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Symbolic Exchange and Death
Jean Baudrillard is one of the most celebrated and most controversial of contemporary social theorists. This major work occupies a central place in the rethinking of the humanities and social sciences around the idea of postmodernism. It leads the reader on an exhilarating tour encompassing the end of Marxism, the enchantment of fashion, symbolism about sex and the body, and the relations between economic exchange and death. Most significantly, the book represents Baudrillard′s fullest elaboration of the concept of the three orders of the simulacra, defining the historical passage from production to reproduction to simulation. A classic in its field, Symbolic Exchange and Death is a key source for the redefinition of contemporary social thought. Baudrillard′s critical gaze appraises social theories as diverse as cybernetics, ethnography, psychoanalysis, feminism, Marxism, communications theory and semiotics.
This English translation begins with a new introductory essay.
This English translation begins with a new introductory essay.
278 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1976
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3176 people want to read
About the author
Jean Baudrillard
210 books1,992 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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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
February 27, 2019
Okay, so this is absurdly difficult. Parts of it I couldn’t understand, not even a little bit. I don’t really have enough Freud and Neo-Freudian psychology to follow him down those particular rabbit-holes. He’s the second author I’ve read who has said that women’s bodies are like penises – and I’ve not the slightest notion of what that is supposed to mean. I’ve never thought any woman I’ve ever seen has looked like a penis – not even if I’ve squinted. And I think this is a very good thing for women, by the way.
The last couple of chapters focus on Saussure and poetry, and I didn’t follow a lot of that either and couldn’t quite work out what it meant in relation to the rest of the book. I’m sure it is obvious, but just not to me.
All that said, when he is clear, or perhaps when he talks about something I can understand, he says the sorts of things that make my brain explode. This guy is seriously, seriously clever. And he sees patterns in so many diverse theories that at times it just makes me gasp in wonder.
I’ve become particularly interested in Mauss’s The Gift. I read it a little while ago, but haven’t reviewed it because I really wanted to reread it and underline bits. The book, Debt, the first 5000 years is based on that too. The very short version is that gifts look like they are given with no strings attached – often as an expression of unrestrained generosity. However, Mauss was able to show that gift giving is a complicated system of exchange and that it ties people into systems of obligation. That is, gift giving is both an economic and a symbolic form of exchange. Now, Marx is interested in economic exchange. He says that commodities have both a use value and an exchange value and while they need to have both, he is mostly interested in their exchange value – given this is the value that determines capitalism as a mode of production.
Now, in linguistics words enter into a kind of mode of exchange too. And like commodities, language also has a deep structure and a surface structure – what Saussure referred to as langue and parole – sort of formal grammar and informal speech acts. And these structure language in similar ways to how use and exchange value structure economic activity, as a system of differences.
I did warn you, this book gets very difficult very quickly. All the same, Marx sees economic exchange as being based on a form of exploitation linked to the production of surplus value. The short version of this is that the capitalist buys from the labourer their labour power – that is, the capitalist only pays the worker enough for the worker to reproduce their labour. But the labourer is able to produce for the capitalist more than it cost to reproduce his own labour. And that excess is surplus labour – all of which goes to the capitalist and a portion of which ends up as profit. If the worker was not afflicted with ‘false consciousness’ they would realise that they don’t owe the capitalist anything, and rather, that the capitalist owes them, since they, vampire like, live off the surplus labour of the worker. But Mauss’s work on the gift points more to the importance of symbolic exchange – and helps to explain why the worker might not see this particular exchange as being as one-sided as Marx did. In fact, Baudrillard points out that by giving the worker a job the capitalist is understood as forestalling the death of the worker. Symbolically, the debt the worker owes the capitalist is impossible for them to repay. I’d never thought of this before, but I do think this is something worth thinking about – I think it says something very profound about social relations.
And Saussure’s work on linguistics also points to symbolic exchange being important too. Here the symbolic exchange that matters for Baudrillard is that related to Freud’s death drive. Death is often represented as the ultimate rejection of the system – and so the system does virtually everything in its power to either eliminate death or to remove it from view.
I found this bit of the book particularly interesting. He talks about how old people are disrespected by our society – but that they are still kept alive, even to the point of being sustained in their agony where virtually the only outcome of their continued ‘living’ will be more suffering due to their postponed death. This is then presented as if it was some sort of victory over death. He also points out that we must be one of the few societies that have ever existed that is so fastidious is hiding death away. So much so that families often don’t even see the death of their ‘loved ones’. But he also says that workers refusing to follow health and safety regulations or doing things that might kill them, both of which seem absurd, might in fact be the only form of revolt available to them to stop their lives becoming what capitalism ultimately wants from them. That is, for their ‘lives’ to be an accounting and to have the same ‘value’ the capitalist ultimately assigns to it.
This book left me a bit dizzy. That said, there are bits of it that just shine and shine. He discussion of the revulsion we feel at hearing of a culture where an animal has been hanged, for instance, and how we think this is because we are more humane, but that he then explains this really shows our culture’s near total contempt for animals, is seriously interesting. His discussion of the ideal models of the body for medicine, religion, economics and the sign (the corpse, the animal, the robot and the mannequin) is also too clever. His point is that all of these ideal forms are anything but ‘human’.
I haven’t scratched the surface in this review – and I’m not the person to scratch the surface about this book either. Few books make me feel more stupid. He is playing at the far edge of theories, many of which I only know from hearsay. There were times when I got the distinct impression he was taking the piss – but even then I wasn’t sure if I might have grabbed hold of the wrong end of the stick firmly and in both hands.
The bits of this, like his discussion of binaries and how they cancel each other, that I understood a little bit, were seriously interesting, but just enough above my head for me to be unsure what to fully make of them. Other than to feel I’d watched a master at work. Nietzsche says somewhere that no one every says ‘I didn’t like it, it was too far above me’ – well, this was too far above me too, but the bits I could understand I liked very much and convinced me that the bits I couldn’t understand were probably just as good.
