Subject: Re: Baudrillard
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 19:46:08 -0000


Hi,

translated copy of the brilliant Baudrillard piece copied below (as recently
posted to the Baulist). Apologies for cross posting, no apologies for
soliciting your thoughts on a very stimulating article. . .

Bests,

Paul

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Armitage" <john.armitage-AT-unn.ac.uk>
To: <baudrillard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>;
<dromology-AT-lists.village.edu.virginia.edu>
Cc: <deleuze-guattari-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: 14 November 2001 08:01
Subject: BAUDRILLARD ON SEPT 11, ENGLISH TRANSLATION


>
> Hi all
> See JB in English translation below.
>
> John
> ===========================================================> [Hi folks, I am _very pleased indeed to be sending this message to CSL. I
> must say that I think all members will appreciate Rachel's hard work on
this
> one. Rachel, thanks very much for this. I have a funny feeling your name
is
> about to go global within the next five minutes. John.]
> ==================================================> John,
>
> Find my translation of Baudrillard's article attached. It is rather exact
> (ie I have left in the stylistic repetitions and emphases, even though
they
> sound a bit funny in English). I do not have the time for further
polishing
> now. But if people are interested...
>
> Rachel
> Rachel.Bloul-AT-anu.edu.au]
> =========================>
> The spirit of terrorism
> Jean Baudrillard
> Le Monde 2/11/01
>
> Translated: Dr Rachel Bloul, School of Social sciences, Australian
National
> University.
>
> In footnotes: personal comments to remind me to think about these points
> when later analyzing the piece.
> In italics, details about not-quite-direct translations.
>
> We have had many global events from Diana's death to the World Cup, or
even
> violent and real events from wars to genocides. But not one global
symbolic
> event, that is an event not only with global repercussions, but one  that
> questions the very process of globalization. All through the stagnant 90s,
> there has been "la greve des evenements" (literally "an events strike",
> translated from a phrase of the Argentino writer Macedonio Fernandez).
Well,
> the strike is off. We are even facing, with the World Trade Center & New
> York hits, the absolute event, the "mother" of events, the pure event
which
> is the essence of all the events that never happened.
>
> Not only are all history and power plays disrupted, but so are the
> conditions of analysis. One must take one's time. For as long as events
were
> at a standstill, one had to anticipate and overcome them. But when they
> speed up, one must slow down; without getting lost under a mass of
> discourses and the shadow of war ("nuage de la guerre": literally clouds
> announcing war), and while keeping undiminished the unforgettable flash of
> images.
>
> All the speeches and commentaries betray a gigantic abreaction to the
event
> itself and to the fascination that it exerts. Moral condemnation and the
> sacred union against terrorism are equal to the prodigious jubilation
> engendered by witnessing this global superpower being destroyed; better,
by
> seeing it more or less self-destroying, even suiciding spectacularly.
Though
> it is (this superpower) that has, through its unbearable power, engendered
> all that violence brewing around the world, and therefore this terrorist
> imagination which -unknowingly- inhabits us all.
>
> That we have dreamed of this event, that everybody without exception has
> dreamt of it, because everybody must dream of the destruction of any power
> hegemonic to that degree,  - this is unacceptable for Western moral
> conscience, but it is still a fact, and one which is justly measured by
the
> pathetic violence of all those discourses which attempt to erase it.
>
> It is almost they who did it, but we who wanted it. If one does not take
> that into account, the event lost all symbolic dimension to become a pure
> accident, an act purely arbitrary, the murderous fantasy of a few
fanatics,
> who would need only to be suppressed. But we know very well that this is
not
> so. Thus all those delirious, counter-phobic exorcisms: because evil is
> there, everywhere as an obscure object of desire. Without this deep
> complicity, the event would not have had such repercussions, and without
> doubt, terrorists know that in their symbolic strategy they can count on
> this unavowable complicity.
