Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 02:17:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Glen Norton <gnorton-AT-yorku.ca>
Subject: Seduction over simulation


There is talk, maybe too much talk. about simulation. Which is why we're
all talking in it, and not "about" it, per se. Someone mentioned the
notion that Baud does in fact theorize beyond simualtion, with his fatal
stratagies, symbolic exchange, and seduction. Seduction is the most
over-looked, yet for myself the most important, part of Baud's thought.
What has been lost with all this talk of simulation is not its
"truthfullness" or correctnes, but its CHALLENGE to the game of
theoretical discourse. Seduction lies in that void between to marked
terms -- for perhaps the best explanation of this see Baud's interview:
Francblin, Catherine.  (1996)  "Jean Baudrillard: The Comedy of Art."  Art
Press No. 216  (September): 43-8.

Here he talks about "the proper use of the void", which is to pit
everything against a nostalgic nothingness rather than a nostalgic
real, for niether of them exist anyway. Rather than weigh overselves down
in simulatory fantasies we should play the game of seduction. Instead of
interpreting the world acording to simulation, we should instead offer it
the gift of the potlatch, the unreturnable sacrifice. Isn't this what
theory is all about? Not to interpret the world, but to make it a little
more irrational, a little more enigmatic. 

Glen.