The last couple of chapters focus on Saussure and poetry, and I didn’t follow a lot of that either and couldn’t quite work out what it meant in relation to the rest of the book. I’m sure it is obvious, but just not to me.
All that said, when he is clear, or perhaps when he talks about something I can understand, he says the sorts of things that make my brain explode. This guy is seriously, seriously clever. And he sees patterns in so many diverse theories that at times it just makes me gasp in wonder.
I’ve become particularly interested in Mauss’s The Gift. I read it a little while ago, but haven’t reviewed it because I really wanted to reread it and underline bits. The book, Debt, the first 5000 years is based on that too. The very short version is that gifts look like they are given with no strings attached – often as an expression of unrestrained generosity. However, Mauss was able to show that gift giving is a complicated system of exchange and that it ties people into systems of obligation. That is, gift giving is both an economic and a symbolic form of exchange. Now, Marx is interested in economic exchange. He says that commodities have both a use value and an exchange value and while they need to have both, he is mostly interested in their exchange value – given this is the value that determines capitalism as a mode of production.
Now, in linguistics words enter into a kind of mode of exchange too. And like commodities, language also has a deep structure and a surface structure – what Saussure referred to as langue and parole – sort of formal grammar and informal speech acts. And these structure language in similar ways to how use and exchange value structure economic activity, as a system of differences.
I did warn you, this book gets very difficult very quickly. All the same, Marx sees economic exchange as being based on a form of exploitation linked to the production of surplus value. The short version of this is that the capitalist buys from the labourer their labour power – that is, the capitalist only pays the worker enough for the worker to reproduce their labour. But the labourer is able to produce for the capitalist more than it cost to reproduce his own labour. And that excess is surplus labour – all of which goes to the capitalist and a portion of which ends up as profit. If the worker was not afflicted with ‘false consciousness’ they would realise that they don’t owe the capitalist anything, and rather, that the capitalist owes them, since they, vampire like, live off the surplus labour of the worker. But Mauss’s work on the gift points more to the importance of symbolic exchange – and helps to explain why the worker might not see this particular exchange as being as one-sided as Marx did. In fact, Baudrillard points out that by giving the worker a job the capitalist is understood as forestalling the death of the worker. Symbolically, the debt the worker owes the capitalist is impossible for them to repay. I’d never thought of this before, but I do think this is something worth thinking about – I think it says something very profound about social relations.
And Saussure’s work on linguistics also points to symbolic exchange being important too. Here the symbolic exchange that matters for Baudrillard is that related to Freud’s death drive. Death is often represented as the ultimate rejection of the system – and so the system does virtually everything in its power to either eliminate death or to remove it from view.
I found this bit of the book particularly interesting. He talks about how old people are disrespected by our society – but that they are still kept alive, even to the point of being sustained in their agony where virtually the only outcome of their continued ‘living’ will be more suffering due to their postponed death. This is then presented as if it was some sort of victory over death. He also points out that we must be one of the few societies that have ever existed that is so fastidious is hiding death away. So much so that families often don’t even see the death of their ‘loved ones’. But he also says that workers refusing to follow health and safety regulations or doing things that might kill them, both of which seem absurd, might in fact be the only form of revolt available to them to stop their lives becoming what capitalism ultimately wants from them. That is, for their ‘lives’ to be an accounting and to have the same ‘value’ the capitalist ultimately assigns to it.
This book left me a bit dizzy. That said, there are bits of it that just shine and shine. He discussion of the revulsion we feel at hearing of a culture where an animal has been hanged, for instance, and how we think this is because we are more humane, but that he then explains this really shows our culture’s near total contempt for animals, is seriously interesting. His discussion of the ideal models of the body for medicine, religion, economics and the sign (the corpse, the animal, the robot and the mannequin) is also too clever. His point is that all of these ideal forms are anything but ‘human’.
I haven’t scratched the surface in this review – and I’m not the person to scratch the surface about this book either. Few books make me feel more stupid. He is playing at the far edge of theories, many of which I only know from hearsay. There were times when I got the distinct impression he was taking the piss – but even then I wasn’t sure if I might have grabbed hold of the wrong end of the stick firmly and in both hands.
The bits of this, like his discussion of binaries and how they cancel each other, that I understood a little bit, were seriously interesting, but just enough above my head for me to be unsure what to fully make of them. Other than to feel I’d watched a master at work. Nietzsche says somewhere that no one every says ‘I didn’t like it, it was too far above me’ – well, this was too far above me too, but the bits I could understand I liked very much and convinced me that the bits I couldn’t understand were probably just as good.
November 28, 2024
مبادله نمادین و مرگ/ ژان بودریار/ علی رستمیان/ نشر بیدگل
.
این کتاب که به عنوان شاهکار بودریار هم شناخته میشه شش فصل داره:
1- پایان تولید
2- نظم وانمودهها
3- مُد یا افسون رمزگان
4- بدن، یا گور جمعی نشانهها
5- اقتصاد سیاسی و مرگ
6- نابودی نامِ دادار
خواندن سه فصل اول برای اونهایی که قبلاً نظام اشیا و جامعهی مصرفی رو مطالعه کردند، چندان سخت نیست. فصل اول تحلیلهای محشری دربارهی کار و اوقات فراغت داره. فصل دوم علاوه بر تحلیل تاریخی ربات و آدمواره (اتوماتون)، بخش بامزهای دربارهی گرافیتی داره. فصل سوم در این مورده که چرا نمیشه مُد رو نابود کرد. فصل چهارم دربارهی بدن (با یه نگاه جذاب به پدیدهی استریپ تیز و فتیشیزم) و در واقع شروع نقد روانکاویه که در فصل پنجم به اوج میرسه و نقد رانهی مرگ (و هر چیز مربوط به مرگ مثل معماری قبرستان و جایگاهش در شهرسازی، کهنسالی، اعدام حیوانات و ...) رو جلو میبره، به نظر بودریار این پیشفرض فوکوئی طردِ دیوانگان و ... باید ذیل طرد مرگ از زندگی خونده بشه. این تقابل مرگ/زندگی و حذف مرگ چیزیه که دکترین اقتصاد سیاسی و حتی روانکاوی رو میسازه (این فصل سنگینترین و حجیمترین فصل کتابه). توی فصل ششم نویسنده پای نقد نشانهشناسی و نقد زبانشناسی (نقد رابطهی سنتی دال/مدلول) رو درون نقدِ روانکاوی به پیش میکشه و تز خودش از امر شاعرانه رو در مقابل تز کسانی مثل یاکوبسن و کریستوا قرار میده.
