness of video games and anime and commercials and furry fanart are opposed only by the obscurantist rhetoric of agents trying to hawk a banksy or kaws piece onto tax-dodging oil tycoons and munitions millionaires the jig is up, there's no possibility of arts radicality, much less transcendence anymore. more devastatingly, there simply is no longer the possibility of art at all:
"Art, in its form, signifies nothing. It is merely a sign pointing towards absence. But what becomes of this perspective of emptiness and absence in a contemporary universe that is already totally emptied of its meaning and reality? Art can now only align itself with the general insignificance and indifference. It no longer has any privileged status. It no longer has any other final destination than this fluid universe of communication, the networks and interaction." [p.109]
"Contemporary art is contemporary only with itself. It no longer knows any transcendence either towards past or future; its only reality is that of its operation in real time and its confusion with that reality." [p.105]
"The 'creative' act doubles up on itself and is now nothing more than a sign of its own operation - the painter's true subject is no longer what he paints but the very fact that he paints. He paints the fact that he paints.
[...] The other side is that of the spectator who, for want of understanding anything whatever most of the time, consumes his own culture at one remove. He literally consumes the fact that he understands nothing and that there is no necessity in all this except the imperative of culture, of being a part of the integrated circuit of culture. But culture is itself merely an epiphenomenon of global circulation." [p.106]
of all the late period works this is the one where Baudrillard seems most self-conscious of the popular perception of his work as flippant, proclamatory, of his position less as a "serious" philosopher and more as a provocateur and cultural critic.
loved the rightly celebrated chapter in which Baudrillard launches a scathing attack against the world of fine art, specifically the New York contemporary scene. it is depressing if unsurprising to consider how little has changed since this was published. i suppose this is nothing new, after all the 1930s frankfurt school already anticipated arts loss of aura, its total absorption into the desacralizing vacuum of market speculation. once everything is art, nothing is. when the artfulness/artlessness of video games and anime and commercials and furry fanart are opposed only by the obscurantist rhetoric of agents trying to hawk a banksy or kaws piece onto tax-dodging oil tycoons and munitions millionaires the jig is up, there's no possibility of arts radicality, much less transcendence anymore. more devastatingly, there simply is no longer the possibility of art at all:
"Art, in its form, signifies nothing. It is merely a sign pointing towards absence. But what becomes of this perspective of emptiness and absence in a contemporary universe that is already totally emptied of its meaning and reality? Art can now only align itself with the general insignificance and indifference. It no longer has any privileged status. It no longer has any other final destination than this fluid universe of communication, the networks and interaction." [p.109]
"Contemporary art is contemporary only with itself. It no longer knows any transcendence either towards past or future; its only reality is that of its operation in real time and its confusion with that reality." [p.105]
"The 'creative' act doubles up on itself and is now nothing more than a sign of its own operation - the painter's true subject is no longer what he paints but the very fact that he paints. He paints the fact that he paints.
[...] The other side is that of the spectator who, for want of understanding anything whatever most of the time, consumes his own culture at one remove. He literally consumes the fact that he understands nothing and that there is no necessity in all this except the imperative of culture, of being a part of the integrated circuit of culture. But culture is itself merely an epiphenomenon of global circulation." [p.106]
Read
February 13, 2017Cooked and burnt my brain, but that's because I haven't read much of Baudrillard's earlier work; this one is like a summation of all that came before. Fascinating and entertaining(!) as long as I ignored the nihilism alluded to throughout. The only way I could get through it without wanting to cry was by laughing along with (at?) it.
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