>
> This goes much further than hatred for the dominant global power from the
> disinherited and the exploited, those who fell on the wrong side of global
> order. That malignant desire is in the very heart of those who share (this
> order's) benefits. An allergy to all definitive order, to all definitive
> power is happily universal, and the two towers of the World Trade Center
> embodied perfectly, in their very double-ness (literally twin-ness), this
> definitive order.
>
> No need for a death wish or desire for self-destruction, not even for
> perverse effects. It is very logically, and inexorably, that the
(literally:
> "rise to power of power") exacerbates a will to destroy it.  And power is
> complicit with its own destruction. When the two towers collapsed, one
could
> feel that they answered the suicide of the kamikazes by their own suicide.
> It has been said: "God cannot declare war on Itself". Well, It can. The
> West, in its God-like position (of divine power, and absolute moral
> legitimacy) becomes suicidal, and declares war on itself.
>
> Numerous disaster movies are witness to this phantasm, which they
obviously
> exorcise through images and submerge under special effects. But the
> universal attraction these movies exert, as pornography does, shows how
> (this phantasm's) realization is always close at hand - the impulse to
deny
> any system being all the stronger if such system is close to perfection or
> absolute supremacy.
>
> It is even probable that the terrorists (like the experts!) did not
> anticipate the collapse of the Twin Towers, which was, far more than (the
> attack of) the Pentagon, the deepest symbolic shock. The symbolic collapse
> of a whole system is due to an unforeseen complicity, as if, by collapsing
> (themselves), by suiciding, the towers had entered the game to complete
the
> event.
>
> In a way, it is the entire system that, by its internal fragility, helps
the
> initial action. The more the system is globally concentrated to constitute
> ultimately only one network, the more it becomes vulnerable at a single
> point (already one little Filipino hacker has succeeded, with his laptop,
to
> launch the I love you virus that wrecked entire networks). Here, eighteen
> (dix-huit in the text)  kamikazes, through the absolute arm that is death
> multiplied by technological efficiency, start a global catastrophic
process.
>
> When the situation is thus monopolized by global power, when one deals
with
> this formidable condensation of all functions through technocratic
machinery
> and absolute ideological hegemony (pensee unique), what other way is
there,
> than a terrorist reversal of the situation (literally 'transfer of
> situation': am I too influenced by early translation as 'reversal'?)? It
is
> the system itself that has created the objective conditions for this
brutal
> distortion. By taking all the cards to itself, it forces the Other to
change
> the rules of the game. And the new rules are ferocious, because the stakes
> are ferocious. To a system whose excess of power creates an unsolvable
> challenge, terrorists respond by a definitive act that is also
unanswerable
> (in the text: which cannot be part of the exchange circuit). Terrorism is
an
> act that reintroduces an irreducible singularity in a generalized exchange
> system. Any singularity (whether species, individual or culture), which
has
> paid with its death for the setting up of a global circuit dominated by a
> single power, is avenged today by this terrorist situational transfer.
>
> Terror against terror - there is no more ideology behind all that. We are

> now far from ideology and politics. No ideology, no cause, not even an
> Islamic cause, can account for the energy which feeds terror. It (energy)
> does not aim anymore to change the world, it aims (as any heresy in its
> time) to radicalize it through sacrifice, while the system aims to realize
> (the world) through force.
>
> Terrorism, like virus, is everywhere. Immersed globally, terrorism, like
the
> shadow of any system of domination, is ready everywhere to emerge as a
> double agent. There is no boundary to define it; it is in the very core of
> this culture that fights it - and the visible schism (and hatred) that
> opposes, on a global level, the exploited and the underdeveloped against
the
> Western world, is secretly linked to the internal fracture of the dominant
> system. The latter can face any visible antagonism. But with terrorism -
and
> its viral structure -, as if every domination apparatus were creating its
> own antibody, the chemistry of its own disappearance; against this almost
> automatic reversal of its own puissance, the system is powerless. And
> terrorism is the shockwave of this silent reversal.