حد رادیکالیتهی کتاب بسیار بالاست. بودریار اساساً داره با خود مفهوم ارزش میجنگه و حتی جایی از کتاب میگه که مارکسیسم میخواست ارزش رو به شکل دیگهای انباشته کنه و از این منظر هیچ فرقی با سرمایهداری نداره.
.
«نظریهی رادیکال را نه میتوان برپایهی سنتز روانکاوی و مارکسیسم به دست آورد و نه با درآمیختنشان؛ تنها راه چاره در نابودی این دو رهیافت نهفته است. مارکسیسم و روانکاوی هر دو عمیقاً بحرانزدهاند. در عوض پشتیبانی از یکدیگر بایدبحرانهای این دو هرچه بیشتر تشدید شود و با عمق و سرعت بیشتری تداوم یابد. چه بسا به این ترتیب آسیب سنگینتری به یکدیگر وارد آورند. نباید خود را از این صحنهی به غایت تماشائی محروم کنیم: این دو رهیافت صرفاً در حکم عرصههایی انتقادیاند نه چیزی بیشتر.» - صفحه 447
.
این کتاب که به عنوان شاهکار بودریار هم شناخته میشه شش فصل داره:
1- پایان تولید
2- نظم وانمودهها
3- مُد یا افسون رمزگان
4- بدن، یا گور جمعی نشانهها
5- اقتصاد سیاسی و مرگ
6- نابودی نامِ دادار
خواندن سه فصل اول برای اونهایی که قبلاً نظام اشیا و جامعهی مصرفی رو مطالعه کردند، چندان سخت نیست. فصل اول تحلیلهای محشری دربارهی کار و اوقات فراغت داره. فصل دوم علاوه بر تحلیل تاریخی ربات و آدمواره (اتوماتون)، بخش بامزهای دربارهی گرافیتی داره. فصل سوم در این مورده که چرا نمیشه مُد رو نابود کرد. فصل چهارم دربارهی بدن (با یه نگاه جذاب به پدیدهی استریپ تیز و فتیشیزم) و در واقع شروع نقد روانکاویه که در فصل پنجم به اوج میرسه و نقد رانهی مرگ (و هر چیز مربوط به مرگ مثل معماری قبرستان و جایگاهش در شهرسازی، کهنسالی، اعدام حیوانات و ...) رو جلو میبره، به نظر بودریار این پیشفرض فوکوئی طردِ دیوانگان و ... باید ذیل طرد مرگ از زندگی خونده بشه. این تقابل مرگ/زندگی و حذف مرگ چیزیه که دکترین اقتصاد سیاسی و حتی روانکاوی رو میسازه (این فصل سنگینترین و حجیمترین فصل کتابه). توی فصل ششم نویسنده پای نقد نشانهشناسی و نقد زبانشناسی (نقد رابطهی سنتی دال/مدلول) رو درون نقدِ روانکاوی به پیش میکشه و تز خودش از امر شاعرانه رو در مقابل تز کسانی مثل یاکوبسن و کریستوا قرار میده.
حد رادیکالیتهی کتاب بسیار بالاست. بودریار اساساً داره با خود مفهوم ارزش میجنگه و حتی جایی از کتاب میگه که مارکسیسم میخواست ارزش رو به شکل دیگهای انباشته کنه و از این منظر هیچ فرقی با سرمایهداری نداره.
.
«نظریهی رادیکال را نه میتوان برپایهی سنتز روانکاوی و مارکسیسم به دست آورد و نه با درآمیختنشان؛ تنها راه چاره در نابودی این دو رهیافت نهفته است. مارکسیسم و روانکاوی هر دو عمیقاً بحرانزدهاند. در عوض پشتیبانی از یکدیگر بایدبحرانهای این دو هرچه بیشتر تشدید شود و با عمق و سرعت بیشتری تداوم یابد. چه بسا به این ترتیب آسیب سنگینتری به یکدیگر وارد آورند. نباید خود را از این صحنهی به غایت تماشائی محروم کنیم: این دو رهیافت صرفاً در حکم عرصههایی انتقادیاند نه چیزی بیشتر.» - صفحه 447
March 18, 2014
Baudrillard: Symbolic Exchange and Death.
Baudrillard's projection of our world is a projection of our simulacra world: a world lacking in authenticity; a world of reproduction rather than production. Creativity suffers in this world.
Ours is a binary world: duopoly monopolies; bipartisan politics; our digital life as an instrument of repression.
A revolution has to take place in order to make life authentic again.
The counter-attack of the graffitists. Nihilistic street art as a revolutionary act - what Art Wars has turned on its head. Paul Adkin's Art Wars could be seen as a narrative progression of the same thesis. The tyranny of cycles. Fashion cycles obliterating the linearity of commodities. No progress in production whilst fashion always lazily brings it back to reproduce what we have already thrown away. "Fashion is always retro, but always on the abolition of the passé (the past)".
Baudrillard investigates control. A control that goes far deeper than we are aware of or want to admit. Control through exchange. Exchange as control. For human societies exchange is order. This is why the natural events like birth and death, disease and the disasters caused by natural forces are feared so much by primitive societies. They cannot be controlled through exchange. Magic tries to do this, or pretends to do it, and power resides in the kingly priestly caste who make others believe it can control the uncontrollable.
The paradigm shift from the "primitive" Giving - Sharing - Exchanging to Killing -Possessing - Devouring.
Political economy and death: power dominates us through anguish. Death as the fundamental motor of political economy. Political economy governed and engendered by the death drive.
