h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>Many analytic philosophers do not regard Baudrillard as a philosopher at all, but as a cultural theorist<<

Oh and I'd agree with that, by the way. But he's still quite a novel cultural theorist, imo

(One great advantage Baudrillard has over other postmodern cultural theorists, just as an afterthought - his stuff is quite *short*. 'The Precession of Simulacra', probably the best place to start, is a mere 40 pages).

"When all is said and done, one wonders what would be left of Baudrillard's thought if the verbal veneer covering it were stripped away"

If you want to write an entry about B, then do so by answering this question. That would be the biggest contribution anybody could make to the debate about him.

Oops, simpost

>>No, but if it's all a joke, then why is it being treated so reverently<<

Because of all the arguments about this vast unreflexive academic machine designed to 'process' philosophers and prop up careers etc. which Sokal and others have put forward. Rightly so.

All I'm saying is that this doesn't mean there isn't any value there in the first place. Nor is it a 'joke' necessarily, but when I read Baudrillard, firstly, I don't have the kind of difficulty in following him that's being talked about here (the early stuff is pretty dense, but the stuff from the 80s tends to be about much more concrete objects) and, secondly, I think 'that's interesting' much more than I think 'that's true'.

"Capital in fact has never been linked by a contract...."

Interesting? True? How would we know?

I suppose, to sum up:
I won't stand in the way of this getting into the EG. However, I would suggest that the author of this piece avoids falling into the same trap as B himself, that is using overly complicated language to describe some rather simple concepts. And that a rather more critical tone should be adopted, especially with regard to the whole Gulf War incident, when B is obviously trying to have his cake and eat it.

best of luck with this entry.

>>Capital in fact has never been linked by a contract to the society it dominates. It is a sorcery of the social relation, it is a challenge to society and should be responded to as such. It is not a scandal to be denounced according to moral and economic rationality, but - challenge to take up according to symbolic law<<

>>What does this mean?<<

Taken out of context, not a lot. But it's meant to be read in the context of a larger piece of writing which makes the meaning clearer. I don't see that a chunk of Kant or Hegel ripped out of its context would be any easier to handle.

Moreover, if I'd read a book which carried out a condemnation of Hegel's work on the grounds of incomprehensibility or bluster, I could reasonably decide that Hegel wasn't for me and life's too short. But going from there to the statement that Hegel *is* 'obfuscatory bulls**t' or 'worthless' and there's an end to the matter - I'd suggest that this is a bit of a stretch.

If this were an entry on Enid Blyton, it would make no difference, I'd still suggest the need actually to read some - in full rather than in the form of extracts selected by hostile critics - before delivering final verdicts on the matter.

Oops - I do type slowly

>> I would suggest that the author of this piece avoids falling into the same trap as B himself, that is using overly complicated language to describe some rather simple concepts. And that a rather more critical tone should be adopted, especially with regard to the whole Gulf War incident, when B is obviously trying to have his cake and eat it<<

Just wanted to second that, certainly as regards obfuscatory language A guide entry on Baudrillard is not something I'd fancy attempting myself in a million years, so good luck with it. But it does need to be clear and it does need to debate, in as simple a set of terms as possible.

With the Gulf War essays, for instance - Baudrillard deliberately exaggerates the position in order to provoke a response? I certainly got that from them.

Hi,

”I've been following this thread with interest. As somebody else who has trouble deciphering much (read: all) of Continental post-modernism, I think that I've learnt more from the arguments on this thread than within the Entry itself. If you could re-write bits of your Entry to include some of the explanations you've made, that would be quite useful, I think.”

Thank you, I will work on that.

”Another thing that would be useful for people who don't know an awful lot about philosophy would be some context. For instance, perhaps some of the objections of notable philosphers (Sokal included) could be put in the Entry... you would do that with a proper overview of any controversial philosopher - for instance, an article about Leibiniz's (appalling spelling, sorry) 'Best of all Possible Worlds' theory wouldn't be complete without mentioning Voltaire's Candide or poem about the Lisbon Earthquake. It might shed a little more light on where B fits in the scheme of current thought.”