>
> Thus, it is no shock of civilizations, of religions, and it goes much
beyond
> Islam and America, on which one attempts to focus the conflict to give the
> illusion of a visible conflict and of an attainable solution (through
> force). It certainly is a fundamental antagonism, but one which shows,
> through the spectrum of America (which maybe by itself the epicentre but
not
> the embodiment of globalization) and through the spectrum of Islam (which
is
> conversely not the embodiment of terrorism), triumphant globalization
> fighting with itself. In this way it is indeed a World War, not the third
> one, but the fourth and only truly World War, as it has as stakes
> globalization itself. The first two World Wars were classic wars. The
first
> ended European supremacy and the colonial era. The second ended Nazism.
The
> third, which did happen, as a dissuasive Cold War, ended communism. From
one
> war to the other, one went further each time toward a unique world order.
> Today the latter, virtually accomplished, is confronted by antagonistic
> forces, diffused in the very heart of the global, in all its actual
> convulsions. Fractal war in which all cells, all singularities revolt as
> antibodies do. It is a conflict so unfathomable that, from time to time,
one
> must preserve the idea of war through spectacular productions such as the
> Gulf (production) and today Afghanistan's. But the fourth World War is
> elsewhere. It is that which haunts every global order, every hegemonic
> domination; -if Islam dominated the world, terrorism would fight against
it.
> For it is the world itself which resists domination.
>
> Terrorism is immoral. The event of the World Trade Center, this symbolic
> challenge is immoral, and it answers a globalization that is immoral. Then
> let us be immoral ourselves and, if we want to understand something, let
us
> go somewhat beyond Good and Evil. As we have, for once, an event that
> challenges not only morals, but every interpretation, let us try to have
the
> intelligence of Evil. The crucial point is precisely there: in this total
> counter-meaning to Good and Evil in Western philosophy, the philosophy of
> Enlightenment. We naively believe that the progress of the Good, its rise
in
> all domains (sciences, techniques, democracy, human rights) correspond to
a
> defeat of Evil. Nobody seems to understand that Good and Evil rise
> simultaneously, and in the same movement. The triumph of the One does not
> produce the erasure of the Other. Metaphysically, one considers Evil as an
> accident, but this axiom, embedded in all manichean fights of Good against
> Evil, is illusory. Good does not reduce Evil, nor vice-versa: there are
both
> irreducible, and inextricable from each other. In fact, Good could defeat
> Evil only by renouncing itself, as by appropriating a global power
monopoly,
> it creates a response of proportional violence.
>
> In the traditional universe, there was still a balance of Good and Evil,
> according to a dialectical relation that more or less insured tension and
> equilibrium in the moral universe; - a little as in the Cold War, the
> face-to-face of the two powers insured an equilibrium of terror. Thus,
there
> was no supremacy of one on the other. This symmetry is broken as soon as
> there is a total extrapolation of the Good (an hegemony of the positive
over
> any form of negativity, an exclusion of death, of any potential
adversarial
> force: the absolute triumph of the Good). From there, the equilibrium is
> broken, and it is as if Evil regained an invisible autonomy, developing
then
> in exponential fashion.
>
> Keeping everything in proportion, it is more or less what happened in the
> political order with the erasure of communism and the global triumph of
> liberal power: a fantastical enemy appeared, diffused over the whole
planet,
> infiltrating everywhere as a virus, surging from every interstice of
power.
> Islam. But Islam is only the moving front of the crystallization of this
> antagonism. This antagonism is everywhere and it is in each of us. Thus,
> terror against terror... But asymmetrical terror... And this asymmetry
> leaves the global superpower totally disarmed. Fighting itself, it can
only
> founder in its own logic of power relations, without being able to play in
> the field of symbolic challenge and death, as it has eliminated the latter
> from its own culture.