Then language and poetics, Saussure and Lacan...
What did I think??? The question here cannot be "what does one think?" but how does one think one's way through all these ideas. In my case: with great patience and attention to details.
Baudrillard's projection of our world is a projection of our simulacra world: a world lacking in authenticity; a world of reproduction rather than production. Creativity suffers in this world.
Ours is a binary world: duopoly monopolies; bipartisan politics; our digital life as an instrument of repression.
A revolution has to take place in order to make life authentic again.
The counter-attack of the graffitists. Nihilistic street art as a revolutionary act - what Art Wars has turned on its head. Paul Adkin's Art Wars could be seen as a narrative progression of the same thesis. The tyranny of cycles. Fashion cycles obliterating the linearity of commodities. No progress in production whilst fashion always lazily brings it back to reproduce what we have already thrown away. "Fashion is always retro, but always on the abolition of the passé (the past)".
Baudrillard investigates control. A control that goes far deeper than we are aware of or want to admit. Control through exchange. Exchange as control. For human societies exchange is order. This is why the natural events like birth and death, disease and the disasters caused by natural forces are feared so much by primitive societies. They cannot be controlled through exchange. Magic tries to do this, or pretends to do it, and power resides in the kingly priestly caste who make others believe it can control the uncontrollable.
The paradigm shift from the "primitive" Giving - Sharing - Exchanging to Killing -Possessing - Devouring.
Political economy and death: power dominates us through anguish. Death as the fundamental motor of political economy. Political economy governed and engendered by the death drive.
Then language and poetics, Saussure and Lacan...
What did I think??? The question here cannot be "what does one think?" but how does one think one's way through all these ideas. In my case: with great patience and attention to details.
May 21, 2025
When Baudrillard is analysing contemporary culture or the ways we view death and poetry, he is truly one of a kind. Incredibly fun to read with his idiosyncratic writing and thinking you cannot get this anywhere else. That is why it is sad to say that there is a lot of this book that I dislike. The entire concept of symbolic exchange is rooted in racism and wants to go back in time for a solution rather than forwards, something I object to.
August 17, 2015
[4.5]
Al parecer, Baudrillard es considerado como a un payaso al cuál nadie debe tomar seriamente dentro del marco 'academicista' Norte Americano. En Latino América, incontables artistas salivan en malinterpretaciones de su obra, superficiales, para producir incontables objetos de igual superficialidad. No hay punto intermedio, aunque aclaro: considero este como uno de los trabajos más importantes de filosofía escritos a finales del Siglo XX, y por lo tanto su importancia es negada/censurada por la academia actual, instaurada en los fósiles Freudo-Marxistas de siempre.
Baudrillard, con su ojo clinico, visionariamente presenta estamentos de nuestra 'sociedad' actual: fin e ilusión de la producción, el código cibérnetico (tumblr, facebook, goodreads, etc.) como simulación represiva general, fin de lo político y su aparente oposición binaria (ya no existe, pretende existir), la moda cómo aniquilamiento absurdo del sentido simbólico: arma reproductiva del código (vaciamento, dualización y posterior aniquilación per separación de lo existente), la muerte simbólica como desafío al orden actual y a la vez presentación de la muerte censurada, afectada (el seguro social), cuantificada, economizada, biológizada por la razón instrumental.
Más que un libro post-estructuralista que algunos encajan en el corto periodo de radicalización de la filosofía francesa después de Mayo del 68 [las tan llamadas 'filosofías del deseo', con Lyotard y Guatari + Deleuze, Lucille Irigaray], es un libro tecno-profético y felizmente anarquista. ¡Un abrebocas al presente abismo en el que estamos infelizmente sitiados!
Al parecer, Baudrillard es considerado como a un payaso al cuál nadie debe tomar seriamente dentro del marco 'academicista' Norte Americano. En Latino América, incontables artistas salivan en malinterpretaciones de su obra, superficiales, para producir incontables objetos de igual superficialidad. No hay punto intermedio, aunque aclaro: considero este como uno de los trabajos más importantes de filosofía escritos a finales del Siglo XX, y por lo tanto su importancia es negada/censurada por la academia actual, instaurada en los fósiles Freudo-Marxistas de siempre.
Baudrillard, con su ojo clinico, visionariamente presenta estamentos de nuestra 'sociedad' actual: fin e ilusión de la producción, el código cibérnetico (tumblr, facebook, goodreads, etc.) como simulación represiva general, fin de lo político y su aparente oposición binaria (ya no existe, pretende existir), la moda cómo aniquilamiento absurdo del sentido simbólico: arma reproductiva del código (vaciamento, dualización y posterior aniquilación per separación de lo existente), la muerte simbólica como desafío al orden actual y a la vez presentación de la muerte censurada, afectada (el seguro social), cuantificada, economizada, biológizada por la razón instrumental.
Más que un libro post-estructuralista que algunos encajan en el corto periodo de radicalización de la filosofía francesa después de Mayo del 68 [las tan llamadas 'filosofías del deseo', con Lyotard y Guatari + Deleuze, Lucille Irigaray], es un libro tecno-profético y felizmente anarquista. ¡Un abrebocas al presente abismo en el que estamos infelizmente sitiados!
December 15, 2020
Johnny B never disappoints, though he can be quite heavy handed sometimes. Chapter 5's anthropological/sociological remarks on death are just fascinating. Chapter 6's linguistics are frustrating, but there's some illuminating explication of poetry's relation to language.
I'm not quite sure, but I think for Baudrillard, the symbolic is what undergirds meaning, and must be used to explain and criticize economic, sociological, psychological, and political orders. All of these attempts to construct a formal and functional system (marxism, psychoanalysis, rationalist philosophy in general???) for value, thought, desire, belief, etc. necessarily fall short without understand the sovereignty of the symbolic. Symbol processing machine world. Abstract machine. Mechanosphere.