I will be honest, I am not familiar with Sokal, and so far I have had not luck finding decent information about him, nor have I been exposed to the Lisbon Earthquake. Anyone who can help me out with information about them or any other relevant philosophers please let me know.

I would also like to take the time to say that I did not think it necessary to deal with Baudrillards criticisms; also, most would think them to be self-evident. In Addition, as I have stated, the purpose of the entry was one of exposure to his ideas. Therefore, I did not feel the need to write about his critics as the purpose was for you to formulate your opinion based on his view and then if further interested one could do more research on their own. The guide entry is already 2,500 or so words, and I personally think that including to much other information about contradictory information might muddle and branch the entry off more then help it. I seem to be in the minority of individuals on the post who think this however.


“A snappier title might help to entice more readers, too. Maybe something like 'Jean Baudrillard's Theory of Hyperreality' would be perfectly fine.”

I see no one got my reference to “the Simpson’s and Philosophy” essay “Hyper-irony and the meaning of life”, any way, done, and done.

”Finally, isn't a lot of this argument a 20th Century update of the idea that nothing we see is real as such, and is only a representation made to us by our senses (Idealism, I believe it's called, but I'm sure someone smarter than I am can correct me on it)? Technology simply presents another layer, so the flow of experience goes something like:

Soldier in Gulf War -> image of soldier on TV screen, made up of small pixels of light -> visual representation of TV image on retina -> binding of experience, perception of image -> processed by consciousness, interpretation made.

Take the TV away. Say YOU'RE the soldier. Now it goes:

Soldier -> visual representation of actual image on retina -> binding of experience, perception of image -> processed by consciousness, interpretation made.

Maybe I'm missing the point here, but there doesn't seem to be anything profound about the difference. For somebody that's interested in experience and consciousness like me, in fact all the important stuff is identical. I'm sure I must have missed something, can you help me out?

Matt”

I’m going to think on that one so as to answer it as best I can and also to consolidate the other post I need to respond to so, I’ll get back to you soon&#61514;.

Skipping ahead a little

“I don't see anything that strikes me as comprehensible, and I'm probably better educated than 99% of the people who use this site.”

That's a pretty dame arrogant statement, have you meet 99% of the people who use this site? if so, congratulations.

Otto said:

"Capital in fact has never been linked by a contract to the society it dominates. It is a sorcery of the social relation, it is a challenge to society and should be responded to as such. It is not a scandal to be denounced according to moral and economic rationality, but - challenge to take up according to symbolic law. - Jean Baudrillard "

’What does this mean?’

Basically, that money is semantic, that money is not linked by contract to the societies it dominates. That society allows money, which has no real meaning; humans give money its meaning, to dominate our lives. He is saying that we are under money’s spell because we allow ourselves to be, it is no one else’s fault, this is societies challenge and if any thing is to change we must be aware and change it ourselves; we allow a symbol in which we give the power to have control over us.

Douglas Adams more or less pokes fun of this notion in the opening pages of H2G2 and in one of the follow up books (sadly I cannot remember which) in which Author and Ford find themselves confronting earths ancestors, who use leaves for money, and want to burn down all the trees so as to make the leaves more valuable.


Now I leave you with another Baudrillard quote, which is longer and pretty much says the same thing as the above.

“Power, too, for some time now produces nothing but signs of its resemblance. And at the same time, another figure of power comes into play: that of a collective demand for signs of power - a holy union which forms around the disappearance of power. Everybody belongs to it more or less in fear of the collapse of the political. And in the end the game of power comes down to nothing more than the critical obsession with power: an obsession with its death; an obsession with its survival which becomes greater the more it disappears. When it has totally disappeared, logically we will be under the total spell of power - a haunting memory already foreshadowed everywhere, manifesting at one and the same time the satisfaction of having got rid of it (nobody wants it any more, everybody unloads it on others) and grieving its loss. Melancholy for societies without power: this has already given rise to fascism, that overdose of a powerful referential in a society which cannot terminate its mourning.