>
> Until now this integrating power had mostly succeeded to absorb every
> crisis, every negativity, creating therefore a deeply hopeless situation
> (not only for the damned of the earth, but for the rich and the privileged
> too, in their radical comfort). The fundamental event is that terrorists
> have finished with empty suicides; they now organize their own death in
> offensive and efficient ways, according to a strategic intuition, that is
> the intuition of the immense fragility of their adversary, this system
> reaching its quasi perfection and thus vulnerable to the least spark. They
> succeeded in making their own death the absolute arm against a system that
> feeds off the exclusion of death, whose ideal is that of zero death. Any
> system of zero death is a zero sum system. And all the means of dissuasion
> and destruction are powerless against an enemy who has already made his
> death a counter-offensive. "What of American bombings! Our men want to die
> as much as Americans want to live!" This explains the asymmetry of 7, 000
> deaths in one blow against a system of zero death.
>
> Therefore, here, death is the key (to the game) not only the brutal
> irruption of death in direct, in real time, but also the irruption of a
> more-than-real death: symbolic and sacrificial death - the absolute, no
> appeal event.
>
> This is the spirit of terrorism.
>
> Never is it to attack the system through power relations. This belongs to
> the revolutionary imaginary imposed by the system itself, which survives
by
> ceaselessly bringing those who oppose it to fight in the domain of the
real,
> which is always its own. But (it) moves the fight into the symbolic
domain,
> where the rule is the rule of challenge, of reversal, of escalation. Thus,
> death can be answered only though an equal or superior death. (Terrorism)
> challenges the system by a gift that the latter can reciprocate only
through
> its own death and its own collapse.
>
>  The terrorist hypothesis is that the system itself suicides in response
to
> the multiple challenges of death and suicide. Neither the system, nor
power,
> themselves escape symbolic obligation -and in this trap resides the only
> chance of their demise (catastrophe). In this vertiginous cycle of the
> impossible exchange of death, the terrorist death is an infinitesimal
point
> that provokes a gigantic aspiration, void and convection. Around this
minute
> point, the whole system of the real and power gains in density,  freezes,
> compresses, and sinks in its own super-efficacy. The tactics of terrorism
> are to provoke an excess of reality and to make the system collapse under
> the weight of this excess. The very derision of the situation, as well as
> all the piled up violence of power, flips against it, for terrorist
actions
> are both the magnifying mirror of the system's violence, and the model of
a
> symbolic violence that it cannot access, the only violence it cannot
exert:
> that of its own death.
>
> This is why all this visible power cannot react against the minute, but
> symbolic death of a few individuals.
>
> One must recognize the birth of a new terrorism, a new form of action that
> enters the game and appropriate its rules, the better to confuse it. Not
> only do these people not fight with equal arms, as they produce their own
> deaths, to which there is no possible response ("they are cowards"), but
> they appropriate all the arms of dominant power. Money and financial
> speculation, information technologies and aeronautics, the production of
> spectacle and media networks: they have assimilated all of modernity and
> globalization, while maintaining their aim to destroy it.
>
> Most cunningly, they have even used the banality of American everyday life
> as a mask and double game. Sleeping in their suburbs, reading and studying
> within families, before waking up suddenly like delayed explosive devices.
> The perfect mastery of this secretiveness is almost as terrorist as the
> spectacular action of the 11 September. For it makes one suspect: any
> inoffensive individual can be a potential terrorist! If those terrorists
> could pass unnoticed, then anyone of us is an unnoticed criminal (each
plane
> is suspect too), and ultimately, it might even be true. This might well
> correspond to an unconscious form of potential criminality, masked,
> carefully repressed, but always liable, if not to surge, at least to
> secretly vibrate with the spectacle of Evil. Thus, the event spreads out
in
> its minutiae, the source of an even more subtle psychological (mental)
> terrorism.
>
> The radical difference is that terrorists, while having at their disposal
> all the arms of the system, have also another fatal weapon: their own
death.
> If they limited themselves to fighting the system with its own weapons,
they
> would be immediately eliminated. If they did not oppose the system with
> their own death, they would disappear as  quickly as a useless sacrifice;
> this has almost always been the fate of terrorism until now (thus the
> Palestinian suicidal attacks) and the reason why it could not but fail.
