Subject: Re: seduction and fascination
From: Kevin Turner <k.turner-AT-lancaster.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 15:23:07 -0000


addressing the first point only:

I think just as Foucault analysed power in terms of its multiplicity 
(pastoral, sovereign, discipline, bio-political, government, etc.), 
Baudrillard analysed what he termed the "symbolic" (which, contrary to Rex 
Butler, has no relation to the Lacanian symbolic, cf. Butler 1999) as a 
multiplicity; and thus the notion of seduction should be read as one form 
of the symbolic; as one form of symbolic exchange.

Baudrillard proposes a form of analysis which works through two 
relationships (not binary opposition) to the real: one the one hand, the 
symbolic and symbolic cultures; and on the other hand, the semiotic and 
semiotic cultures. The difference between the two forms is not one of 
opposition since the relationship between them is irriducile and thus not 
codifiable. This is because the codification of oppositions into binary 
structures (male/female, black/white, gay/straight, night/day, and so on 
and so forth) is the logical and axiological principle of semiotic 
cultures.

Read in those terms seduction/symbolic exchange has been (is being) 
replaced in our culture by three historical formations of the semiotic 
(sign exchange): a genealogy of which runs from the counterfeit, through 
production, to simulation (Baudrillard, 1993: 50-86, cf. Baudrillard 1981: 
especially Ch. 6 and 8; Baudrillard 1983: passim); and fascination/the 
semiotic, as one particular for of our relationship to the real can be 
read as one element of sign exchange.

Baudrillard, J. (1981) For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign 
St. Louis: Telos.
Baudrillard, J. (1983) Simulations New York: Semiotext(e).
Butler, R. (1999) Jean Baudrillard: The Defence of the Real London: Sage.


-- 
Kevin Turner
Department of Sociology
Cartmel College
Lancaster University
Lancaster
UK
LA1 4YL

Tel: +44 (0)1524 594508