But we are still in the same boat: none of our societies know how to manage their mourning for the real, for power, for the social itself, which is implicated in this same breakdown. And it is by an art)ficial revitalization of all this that we try to escape it. Undoubtedly this will even end up in socialism. By an unforeseen twist of events and an irony which no longer belongs to history, it is through the death of the social that socialism will emerge - as it is through the death of God that religions emerge. A twisted coming, a perverse event, an unintelligible reversion to the logic of reason. As is the fact that power is no longer present except to conceal that there is none. A simulation which can go on indefinitely, since -unlike "true" power which is, or was, a structure, a strategy, a relation of force, a stake - this is nothing but the object of a social demand, and hence subject to the law of supply and demand, rather than to violence and death. Completely expunged from the political dimension, it is dependent, like any other commodity, on production and mass consumption. Its spark has disappeared; only the fiction of a political universe is saved.” – Jean Baudrillard
Now off to bed for me!

“Don't lecture me on the 'flimsiness' of scientific proof. The single refutable proposition is the bedrock of science and the reason why it makes progress. 'Philosophy' does not deal in such propositions, and the reason why it makes no progress whatsoever. In fact, 'postmodern thought' is a tacit admission of this glaring problem: it's more or less given up actually trying to *establish* anything of any substance.”

You should try reading my statement more closely, I never said that scientific proof was flimsily, what I said was that one such as yourself would or could come to conclusion that Baudrillards philosophy is flimsy in the realm of science. I was pointing out in one of my previous post that that is perfectly fine because sciences are not based around artistry and abstract notions. As a side, note one of my personal interpretations of Baudrillard’s work is, that he is saying the mechanistic technocracy in which we live is detracting use form our true path of naturalism and that by continuously expanding mechanized culture we will eventually not have any natural habitat left. We will be left with nothing more than secondhand interruptions of an extinct natural world that we will only be accessed through photos and video (the “desert of the real” realized). In many ways Baudrillard's theory, if you read it like I do, coincides with a person such as David Attenborough belief that we are quickly destroying the natural earth and replacing it with a mechanized one. One major difference is that, apparently, Baudrillard never thought there was a true reality anyway or so some interpreters would say; and I think that might have something to with subjective interruptions I.E no one sees anything in the same way. This however does not change his nor my main argument; it just complicates it a little.

"I will be honest, I am not familiar with Sokal, and so far I have had not luck finding decent information about him..."

This is evidently because you haven't really tried. I said back in post 6 that you should read A2671733. There's a whole Guide entry about him, written by me. He *isn't* a philosopher, just a scientist who has taken on others who would style themselves as philosophers, including B.

You could, on the other had, try typing 'Sokal' into Google and see what happens. Either route should be as productive.

Here's a good article about the whole affair:

http://www.salon.com/media/media960517.html

I’m going to throw one more monkey into the wrench then I’m going back to bed (why I’m not there now I still don’t know.)

It seems to me that this has boiled down to science vs. art. For all the good science has done for use it has done just as much harm, for in fact the mechanization of society and the sciences are connected, and a lot of environmental and health problems tied to both. Anyway, I would not want to live in a world with out art. If we had not art, there would be no comic books and if there were no comic books there would be no Batman, and I just couldn’t foresee living in a world without Batman.