>
> Everything changed as soon as they allied all available modern means to
this
> highly symbolic weapon. The latter infinitely multiplies their destructive
> potential. It is the multiplication of these two factors (which seem to us
> so irreconcilable) that gives them such superiority. Conversely, the
> strategy of zero death, of a technological, 'clean' war, precisely misses
> this transfiguration of 'real' power by symbolic power.
>
> The prodigious success of such an attack poses a problem, and to
understand
> it, one must tear oneself away from our Western perspective, to apprehend
> what happens in terrorists' minds and organization. Such efficacy, for us,
> would mean maximal calculation and rationality, something we have
> difficulties imagining in others. And even then, with us, there would
always
> be, as in any rational organization or secret service, leaks and errors.
>
> Thus, the secret of such success is elsewhere. The difference, with them,
is
> that there is no work contract, but a pact and an obligation of sacrifice.
> Such obligation is secure from defection and corruption. The miracle is
the
> adaptation to a global network, to technical protocols without any loss of
> this complicity for life and to the death. Contrary to the contract, the
> pact does not link individuals,  -even their 'suicide' is not individual
> heroism, it is a collective, sacrificial act, sealed by demanding ideals
> (I'm a bit free here but I feel it corresponds better to what is meant by
> 'exigence ideale'). And it is the conjunction of these two mechanisms,
born
> of an operational structure and of a symbolic pact, which makes possible
> such an excessive action.
>
> We have no idea anymore of what is such a symbolic calculation, as in
poker
> or potlatch, with minimal stakes and maximal result. That is, exactly what
> terrorists obtained in the attack on Manhattan, and which would be a good
> metaphor for chaos theory: an initial shock, provoking incalculable
> consequences, while American gigantic deployment ("Desert Storm") obtained
> only derisory effects; - the storm ending so to speak in the flutter of
> butterfly wings.
>
> Suicidal terrorism was the terrorism of the poor; this is the terrorism of
> the rich. And that is what specially frighten us: they have become rich
> (they have every means) without ceasing to want to eradicate us.
Certainly,
> according to our value system, they cheat: staking (gambling?) one's own
> death is cheating. But they could not care less, and the new rules of the
> game are not ours.
>
> We try everything to discredit their actions. Thus, we call them
"suicidal"
> and "martyrs". To add immediately that such martyrdom does not prove
> anything, that it has nothing to do with truth and even (quoting
Nietzsche)
> that it is the enemy of truth. Certainly, their death does not prove
> anything, but there is nothing to prove in a system where truth itself is
> elusive --or are we pretending to own it? Besides, such a moral argument
can
> be reversed. If the voluntary martyrdom of the kamikazes proves nothing,
> then the involuntary martyrdom of the victims cannot prove anything
either,
> and there is something obscene in making it a moral argument (the above is
> not to negate their suffering and their death).
>
> Another bad faith argument: these terrorists exchange their death for a
> place in Paradise. Their act is not gratuitous, thus it is not authentic.
It
> would be gratuitous only if they did not believe in God, if their death
was
> without hope, as is ours (yet Christian martyrs assumed just such sublime
> exchange). Thus, again, they do not fight with equal weapons if they have
> the right to a salvation we can no longer hope for. We have to lose
> everything by our death while they can pledge it for the highest stakes.
>
> Ultimately, all that - causes, proofs, truth, rewards, means and ends-
> belongs to typically Western calculation. We even put a value to death in
> terms of interest rates, and quality/price ratio. Such economic
calculations
> are the calculation of those poor who no longer have even the courage to
pay
> (the price of death?).
>
> What can happen, - apart from war, which is no more than a conventional
> protection screen? We talk of bio-terrorism, bacteriological war or
nuclear
> terrorism. But none of that belongs to the domain of symbolic challenge,
> rather it belongs to an annihilation without speech, without glory,
without
> risk - that is, to the domain of the final solution.
