File spoon-archives/baudrillard.archive/baudrillard_1998/baudrillard.9802, message 44


Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 16:28:39 -0800 (PST)
From: oconnell-AT-oz.net (Mark O'Connell)
Subject: Re: A possible "sellout"?


>Mark O'Connell wrote:
>>
>> > even though I can follow the logic,
>> >again at the end I find myself the same ignorant guy, asking
>> >"But he did do a commercial, didn't he?" As if all the
>> >sophisticated explanations have been a little game or something,
>> >and now I'm back to real life...
>>
>> --Sadeq.
>>
>> I think that'a a very positive sign (for you)
>
>Yes, It may be positive, but then, from this standpoint isn't all
>philosophy a game?

Of course all philosophy is a game!

>Why should we waste our time reading and trying to
>understand such writing and for that matter such "silllly" ideas.

When our philosophical views directly inform our treatment of other people
(moral philosophy, philosophy of law, politics, whatever) the game becomes
deadly serious.

What gets irritating is when people talk about the "real" (real being a
theoretical view that they're into at the moment) as if it actually had a
shape or form in the world. As if it could sneak up and mug your
grandmother or something. Reification. Or worse, as if it actually meant
what "real" is generally taken to mean.  Philosophers should know better,
especially in the face of the concrete problems that undeniably exist. It
has a smell to it, like Ivory Tower elitism is back with a nasty vengeance.
(If the Gulf War never happened how did thousands of Iraquis get blown
away?  Tell their widows it's simulation. I dare you.)

clear as mud, eh?



> But
>even in this little "simulation" thinking, maybe it would be better
>first to ask the various members of this list; What is your
>interpetation of "the Real" in Baudrillard's sense and maybe even in the
>frame of continental Philosophy itself?
>
>> >>Now with this for  a background Baudrillard could do a commercial
>> >>without fearing a "sell out" due to the fact that anyone who calls
>> >it a
>> >>"sell out" has not really understood the disapearance of the real. This
>> >>more simply put means that a valuation of B.'s commercial is not at all
>> >>possible because we all take part in the simmulation.
>>
>> If I wanted to summarize your thoughts in a very simple way would it be
>> accurate for me to say something like: since everything is a mess already
>> you can't blame B for adding to it?
>
>If you'd like. This still leaves the greater question unanswered, "what
>is this loss of the Real, and how should we respond to it?"



"what is this loss of the Real" is my question as well, because from where
I'm sitting the real doesn't appear to be lost at all.  It's unfortunately
all around.



>
>> > Simulation is to pretend
>> >that you
>> >>have something which you don't really have. In this case to
>> >pretend that
>> >>we exist in the way our forefathers existed, and that is with
>> >values.
>> >>(This statement has greater implications...) This would then
>> >say that we
>> >>have values with which we are able to evaluate. Baudrillard
>> >is trying to
>> >>point out that something has gone wrong and because we see the
>> >>simulation of what we once had (valuation), we still believe,
>> >through
>> >>the simulation, that we have, that which we've lost. Wow! :-)
>>
>> Are you suggesting that you are without values? That we are all without
>>values?
>> Are you really not able to evaluate your values?
>
>In this instance if you look at the society at large you see one very
>common factor. That is if you walk down the street, you can bet, that
>you will not encounter one person who shares your values. There might be
>shades of crossover, if you are lucky, but then they would more than
>likely be your friends. You odds are still high, that you'll win and not
>find much crossover at all. In the matter of values in the past,
>Villages, whole peoples had shared values. That is they shared the same
>world, however small that was. Today in contrast, the only thing we
>agree on: Is that we agree to differ. Our shared approach to the world.


Actually I think I could find quite a lot that I could agree on with most
people I might meet at random. There are basic values that are shared, ie,
do you think a person who's sick should have access to medical care? Do you
think children should carry automatic weapons? Do you think the hungry
should be fed? Do you think the fire dept. should come if your house is
burning down? blah blah blah....... On this level there would probably be
quite a bit of agreement.


>
>This is what I begin to understand as the loss of the Real. Not only
>that we no longer share the same world view,

There have ALWAYS been differences in view, look at the history of religion
for example.

>but also because of the
>disparity of approaches we can no longer evaluate.

I don't get that-

 >So by what criteria (values) would you
>be willing to judge Baud. for his commercial.
>(I believe that I said in the beginning that one could condem his
>actions as a sell out from the Marxist's perspective, but that precludes
>recognition of the arrival of nihilism.)

I personally don't care if he sells office furniture on TV, or used cars ,
or anything else. He's built himself a carreer, a public persona, and a
standard way to cash in on that investment is to sell it in the media
marketplace. But I don't think this action should be dressed up or
rationalized with a lot of theoretical BS. That's all...

Mark-

Mark O'Connell
oconnell-AT-oz.net

"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes,
so you've got to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream."
-zappa



   

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