I'm not quite sure, but I think for Baudrillard, the symbolic is what undergirds meaning, and must be used to explain and criticize economic, sociological, psychological, and political orders. All of these attempts to construct a formal and functional system (marxism, psychoanalysis, rationalist philosophy in general???) for value, thought, desire, belief, etc. necessarily fall short without understand the sovereignty of the symbolic. Symbol processing machine world. Abstract machine. Mechanosphere.
May 19, 2025
This has metamorphosised me into simply the most annoying contrarian ever, 'ate Marxism 'ate Psychoanalysis 'ate capital, simple as.
December 14, 2020
This book was first published in French in 1976, the German edition followed in 1982. Hardly anyone then understood what Baudrillard meant, too deep they stuck in the social theories of society, culture and media. Not much has changed today if we watch contemporary social sciences, politics, administration, and economics.
Baudrillard was one of the first who realized the danger of the inevitable virtualization of all and everything in the so-called "postmodern" era, based in a false metaphysics and its ill-fated scholastic derivations and definitions - for many not to grasp in the pre-internet era, and not even now.
Baudrillard was one of the first who realized the danger of the inevitable virtualization of all and everything in the so-called "postmodern" era, based in a false metaphysics and its ill-fated scholastic derivations and definitions - for many not to grasp in the pre-internet era, and not even now.
December 6, 2014
Teoría Anarquista y degustación semiótica.
March 19, 2021
This is a very typical book by Baudrillard, at least the way I perceive him. It is not easy to read and it is very dense, yet it manages to keep your interest and you can't escape the feeling that what is presented is worth something. Baudrillard's writing is more fragmented here than usually, although he usually writes very polemically anyway, which can be good because you don't have to worry about being lost at any point, but it is also a flaw because it sometimes organization of what is being said would be better for understanding it. It also comes of as not very focused, it is hard to determent if the two titular subjects are the purpose of the book or serve as illustrations and specific examples of Baudrillard's general theory. The latter subject is definitely the one I preferred, it is what the book is worth reading for, making you reflect on not just mortality, but also on the reflection, on the way we perceive mortality, it is amazing, very thought provoking. Symbolic exchange looks at economical implications of Baudrillard's general theory in an anthropological manner, this can be interesting, but is filled with criticism of Marxism which generally comes down to pretty standard arguments and is not where Baudrillard shines. However, this criticism of Marxism is more constructive than in his to previous books, For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign and The Mirror of Production. It makes me think some points can be or even have been flipped to fit Marxism, the superstructure taking over the basis of production and becoming more idealistic and purely self-referential might as well be a defence mechanism of capitalism. Maybe accelerationism can be seen as the synthesis of the Marxist thesis and Baudrillard's antithesis?
February 10, 2025
Es el mejor de todos. Este libro es un ataque violento contra todos (contra Marx, contra Freud, contra Saussure, contra Lacan, contra Deleuze, contra Derrida, contra Lyotard) pero al mismo tiempo salvando fragmentos de ellos. Es difícil discernir exactamente cuál es el programa de Baudrillard, qué es exactamente ese terreno de lo simbólico y la muerte que puede elevarse contra el orden de la producción y la reproducción, y en qué sentido no es una negatividad dialéctica sino _otra cosa_, pero hay acá la base para pensar de un modo radicalmente distinto. Sin duda, es al mismo tiempo el último de una tradición y el primero de otra.
October 6, 2022
Grote s/o naar Jean hij is echt wijs
June 22, 2023
Obra-prima do obscurantismo filosófico! Baudrillard negocia com a morte enquanto busca certas raízes da troca na moda, linguística e economia – tudo isso enquanto ataca o marxismo e a psicanálise. Não por acaso foi taxado de um livro do mal
Read
October 26, 2024Audio Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHZew...
Audio Part 2://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Vgen-L_lo
Give it to me. MMMHM yea, gimme that death drive critique as straight code.
Audio Part 2://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3Vgen-L_lo
Give it to me. MMMHM yea, gimme that death drive critique as straight code.
March 29, 2020
I think that Baudrillard's historic justification for the death distinction is extremely warranted. As he breaks down every period in time and the way death functions the reader gets a more in-depth picture of how biological life creates deferred death. His solution is very Baudrillard in that it is absurd and no one would do it. He argues that the only way to counter deferred death is with immediate death and yet he didn't kill himself. In fact, he greatly contradicted his alternative in the fact he died from old age, the literal difference of death. He avoids metaphorical language and esoteric philosophical words which allows the book to be comprehendible to younger readers. It also hijacks most postmodern philosophers likes Jodi Dean since labor and productivity are not alone what structures the World instead it is death and the attempt to strive for life. Productivity itself is therefore not about alienation it’s about death relations. Overall I think this is the best nihilistic philosophy I have read to date.
April 26, 2025
کتاب سرشار از ایدههای خلاقانه و درخشان است، خواندنش خالی از لطف نیست، به شرطی که حوصلهی طول و تفصیل فراوان ۴۰۰ و خردهای صفحهای را داشته باشید.
حجم کتاب میتوانست با حذف تکرار مکررات به نصف برسد.
ترجمهاش بد نیست، برخی جاهای متن سکته دارد.
حجم کتاب میتوانست با حذف تکرار مکررات به نصف برسد.
ترجمهاش بد نیست، برخی جاهای متن سکته دارد.
May 1, 2011
Discreditable and thoughtful; a book ment to blow up my mind. I did like it.
February 3, 2023
Baudrillard tells us about an existential paradox in which humanity, which does not know what it wants, or worse, does not know what it thinks it knows, but does not know, falls into. To people, do you want to know the truth or the lie? when you ask, what almost everyone will tell you will be "Of course the truth". However, the same humanity develops a form of relationship that destroys values and leaves itself in a lie. Rational reality is no longer tolerable, it is incomprehensible, and it is transactional realities that are accepted, tolerated. In this way, everything about man and humanity has been made consumable, expendable, nullable. While describing this situation, Baudrillard also understands the impossibility of escaping from the forms of inclusion in this system created by humanity. You are no longer being thrown in front of the machines, as Charlie Chaplin wittily described in the movie Modern Times. Because even with the ways you reject the system, you are now included in the system. In other words, there is no free will in any form within the system anymore.