All joking aside people have ask me, numours times now, “what would Baudrillards arguments boil down to without all the portentous language”. Well in one way, the question seems to to be asking, “What would Baudrillards writing be like if we stripped it of its style, would he still have an argument? Well my answer is yes, if you took away his style, which in some ways was the point of my entry, and interoperate its messages then what your left with is essentially not his, its his message, its his moral, its his meaning, but its not his style; style is what distinguishes one writer from another and it does seem like to some degree its his style that is being attacked here. I guess it depends on who you ask but some would consider good writing as an art form and as a lot of people would agree that art is about personalization and personal observation of not only what is out there in the world (or internal), but also of what you imagine could be out there or manifest, in another form, something that the artist conceives. If you stripped Hemingway or Dickens of there style what would be left, certainly still a story, but it would be a generalized story bereft of a personal personality; if every author described the desirable woman as having long hair with blue eyes and a boney face we would get tired of these generalizations, the words would not have weight and the story would suffer. Due to scientists, highly technical and logical nature scientist’s writings often have no distinguishable style. However, this type of writing is often desirable giving the fact that scientific languages can be arduous for some to follow anyway (Much like Baudrillard can be due to his using normal words without there normal meanings.)

Yes, some would say Baudrillards style is portentous for the sake of it, but one could say the same thing about Arthur C. Clarke for example. As with any author you have those you like and those you dislike, our ability to choose our taste is one of the things which makes us individuals, Baudrillard my be overly wordy but it is a style nonetheless take it or leave it. So, if you take Baudrillards style away will there still be an argument? Yes. But here is a better question, if you took Sokal’s style away would there still be words on the page?

I'm not going to get mired in the art vs. science debate. It's not about that. It's about the peripheral issue that postmodern philosophy, where it bangs on so much about 'privilege' doesn't seem to grasp the irony that it has arrogated for itself the right to comment about every aspect of culture it feels it can. Sokal has simply shown the arguments of these people to be superficial and trite.

As to whether 'if you took Sokal’s style away would there still be words on the page?', well, have you actually *read* Intellectual Impostures? I have, from beginning to end. It is, as one review commented 'a forensic examination of sackloads of ordure from the French postmodernist stable'. The style is an issue of secondary importance; it's the arguments that matter, and Sokal's arguments are very hard to refute. Whereas, for the structuralists/ deconstructionists/ postmodernists/ however they style themselves:
'Style has become an object of first importance, and what a style it is! For me it has a prancing, high-stepping quality, full of self-importance; elevated indeed, but in the balletic manner, and stopping from time to time in studied attitudes, as if awaiting an outburst of applause. It has had a deplorable influence on the quality of modern thought... '

Those are not my words, sadly, but Sir Peter Medawar's. There were written back in the 1960's but they are no less true forty-odd-years on. He then goes on to say:
'I could quote evidence of the beginnings of a whispering campaign against the virtues of clarity. A writer on structuralism in the Times Literary Supplement has suggested that thoughts which are confused and tortuous by reason of their profundity are most appropriately expressed in prose that is deliberately unclear. What a preposterously silly idea! I am reminded of an air-raid warden in wartime Oxford who, when bright moonlight seemed to be defeating the spirit of the blackout, exhorted us to wear dark glasses. He, however, was being funny on purpose.'

Like you said, we'll need sunglasses in the 'desert of the real', but only so we can perceive what would otherwise be very simple and clear issues through the tortuous murk of the postmodernist's viewpoint, if we really want to do that. In fact, if we really want to se the world as these people do I think we'd need welding goggles.

“I'm not going to get mired in the art vs. science debate. It's not about that. It's about the peripheral issue that postmodern philosophy, where it bangs on so much about 'privilege' doesn't seem to grasp the irony that it has arrogated for itself the right to comment about every aspect of culture it feels it can. Sokal has simply shown the arguments of these people to be superficial and trite.

As to whether 'if you took Sokal’s style away would there still be words on the page?', well, have you actually *read* Intellectual Impostures? I have, from beginning to end. It is, as one review commented 'a forensic examination of sackloads of ordure from the French postmodernist stable'. The style is an issue of secondary importance; it's the arguments that matter, and Sokal's arguments are very hard to refute. Whereas, for the structuralists/ deconstructionists/ postmodernists/ however they style themselves:
'Style has become an object of first importance, and what a style it is! For me it has a prancing, high-stepping quality, full of self-importance; elevated indeed, but in the balletic manner, and stopping from time to time in studied attitudes, as if awaiting an outburst of applause. It has had a deplorable influence on the quality of modern thought... '”

Look, it does not seem that you are going to change your mind based on anything I have to say, nor do I further feel it necessary to detract time and attention away from others comments whom are being more helpful. So no this. I have been busy, and I do intend to read Sokals work, however, I do not intend to put any of his arguments into my entry, as it does not serve my entrees purpose. You have made your point clear now, many times over , I have also restated my claims many times over, I fill as if the two of use are talking in circles and I do not intend to make this post a bickering page for the two of us. So, now that you know I am not going to include your beloved Sokal, why don’t you just stop wasting your time and move on.

