From: Mark   Nunes <mnunes-AT-dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu>
Subject: se-duce
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 16:29:11 -0400 (EDT)


I've never read _Seduction_ and can only comment on what I've gathered 
from the other texts. Baudrillard picks up on the etymological meaning of 
seduction: to be led astray. He's not alone. It's in Derrida too, 
particularly in _Dissemination_ (in re: the pharmakon of writing). Two of 
my favorite B quotes on seduction come from _The Ecstasy of 
Communication_ (spelled "ecstacy" in my edition, the the way).

	Challenge, and not desire, lies at the heart of seduction. . . .
	Far more than the pleasure principle, it is challenge and seduction
	which draws us beyond the reality principle.

It's this "drawing beyond" that is of interest to me in B's seduction: 
not a beyond of metaphysical closure, but a supplement, an accursed 
share, an excess of the closed system of "the real" (as defined by 
Englightenment thought. Another quote:

	It [seduction] is the locus of that which eludes you, and whereby
	you elude yourself and your own truth.

This reading of seduction (and specifically in the context of The Other) 
returns at the end of _Transparency of Evil_:

	This other is the locus of what escpaes us, and the way whereby 
	we escape from ourselves. . . .The Other is what allows me not to
	repeat myself for ever.

So seduction screws us you up: it crashes your system; it brings you your 
supplement; it derails your telos, your truth.

My question, though, goes back to something I threw out on this list a 
few weeks back: can I adopt a strategy of seduction, or is it always 
acting upon me (I guess that parallels the question: can "I" ever escape 
the subject and assume the strategies of the object)?

--mn
 

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