In addition, the "labor" that exists in everything that a person does has now changed its identity and has acquired the quality of reproduction through copying rather than productivity. In other words, it has come out of its basic quality like money.
At this point I want to continue with reference to Nietzsche. Because the process has evolved not as Marx predicted, but as Nietzsche predicted. Nietzsche took a great stand against nothingness, said that it was the church and the religious attitudes it spread that created nothingness, and explained that the operating system also shapes society based on this center. Baudrillard too;
“he educates and guides people in every moment of life within the framework of opposing and insensitive myths; the only principle he has is insensitivity (..) the only thing capitalism knows is to equalize, neutralize and desensitize everything in a superficial way,” he says in his book. At this point, we can safely say that the capitalist system, which originated from the church, exploits labor, and again, with the phenomenon of the will to power mentioned by Nietzsche, it does not even recognize the worker's right to die, it is trying to exploit it to the fullest, it wants to become stronger * through these surplus values. Baudrillard attacks this system of insensitivity with all his might and exposes it in every aspect... They have excellent definitions, especially at the point of using the concept of democracy and its use with indicators. At a time when the fake is being put in its original place, such a struggle is very meaningful and very important. This book is one of the pioneers of this war.
Let me summarize the book with this question;
Does the person who wants to kill the death that he has made into an indicator not actually want to kill himself?
In addition, the "labor" that exists in everything that a person does has now changed its identity and has acquired the quality of reproduction through copying rather than productivity. In other words, it has come out of its basic quality like money.
At this point I want to continue with reference to Nietzsche. Because the process has evolved not as Marx predicted, but as Nietzsche predicted. Nietzsche took a great stand against nothingness, said that it was the church and the religious attitudes it spread that created nothingness, and explained that the operating system also shapes society based on this center. Baudrillard too;
“he educates and guides people in every moment of life within the framework of opposing and insensitive myths; the only principle he has is insensitivity (..) the only thing capitalism knows is to equalize, neutralize and desensitize everything in a superficial way,” he says in his book. At this point, we can safely say that the capitalist system, which originated from the church, exploits labor, and again, with the phenomenon of the will to power mentioned by Nietzsche, it does not even recognize the worker's right to die, it is trying to exploit it to the fullest, it wants to become stronger * through these surplus values. Baudrillard attacks this system of insensitivity with all his might and exposes it in every aspect... They have excellent definitions, especially at the point of using the concept of democracy and its use with indicators. At a time when the fake is being put in its original place, such a struggle is very meaningful and very important. This book is one of the pioneers of this war.
Let me summarize the book with this question;
Does the person who wants to kill the death that he has made into an indicator not actually want to kill himself?
November 13, 2023
I am putting makeup on empty space
all patinas convening on empty space
rouge blushing on empty space
I am putting makeup on empty space
pasting eyelashes on empty space
painting the eyebrows of empty space
piling creams on empty space
painting the phenomenal world — Anne Waldman
"Mix and Match: A Furry Bicycle is an Example of a __________" <-- [Conversation Piece]
Of my scant memories from grade-school, I recall drafting a Goosebumps story about a summer camp run by skeletons (themes of stranger danger), and also a moment of perplexity at a bizarre grown-up phrase: "Conversation Piece." That an object (such as a "furry bicycle") might be an occasion to dispense a pithy anecdote prepared in advance struck that child as bizarre. What a way to constrain a conversation to a series of fixed remarks and set-pieces, however amusing. (This, unfortunately, remains the mainstay of so-called conversation-between-adults.) The Conversation Piece as a way of filling empty space — in a situation where the right words aren't at hand.
In more regimented form, this is also what is happening on the blank line of a not-insubstantial number of university papers. The intelligent student, when stumped, fills the page with much that can be said to be true, much that is neither-true-nor-untrue, and, perhaps, a little that is pertinent. (The Visuddhimaggha has a term for work such as this, "Bean-soupery is resemblance to bean soup; for just as when beans are being cooked only a few [stay hard] so too the person in whose speech only a little is true, the rest being false, is called a 'bean soup;' his state is bean-soupery." (The felicitous similarity between the syllables (B.S.) reminds us that The Ancients were already fed up with Bull Shit.).)
Baudrillard, titan that he is, has a nose that knows that something is rotten in the state of
• "From now on, signs are exchanged against each other rather than against the real (it is not that they just happen to be exchanged against each other, they do so on condition that they are no longer exchanged against the real)." (48)
• "Today all labor falls under a single definition, [. . .] service-labor." (61)
• "[Wages] are no longer in any proportional or equivalence relation at all, they are a sacrament, like a baptism (or the Extreme Unction)," (64)
• "Capital no longer belongs to the order of political economy: it operates with political economy as its simulated model in the larger apparatus of the structural law of value." (87)
• "Marxism and psychoanalysis [. . .] may yet do each other great collateral damage. We must not be deprived of this spectacle: they are only critical fields." (366) (already passé, but credit where it's due. . .)
But beyond these phrases from the Good Book, we are in a very cold space. Death (violent type), is subsequently presented as the appropriate response to the incessant circulation of signs:
"There is no other alternative; you will never abolish this power by staying alive, since there will have been no reversal of what has been given. Only the surrender of this life, retaliating against a deferred death with an immediate death, constitutes a radical response, and the only possibility of abolishing power. No revolutionary strategy can begin without the slave putting his own death back at stake, since this is what the master puts off in the différance from which he profits by securing his power. Refuse to be put to death, refuse to live in the mortal reprieve of power, refuse the duty of this life and never be quits with living, in effect be under obligation to settle this long-term credit through the slow death of labour, since this slow death does not alter the future of this abject dimension, in the fatality of power. Violent death changes everything," (91)
Certainly, violent revolution without-a-cause (empty teleology/eschatology) is destabilizing to any system, though, more than a focused critique-of-Capital, this section of the text has the character of a critique by smell. Not just the teleology of, "smells bad, throw the whole thing out of the refrigerator," but the imprecision of "I think it's coming from this container," and the instinctual revulsion of, "Stinky!" (A reminder for writers: the extended metaphor is only half as clever as you think it is.)