>
> And to see in terrorist action a purely destructive logic is nonsense. It
> seems to me that their own death is inseparable from their action ( it is
> precisely what makes it a symbolic action), and not at all the impersonal
> elimination of the Other. Everything resides in the challenge and the
duel,
> that is still in a personal, dual relation with the adversary. It is the
> power of the adversary that has humbled you, it is this power which must
be
> humbled. And not simply exterminated... One must make (the adversary) lose
> face. And this cannot be obtained by pure force and by the suppression of
> the other. The latter must be aimed at, and hurt, as a personal adversary.
> Apart from the pact that links terrorists to each other, there is
something
> like a dual pact with the adversary. It is then, exactly the opposite to
the
> cowardice of which they are accused, and it is exactly the opposite of
what
> Americans do, for example in the Gulf War (and which they are doing again
in
> Afghanistan): invisible target, operational elimination.
>
> Of all these vicissitudes, we particularly remember seeing images. And we
> must keep this proliferation of images, and their fascination, for they
> constitute, willy nilly, our primitive scene. And the New York events have
> radicalized the relation of images to reality, in the same way as they
have
> radicalized the global situation. While before we dealt with an unbroken
> abundance of banal images and an uninterrupted flow of spurious events,
the
> terrorist attack in New York has resurrected both the image and the event.
>
> Among the other weapons of the system which they have co-opted against it,
> terrorists have exploited the real time of images (not clear here if it is
> real duration, real time or images in real time), their instantaneous
global
> diffusion. They have appropriated it in the same way as they have
> appropriated financial speculation, electronic information or air traffic.
> The role of images is highly ambiguous. For they capture the event (take
it
> as hostage) at the same time as they glorify it. They can be infinitely
> multiplied, and at the same time act as a diversion and a neutralization
(as
> happened for the events of May 68). One always forgets that when one
speaks
> of the "danger" of the media. The image consumes the event, that is, it
> absorbs the latter and gives it back as consumer goods. Certainly the
image
> gives to the event an unprecedented impact, but as an image-event.
>
> What happens then to the real event, if everywhere the image, the fiction,
> the virtual, infuses reality? In this present case, one might perceive
> (maybe with a certain relief) a resurgence of the real, and of the
violence
> of the real, in a supposedly virtual universe. "This is the end of all
your
> virtual stories, - that is real!" Similarly, one could perceive a
> resurrection of history after its proclaimed death. But does reality
really
> prevail over fiction? If it seems so, it is because reality has absorbed
the
> energy of fiction, and become fiction itself. One could almost say that
> reality is jealous of fiction, that the real is jealous of the image... It
> is as if they duel, to find which is the most unimaginable.
>
> The collapse of the towers of the World Trade Center is unimaginable, but
> that is not enough to make it a real event. A surplus of violence is not
> enough to open up reality. For reality is a principle, and this principle
is
> lost. Real and fiction are inextricable, and the fascination of the attack
> is foremost the fascination by the image (the consequences, whether
> catastrophic or leading to jubilation are themselves mostly imaginary).
>
> It is therefore a case where the real is added to the image as a terror
> bonus, as yet another thrill. It is not only terrifying, it is even real.
It
> is not the violence of the real that is first there, with the added thrill
> of the image; rather the image is there first, with the added thrill of
the
> real. It is something like a prize fiction, a fiction beyond fiction.
> Ballard (after Borges) was thus speaking of reinventing the real as the
> ultimate, and most redoubtable, fiction.
>
> This terrorist violence is not then reality backfiring, no more than it is
> history backfiring. This terrorist violence is not "real". It is worse in
a
> way: it is symbolic. Violence in itself can be perfectly banal and
> innocuous. Only symbolic violence generates singularity. And in this
> singular event, in this disaster movie of Manhattan, the two elements that
> fascinate 20th century masses are joined: the white magic of movies and
the
> black magic of terrorism.