But not too busy to write reams in this thread in defence of Baudrillard, obviously. You mean you are not going to put extremely inconvenient arguments into your entry, more like. If you post entries to PR they will get reviewed, especially with regard to whether or not they are balanced. If someone like me who, as it happens, probably *is* better educated and certainly more broadly educated than you brings to light some very valid detractions arising from a seismic event in social studies I expect to see them addressed. Sokal landed some significant blows on Baudrillard and many other postmodernist luminaries and I have not seen any of them get up off the canvas yet, even nine years on.

Now, if you wish, you can take off the blinkers, expose yourself to some of this rather less adulatory material and then rewrite your entry so that it at least *acknowledges* that Baudrillard has been challenged or you can pretend that all has been and will be unremittingly sunny in the world of postmodern philosophy and carry on wasting your time studying this drivel uncritically. Either way, don't tell the only Scout contributing to this thread, and probably the only Scout who has an inkling of what you're talking about, to go away. That is not wise, and I think that only you will left to turn the lights out when you leave.

Quite clearly there are people out there who can understand the entry and this thread, but to me they are both utterly, utterly impenetrable. I'm getting the impression that the argument against Baudrillard is one of style over content. Am I correct?

We've got a number of other entries in the EG which lean heavily in the direction of deep philosophical discussion and explanation and which are just as impenetrable to me, so I'll leave the people who apparently do understand it to duke it out over this one.

“Quite clearly there are people out there who can understand the entry and this thread, but to me they are both utterly, utterly impenetrable. I'm getting the impression that the argument against Baudrillard is one of style over content. Am I correct?”


Partly yes, his style is one thing that people widely criticize his writings for, but not the only thing. However his criticisms were not the focus point of the entry, and I do mention in passing that he is heavily criticized, and that his theories are dens and somewhat redundant. I feel however, unlike Bob, that the people on this site are smart enough to do further research on there own, and to formulate their own opinion based on the facts presented.

"Because of all the arguments about thisvast unreflexive academic machine designed to 'process' philosophers and prop up careers etc. which Sokal and others have put forward. Rightly so."


First of, thanks I'm glade you got my point. Here is another question where would Sokals Career be if he didn’t have others writings to write of as pure BS? It seems to me that critics and teachers for that mater need something or someone to criticize or toteach to occupy either profession.

Well, he'd probably have had a much more uneventful and comfortable life as a Professor of Physics at New York University. Believe me, Sokal didn't profit career-wise from his hoax; some people at the University tried to have him sacked for academic misconduct. So much for academic freedom, eh?

B is only known to many academics outside the field in which he works simply because of the whole Sokal affair. That it took an academic hoax to bring his name to the attention of the lay intellectual world at large (of which I am a member), I'd say is a pretty damning indictment of his contribution to modern thought and to the cultural life of the modern world in general.

Now, I'm sure that the EG would benefit overall from an entry on B, but it would have to be:
* balanced (i.e. acknowledge that many of B's observations have been criticised as being shallow and banal), and
* readable, that is in that the style of the entry is a good deal less obfuscatory than the orginal material, and
* acknowledging of the criticisms in this thread.

Interesting...I am one of the 99% who are so implacably stupid as to be are capable of understanding.,.but the single thought that only those that have experience war first-hand can understand it certainly grabbed my attention...and the concept of hyper-reality and the media certainly seems to go a long way to explain the disconnect between what is and what we collectively believe...hang in there.