Violent death, as a gift that cannot be exchanged ("there is no counter-gift") constitutes an empty space (there is nothing after death), but this space is already being filled (in the same way an empty refrigerator continues to stink). Robbe-Grillet notes, "Metaphysics loves a vacuum, and rushes into it like smoke up a chimney; for, within immediate signification, we find the absurd, which is theoretically non-signification, but which as a matter of fact leads immediately, by a well-known metaphysical recuperation, to a new transcendence." Our bright-eyed revolutionary is giving himself over to the violent death act, perhaps for the sake of a 'better tomorrow.' To the extent that this act can be legibly inscribed with the signs of exchange, the violent death is already failing. We arrive at the position from which we hasten a violent death to the end that, "the system must itself itself commit suicide in response to the multiplied challenge of death and suicide," (87) but one less legible than the "taking of hostages" (for exchange) Baudrillard prescribes. To go one level further than this would be to take those we had sought to protect as hostages. (This is already at the level of Kierkegaard's Demonic Dread which, in despair, renounces the ethical.) But just as in Baudrillard's analysis of "systems of totality" which collapse at the moment they triumph and become a total identity, the 'perfected' violent revolutionary act is no longer capable of being performed. The actor-beyond-exchange who is giving up everything --> for the future --> for nothing, is already the post-revolutionary who is cynically asking, "Why can't someone else do it?" — Excepting the (not infrequent) situation of the mental block. (Kierkegaard is also remarking on the man who is humorous because he has gone so far as to die for his cause, which upon further inspection, it appears he didn't believe).
This is perhaps why, in the most significant sentence in the text, Baudrillard pre-emptively walks back his later unequivocal exhortation to violence. In the second footnote to the preface: "Death ought never to be understood as the real event that affects a subject or a body, but as a form in which the determinacy of the subject and of value is lost. " (45) Nowhere else in Baudrillard will we have such a frank admission to playing loose with life that is actually being lived as someone else (e.g. another meaning of Waldman's poem above.) We are already suspicious of the phrase, "Security as Blackmail," (279) which the Sloterdijks and Baudrillards of the world wield against seatbelts and social security. The argument that we are helping the System out of the brutality it deserves (i.e. "the automobile death") is obliterated the by (socialist) maxim that nobody deserves anything (bad), which is already the basis of a more robust response to Capital, and perhaps one better appreciated by those already dead.
December 14, 2021
The first third of the book might be some of the most accessible writing he has. Coherent and practical. It gets pretty far out half way through. Then the linguistics and semiotics near the end is Baudrillard at his most brilliant but maybe too prophetic. He leaves the reader behind. As someone who has read most of his books I still needed to reread a few parts because of how the content gets lost in translation.
There’s no easy way to discuss post modern thought and communication in a serious way without redefining almost everything. I like how he uses McLuhan, Freud, Saussure, and Deleuze in this book. The way he uses psychoanalytic thought to challenge medium over message, poetic semantics, and language construct as it relates to late stage capitalism is fascinating.
By far the most fascinating is how he considers the death drive and the way it effects everything from evolution, to materialistic culture, to psychology, to metaphysical duality. Interesting theory of death domesticating humanity by way of medicine and other short term individualistic solutions that fold back on themselves eventually in a collective way. The other theory being how the proletariat must take accountability of their own lives and health as an only means of revolution when hegemony fully absorbs labor into its all-encompassing immersive structure.
I think he proves his credibility at the beginning of the book with his economic understanding…But no one has the credibility to predict everything he does here. You either go with him and entertain the ideas or stop reading. A lot of readers likely have up. I think it’s worth it to keep reading and give it a chance though. It was for me even though the end gets slower. This book takes a wide lens to psychology, economics, evolution, and sociology. For a Baudrillard fan like myself it’s one of his most underrated books.
There’s no easy way to discuss post modern thought and communication in a serious way without redefining almost everything. I like how he uses McLuhan, Freud, Saussure, and Deleuze in this book. The way he uses psychoanalytic thought to challenge medium over message, poetic semantics, and language construct as it relates to late stage capitalism is fascinating.
By far the most fascinating is how he considers the death drive and the way it effects everything from evolution, to materialistic culture, to psychology, to metaphysical duality. Interesting theory of death domesticating humanity by way of medicine and other short term individualistic solutions that fold back on themselves eventually in a collective way. The other theory being how the proletariat must take accountability of their own lives and health as an only means of revolution when hegemony fully absorbs labor into its all-encompassing immersive structure.
I think he proves his credibility at the beginning of the book with his economic understanding…But no one has the credibility to predict everything he does here. You either go with him and entertain the ideas or stop reading. A lot of readers likely have up. I think it’s worth it to keep reading and give it a chance though. It was for me even though the end gets slower. This book takes a wide lens to psychology, economics, evolution, and sociology. For a Baudrillard fan like myself it’s one of his most underrated books.
August 24, 2024
Excellent book, as always - Baudrillard - one of the most controversial and complex thinkers I know. He tackles topics of death and the way it is used and repressed in our society in order to control individuals contained within the social fabric. I think this book serves as a great entry point to the works of Baudrillard because the concept of symbolic exchange can be quite hard to grasp at first, and it's not really explained in his later, more well-known and popular work, "Simulation and Simulacra."
The book takes quite some time to get going, however, when the topic of death is introduced in the second half of the book, it quickly gains momentum and snowballs into a huge, complicated, and satisfying argument. Baudrillard provides a lot of food for thought, making this a fundamental work for understanding his later ideas.
In "Symbolic Exchange and Death," Baudrillard argues that modern society has lost touch with the true nature of death and its role in the symbolic exchange that underlies social relations. Instead, death has been repressed, sanitized, and used as a tool for social control. By denying the reality of death and trying to master it through various technological and ideological means, we have created a world of artificial scarcity and alienation.