>
> One tries after the event to assign to the latter any meaning, to find any
> possible interpretation. But there is none possible, and it is only the
> radicality of the spectacle, the brutality of the spectacle that is
original
> and irreducible. The spectacle of terrorism imposes the terrorism of the
> spectacle. And against this immoral fascination (even if it engenders a
> universal moral reaction) the political order can do nothing. This is our
> theatre of cruelty, the only one left to us, -extraordinary because it
> unites the most spectacular to the most provocative. It is both the
sublime
> micro-model of a nucleus of real violence with maximal resonance - thus
the
> purest form of the spectacular, and the sacrificial model that opposes to
> historical and political order the purest symbolic form of challenge.
>
> Any slaughter would be forgiven them if it had a meaning, if it could be
> interpreted as historical violence - this is the moral axiom of
permissible
> violence. Any violence would be forgiven them if it were not broadcast by
> media ("Terrorism would be nothing without the media"). But all that is
> illusory. There is no good usage of the media, the media are part of the
> event, they are part of the terror and they are part of the game in one
way
> or another.
>
> Repressive actions travel the same unpredictable spiral as terrorist
actions
> - none can know where it may stop, and what reversals may follow. At the
> level of the image and information, there are no possible distinctions
> between the spectacular and the symbolic, between "crime" and repression.
> And this uncontrollable unraveling of reversibility is the true victory of
> terrorism. It is a victory visible in the underground and extensive
> ramifications of the event - not only in direct, economic, political,
market
> and financial recessions for the whole system, and in the moral and
> psychological regression that follows; but also in the regression of the
> value system, of all the ideology of freedom and free movement etc... that
> the Western world is so proud of, and that legitimates in its eyes its
power
> over the rest of the world.
>
> Already, the idea of freedom, a new and recent (sic) idea, is being erased
> from everyday lives and consciousness, and liberal globalization is being
> realized as its exact reverse: a 'Law and Order' globalization, a total
> control, a policing terror. Deregulation ends in maximal constraints and
> restrictions, equal to those in a fundamentalist society.
>
> Production, consumption, speculation and growth slowdowns (but not of
course
> corruption!): everything indicates a strategic retreat of the global
system,
> a heart-rending revision of its values, a regulation forced by absolute
> disorder, but one the system imposes on itself, internalizing its own
> defeat. It seems a defensive reaction to terrorism impact, but it might in
> fact respond to secret injunctions.
>
> Another side to terrorist victory is that all other forms of violence and
> destabilization of order favor it: Internet terrorism, biological
terrorism,
> anthrax terrorism and the terrorism of the rumor, all are assigned to Ben
> Laden. He could even claim natural disasters. Every form of
disorganization
> and perverse exchange benefits him. The structure of generalized global
> exchange itself favors impossible exchange. It is a form of terrorist
> automatic writing, constantly fed by the involuntary terrorism of the
news.
> With all its consequent panics: if, in that anthrax story, intoxication
> happens by itself, by instantaneous crystallization, like a chemical
> solution reacting to the contact of a molecule, it is because the system
has
> reached the critical mass that makes it vulnerable to any aggression.
>
> There is no solution to this extreme situation, especially not war that
> offers only an experience of deja-vu, with the same flooding of military
> forces, fantastic news, useless propaganda, deceitful and pathetic
> discourses and technological deployment. In other words, as in the Gulf
War,
> a non-event, an event that did not happen...
>
> There is its raison d'etre: to substitute to a real and formidable, unique
> and unforeseeable event, a repetitive and deja-vu pseudo-event. The
> terrorist attack corresponded to a primacy of the event over every model
of
> interpretation. Conversely, this stupidly military and technological war
> corresponds to a primacy of the model over the event, that is to
fictitious
> stakes and to a non-sequitur. War extends/continues the absence at the
heart
> of politics through other means.
>
> Editions Galilee/"Le Monde"
>
>
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> ********* list. Apologies for cross posting, the piece is worth it though
I think. . .



 ----- Original Message -----
From: "hbone" <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: 15 November 2001 02:28
Subject: Baudrillard


>
> > Dear All,
> >
> > Unable to find the Baudrillard translation at the link posted yesterday,
I
> > found the original (French) version at:
> >
> > http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3232--239354-,00.html
> >
>
>