File spoon-archives/baudrillard.archive/baudrillard_1998/baudrillard.9803, message 18


Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 23:41:56 -0500
From: nik <mabnb-AT-hunterlink.net.au>
Subject: Re: A possible "sellout"?



>>The seductive power of techno is caused by the total elimination of
>>everything human. The accelerated pace eradicates the time span
>>necessary to think, speak, decide, enjoy, hate, love, etc. And
>>there is something very liberating in this. No need to stand in a
>>crowded bar shouting stupid things in some girl's ear. No need to
>>feel ridiculous on the dance floor. Techno abolishes all these human,
>>oh so human inclinations. It moves you without mercy, and doesn't
>>furnish you with an illusory sense of subjective control.

I would have to disagree with this. Here it seems as though you are
equating the self (and by this I mean the emergent social phenomena that
functions on a symbolic level) with the biological category human. Techno
does (sometimes) seem to function on a level other than the symbolic. And
by this I mean that it seems to work/influence our biology, and not our
social self. This is perhaps what you were getting at by saying that it
abolishes all of those oh so human inclinations. I would suggest that
because techno functions below(?) the level of the symbolic, it is, in a
sense, far more human as it would seem to operate unmediated on us. And so
it is liberating in that it functions free of symbolic constraints. This
said, it is a rare moment (unenhance by drugs) that you find youself free
of the social on the dance floor.


   

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