The French List
2 total works
'Behind every image, something has disappeared. And that is the source of its fascination,' writes French theorist Jean Baudrillard in "Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?" In this, one of the last texts written before his death in 2007, Baudrillard meditates poignantly on the question of disappearance. Throughout, he weaves an intricate set of variations on his theme, ranging from the potential disappearance of humanity as a result of the fulfillment of its goal of world mastery to the vanishing of reality due to the continual transmutation of the real into the virtual. Along the way, he takes in the more conventional question of the philosophical 'subject,' whose disappearance has, in his view, been caused by a 'pulverization of consciousness into all the interstices of reality'. Interspersed throughout the text are photographs by Alain Willaume that help illustrate Baudrillard's argument. Baudrillard insists that with disappearance, strange things happen - some things that were eliminated or repressed may return in destructive viral forms - yet at the same time, he reminds us that disappearance has a positive aspect, as a 'vital dimension' of the existence of things.
In "Carnival and Cannibal", distinguished French philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) reflects on many of his most important ideas concerning the significance of language and the relationship between the technological and the social. In this, one of his final works, Baudrillard identifies two fatal modes in which the world is currently engaged: the carnival and the cannibal, arguing essentially that contemporary society is transfixed by the spectacle of its own cultural creation and self-consumption. Revisiting his most important concepts - such as reversibility, simulation, parody, and symbolic exchange - through the exploration of these two dominant modes, Baudrillard delivers a blistering diagnosis of globalization, as inflicted on the world by the richer nations. In the companion essay "Ventriloquous Evil", Baudrillard meditates on our present system of global technological and ideological domination, which has eradicated human accountability. Baudrillard argues that 'this entire electronic, cybernetic revolution is perhaps merely a piece of animal cunning that humanity has found in order to escape itself'.
A brilliant synthesis of some of Baudrillard's most remarkable and influential ideas, "Carnival and Cannibal" is a timely and formidable exploration of a humanity that has cannibalized the human.
A brilliant synthesis of some of Baudrillard's most remarkable and influential ideas, "Carnival and Cannibal" is a timely and formidable exploration of a humanity that has cannibalized the human.