From: Erik Hoogcarspel <jehms-AT-globalxs.nl>
Date: Wed, 08 Jul 1998 21:05:28 +0100
Subject: Re: Paul Virilio is a street full of apples


I think Virilio makes a huge mistake. Substitution is AFAIK the replacement of one signifier with another in order to express the same signified. In the Catholic mass there's an absolute shortage of J.C.'s flesh and blood, therefore substitutes are used. It's not new and there's no real seduction involved, because everybody knows it. Seduction however hides itself, you cannot be seduced by a commercial to buy a new gadget if you're fully aware of it. Simulation needs seduction. If a soccerplayer simulates being hurt by a clash with an opponent, he tries to seduce the referee to think that something serious has happened and a free kick is justified. He even seduces himself temporarily to think so. Simulation is therefore displaying a signifier in order to suggest an absent signified, a signified which is empty of other signifieds. If the soccerplayer really would be hurt, the signifier would point to other signifiers in a natural order, such as real wounds and bruises. The signified is the concept meaning all the signifiers we expect to find if we would take a closer look. 
I'm intrigued by the idea of hot and cold seduction. Could you say that hot seduction works by focussing all attention on itself and the cold one by avoiding even the slightest attention? 

regards 

erik



Op woensdag, 08-jul-98 schreef Soren Pedersen:


SP> > maybe this way i'll get a reply ..what other categories of simulation 
SP> > are there? i think that its fairly difficult to determine the adequacy 
SP> > of simulation, when does it start and stop? a regressive metaphysicality 
SP> > seems to pervade all things with a "material" basis, they go back into 
SP> > their "mythical" origins, once viewed as a duality . and i think Virilio 
SP> > was using that as an example , substitution is the source of simulation, 
SP> > a fairly adequate one at that, perhaps even a limit of simulation . 
SP> > 
SP> > and...this is my main question . could you all help me to understand the 
SP> > exact meaning of "femininity" in baudrillard's <SEDUCTION> , where is 
SP> > the source(if there be one) ? a trans-sexual one?

SP> Hi Jesse,

SP> I find Baud's concept of seduction to be the most complicated of them 
SP> all. As a student of politics, I find it to have plenty of analytical 
SP> value (compared to that of production, or discourse, which totally 
SP> dominates the field of politics). But on a more philosophical level, 
SP> it is hard to come to terms with. Earlier I argued against Evan, who 
SP> in my view ascribed an ontological primacy to seduction 
SP> (again compared to production), but after rereading Baud's 
SP> escatological story of the three (four) orders of simulacra, and 
SP> after reconsidering the epigraph from the Perfect Crime - Nothing is 
SP> perfect, because it is opposed to nothing (p. 75) - I now find it 
SP> throughout possible that Baud thinks of seduction as a 
SP> metaphysical first thing, a negative ontology, which has been 
SP> distorted by successive orders of simulacra, but now - as a result of 
SP> progressive modes of disappearance (of positivity) - finally 
SP> reach the stage of visible invisibility in the spread of simulacra. 
SP> The problem I have with the concept of seduction is that Baud 
SP> obviously operates with two different modes of seduction, a ludic and 
SP> a cold, and a hot. The simulacrum thrives on the game-theoretical 
SP> ludic seduction, but Baudrillard prefers the hot seduction; a 
SP> seduction of "risk, suspense and sorcery". It is possible that he is 
SP> thinking of hot seduction as a counter-strategy to hyperrealism. A 
SP> possibility to crack the programmatic code of hyperrealism through 
SP> "viruses, lapses, germs, and catastrophes" (and not to forget, 
SP> terrorism). "An antagonist is not a player, he is a cheat".

SP> I realize that this misses your question, but seduction is the 
SP> keyword of SEDUCTION. It is possible that he connects it with 
SP> femininity to cause outrage (in another article - can't remember 
SP> which - he reverses the man/production and woman/seduction 
SP> distinction).

SP> -Soren
-- 


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