Baudrillard suggests that the only way to break free from this oppressive system is to reintegrate death into the social fabric, to recognize its symbolic power and embrace it as a necessary part of life. This means moving beyond the narrow confines of political economy and rediscovering a more authentic mode of existence based on reciprocity, cyclicality, and the acceptance of ambivalence.
The book takes quite some time to get going, however, when the topic of death is introduced in the second half of the book, it quickly gains momentum and snowballs into a huge, complicated, and satisfying argument. Baudrillard provides a lot of food for thought, making this a fundamental work for understanding his later ideas.
In "Symbolic Exchange and Death," Baudrillard argues that modern society has lost touch with the true nature of death and its role in the symbolic exchange that underlies social relations. Instead, death has been repressed, sanitized, and used as a tool for social control. By denying the reality of death and trying to master it through various technological and ideological means, we have created a world of artificial scarcity and alienation.
Baudrillard suggests that the only way to break free from this oppressive system is to reintegrate death into the social fabric, to recognize its symbolic power and embrace it as a necessary part of life. This means moving beyond the narrow confines of political economy and rediscovering a more authentic mode of existence based on reciprocity, cyclicality, and the acceptance of ambivalence.
October 9, 2021
I'm not ashamed to say this book kind of defeated me. Not in the least. The French post-structuralists sometimes makes it needlessly difficult to understand what the hell they're even talking about and Baudrillard doesn't even make an effort to properly set up context for what he's saying. He talks like he's in the middle of a conversation he's been having for years. Whether you are witness to it or not doesn't matter.
Now that the mandatory post-structuralists-are-difficult whining is out of the way, what I got out of this book was pretty cool, I guess? Basically, Baudrillard goes to town on Ferdinand de Saussure's ideas on language and how they relate to late capitalism and how it creates the kind of symbolic exchange that can rob someone of their soul. He gives at the start the example of the capitalist giving money to the laborer in exchange for his labor, trapping him in a cycle where he has to constantly repeat his labor for someone else's profit if he wants to survive. Now, because this is too self-evident to warrant its own book, Baudrillard takes this idea of the symbolic exchange and extrapolates on how it ties-in to what Freud calls in the Death Drive. The rejection of the-way-things-care and how the system does everything in its power to eliminate it.
I'm not going to break it down for you because I feel like you should earn the moments of clarity through the pages of frustration like I did, but this is super eggheady stuff. Handle with care.
Now that the mandatory post-structuralists-are-difficult whining is out of the way, what I got out of this book was pretty cool, I guess? Basically, Baudrillard goes to town on Ferdinand de Saussure's ideas on language and how they relate to late capitalism and how it creates the kind of symbolic exchange that can rob someone of their soul. He gives at the start the example of the capitalist giving money to the laborer in exchange for his labor, trapping him in a cycle where he has to constantly repeat his labor for someone else's profit if he wants to survive. Now, because this is too self-evident to warrant its own book, Baudrillard takes this idea of the symbolic exchange and extrapolates on how it ties-in to what Freud calls in the Death Drive. The rejection of the-way-things-care and how the system does everything in its power to eliminate it.
I'm not going to break it down for you because I feel like you should earn the moments of clarity through the pages of frustration like I did, but this is super eggheady stuff. Handle with care.
October 25, 2023
Have you ever felt that there are certain positions and companies on the "job market" who does not create any value? Have you ever wondered, why they exist? These phenomenon blossom today. They prevail even if there is no visible demand, and the "work" is not creating any profit, on the contrary they create financial loss.
Have you ever marveled about our response to the virus which conquered the world a few years ago?
Do you think that it is possible, that Santa Claus, by giving gifts unilaterally to kids, exercises power over them?
If your answer is yes to some of these questions, this book is for you. It offers an appealing analysis from sociology point of view about where we are today, and how we arrived here. Certainly the book is an advanced read, but if you can take away the key topics, it will offer some compelling reasons about the most insane aspects of 21st century.
Have you ever marveled about our response to the virus which conquered the world a few years ago?
Do you think that it is possible, that Santa Claus, by giving gifts unilaterally to kids, exercises power over them?
If your answer is yes to some of these questions, this book is for you. It offers an appealing analysis from sociology point of view about where we are today, and how we arrived here. Certainly the book is an advanced read, but if you can take away the key topics, it will offer some compelling reasons about the most insane aspects of 21st century.
August 29, 2023
This definitely closes the door on my reading of Baudrillard's critique of Capitalism, production, Marx, consumption, signifiers, signs, semiotics, and whatever else he poured into his then-groundbreaking ideas about objects moving from utility to representation, of a sort. I like the concept and his explanations about how we no longer buy things to use, but buy things for what they mean personally and socially. I guess his thinking just goes too high-academia for my interest, and I feel he writes mostly for his fellow theoreticians and not really for the rest of us. I understand quite a lot of what he writes, I just find not enough of it has practical application. Or maybe I'm just not as smart as I think...
July 25, 2020
Some amazing thoughts and considerations in this book, giving a great understanding of contemporary society, even in 2020! However it has parts where, possibly just due to my own stupidity, it drags and starts becoming so abstract and hard to understand that it becomes is hard to get through.
4,5/5
4,5/5
May 11, 2022
Immensely insightful and deliciously polemical. This book is very useful in analyzing contemporary history, politics, and art. It has some sections in which I found myself lost in the sauce, which lost it a star for me. I will definitely be reading more Baudrillard in the future. I highly recommend starting with this, as the first few chapters are brilliant.
July 12, 2022
Critique of the Marxist and psychoanalytic systems which, in his eyes, ignore the fundamental concept of symbolic exchange being primal to economic and cultural exchange; and that economic and cultural activity is based on symbolic exchanges, identities, and negotiations stemming from an anxiety of death and the death drive.
December 30, 2017
Troppo complicato per i miei gusti
November 13, 2021
most of this book: ✈️
me: 🥵
me: 🥵
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