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- Baudrillard’s concept of discourse is a free pass for the Pentagon
- Debaters should attempt to stabilize meaning
link - BaudrillardTheir conceptions of language, reality and morality all linkPotgeieter 8 – Professor of Art History @ Unisa (Frikkie, “Detotalising or meaninglessness: on the continued relevance of poststructuralism for postmodern art and culture,” SAJAH, 23.2) The idea that the subject is trapped in a decentred network of signs is also theorized in∂ the work of Baudrillard, who makes the point (1994: 3) that in this postmodern world it is∂ impossible to draw a fundamental distinction between reality and simulations of reality. But∂ everything is not all that negative, because what we lose in authenticity, says Baudrillard (1988:∂ 34), we gain in control: “... The drugstore [the mall] is the sublimation of real life, of objective∂ social life, where not only work and money are abolished, but the seasons disappear as well∂ – the distant vestige of a cycle finally domesticated!”. This control, this uniformity, however∂ ends in meaninglessness, because, as Baudrillard (1988: 34) points out, “Everything is finally∂ digested and reduced to the same homogeneous fecal matter”.∂ Sim (1992: 403) says that Baudrillard writes as if “We live in a ‘hyperreality’ surrounded by∂ simulacra and simulations ... and there is no longer any point in trying to engage in interpretation∂ of texts or events”. We must however not make the mistake of regarding hyperreality and∂ “simulacra” as false or spurious, because, as Poster (1988: 6) explains, Baudrillard in point of∂ fact does not draw a fundamental distinction between the false and the real:10∂ A simulation is different from a fiction or a lie in that it not only represents an absence as a presence, the imaginary∂ as the real, it also undermines any contrast to the real, absorbing the real within itself. Instead of a “real” economy∂ of commodities that is somehow bypassed by an “unreal” myriad of advertising images, Baudrillard now discerns∂ only a hyperreality, a world of self-referential signs.∂ Baudrillard simply sees no centre or positive terms which elude language games and∂ enable us to distinguish the true from the false. For that reason, says Poster (1988: 2): “In∂ Baudrillard’s terms, ‘hyperreality’ is the new linguistic condition of society, rendering impotent∂ theories that still rely on materialist reductionism or rationalist referentiality”. Poster (1988:∂ 5) goes on to explain that theories like Marxism and psychoanalysis which try to exchange∂ “shallow” phenomena for a “deep” structure or centre will no longer do.∂ Since everything, according to Baudrillard (1988: 34), is digested and reduced to the same∂ homogeneous faecal matter, it makes no sense any more to try and make sense of things. Perhaps ∂ 63∂ all that is left for us is an ironic glance at the crowds in the shopping mall. Or, conversely, if∂ we can’t beat them, why not join them and develop a consumer mentality of our own? Why∂ not just accept that all the consumable faecal matter around us has no intrinsic value? After all,∂ we want to have things just for the sake of having them. Why not become part of the culture of∂ excrement? Why not develop a desire to play along in digesting the world and excreting it as∂ homogeneous faecal matter? Poster (1988: 1) explains Baudrillard’s position on this as follows:∂ “In a commodity the relation of word, image or meaning and referent is broken and restructured∂ so that its force is directed, not to the referent of use value or utility, but to desire”. Baudrillard’s concept of discourse is a free pass for the PentagonNorris 92 Christopher, professor of philosophy at the University of Wales-Cardiff, What’s Wrong with Postmodernism, pg. 190-191 Baudnllard's alternative is stated clearly enough: 'a hyperreal henceforth sheltered from the imaginary, and from any distinction between the real and the imaginary, leaving room only for the orbital recurrence of models and the simulated genention of difference' (p. 167). It is a vision which should bring great comfort to government advisers, PR experts. campaign managers, opinion-pollsters, media watch-dogs, Pentagon spokesmen and others with an interest in maintaining this state of affairs. Baudrillard's imagery of 'orbital recurrence' and the 'simulated generation of difference' should commend itself to advocates of a Star Wars program whose only conceivable purpose is to escalate East-West tensions and divert more funds to the military-industrial complex. There is no denying the extent to which this and similar strategies of disinformation have set the agenda for 'public debate' across a range of crucial policy issues. But the fact remains (and this phrase carries more than just a suasive or rhetorical force) that there is a difference between what we are given to believe and what emerges from the process of subjecting such beliefs to an informed critique of their content and modes of propagation. This process may amount to a straightforward demand that politicians tell the truth and be held so account for their failing to do so. Of course there are cases - like the lranian-Contra affair or Thatcher's role in events leading up to she Falklands war - where a correspondence-theory might seem to break down since the facts are buried away in Cabinet papers, the evidence concealed by some piece of high-level chicanery ('Official Secrets', security interests, reasons of state, etc.), or the documents conveniently shredded in time to forestall investigation of their content. But there is no reason to think as with Baudrillard's decidedly Orwellian prognosis that this puts the truth forever beyond reach, thus heralding an age of out-and-out 'hyperreality'. For one can still apply other criteria of truth and falsehood, among them a fairly basic coherence-theory that would point out the various lapses, inconsistencies, non-sequiturs, downright contradictions and so forth which suffice to undermine the official version of events. (Margaret Thatcher's various statements on the Malvinas conflict - especially the sinking of the Genera! Beigrano - would provide a good example here,)29 It may be argued that the truth-conditions will vary from one specific context to another: that such episodes involve very different criteria according to the kinds of evidence available; and therefore that it is no use expecting any form of generalised theory to establish the facts of this or that case. But this ignores the extent to which theories (and truth-claims) inform our every act of rational appraisal, from 'commonsense' decisions of a day-to-day practical kind to the most advanced levels of speculative thought. And it also ignores the main lesson to be learnt from Baudrillard's texts: that any politics which goes along with the current postmodernist drift will end up by effectively endorsing and promoting the work of ideological mystification. Debaters should attempt to stabilize meaningNorris 92 Christopher, professor of philosophy at the University of Wales-Cardiff, What’s Wrong with Postmodernism, pg. 182 But this is not just to score the odd point off Baudrillard by remarking his occasional lapses into a pre-postmodem way of thinking. On the contrary: his work is of value only in so far as it accepts - albeit against the grain of his express belief - that there is still a difference between truth and falsehood. reason and unreason, the way things are and the way they are commonly represented as being. Baudrillard is a first-rate diagnostician of the postmodern scene but thoroughly inconsequent and muddled when it comes to philosophising on the basis of his own observations. For it just does not follow from the fact that we are living through an age of widespread illusion and disinformation that therefore all questions of truth drop out of the picture and we cannot any longer talk in such terms without harking back to some version of Platonist metaphysics. Baudrillard's mistake is to move straight on from a descriptive account of certain prevalent conditions in the late twentieth century lifeworld to a wholesale anti-realist stance which takes those conditions as a pretext for dismantling every last claim to validity or truth. What this amounts to is, again, a kind of systematically inverted Platonism: a fixed determination to conceive no ideas of what life might be like outside the cave. all of the links here were pulled from files from the k affs and some of the k negs which could be read as affs. They should be treated, for the most part, as reps links. Download 426.35 Kb. Share with your friends:
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