Stop Contact

[doolhoofd]

In my opinion the best idea advanced in the text is:

The past generations witnessed the struggle for their ideals and the spectacle of that struggle, today we are witnesses to the spectacle of spectacle in its pure and empty form. [...] The last remaining revolution, the only revolution left to make today is the revolution of spectacle on spectacle itself. More spectacular than the spectacular: hyper-spectacle...

It was inspired by Baudrillard's writings on spectacle society and the movement towards extremes.

[doolhoofd]

It was inspired by Baudrillard's writings on [...] the movement towards extremes.

found the article:
Paroxysm: The End of the Millennium or the Countdown
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudril ... countdown/

Ecstasy of the social: the masses. The more social than social.

Ecstasy of the body: obesity. The fatter than fat.

Ecstasy of information: simulation. Truer than true.

Ecstasy of time: real time, instantaneity. More present than the present.

Ecstasy of the real: the hyperreal. More real than the real.

Ecstasy of sex: porn. More sexual than the sexual.

Ecstasy of violence: terror. More violent than the violent.

[chaz wyman]

It was inspired by Baudrillard's writings on [...] the movement towards extremes.

found the article:
Paroxysm: The End of the Millennium or the Countdown
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudril ... countdown/

Ecstasy of the social: the masses. The more social than social.

Ecstasy of the body: obesity. The fatter than fat.

Ecstasy of information: simulation. Truer than true.

Ecstasy of time: real time, instantaneity. More present than the present.

Ecstasy of the real: the hyperreal. More real than the real.

Ecstasy of sex: porn. More sexual than the sexual.

Ecstasy of violence: terror. More violent than the violent.

Ecstasy of nonsense: Post modernism; the emasculation of Critical Thinking.

It seem to me that post-modernists such as JB has willing adopted the methods of Critical Theory as inherited from Nietzsche, Adorno, Benjamin and so on, but have failed to address why one would ever want to do so in the first place. Rather they have enacted a new pseudo-status quo.
Rather than address the purpose of personal and social emancipation, as asserted by Benjamin, from the confines of authoritarian academia and the dominant ideologies of the establishment, all they do is pander to them by making weak barely critical, but ultimately directionless and empty observations, which not only avoid the courage of positing alternative living strategies, all they do is call into question is a fairly obtuse and deliberately obscurantist way, some of the underlying assumptions only to give them credibility as if to say in the spirit of brevity, so what? Their response is ha ha, is it not amusing how weak the dominate ideology builds is endemic and unstated assumptions? In this manner they provide fuel by which the establishment can screw down its ideologies with the information provided. Thus the establishment enjoys the benefits of what might seem on the face of it to be criticisms, it is strengthened by the post-modern (can we even call it) discourse. The irony of the PM validates that which it pretends to critique.
Thus the legacy of Critical Theory has been reduced to verbal and textual masturbation. Words with little though, assertions without purpose, the result and utility zero.
JB has nothing of any value to contribute except entertainment of the intellectual.

[doolhoofd]

JB has nothing of any value to contribute except entertainment of the intellectual.

I beg to differ. Some of his ideas are truly fresh and inspiring.

[doolhoofd]

The irony of the PM validates that which it pretends to critique.

Baudrillard has written a lot about irony and reversibility.
http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudi ... oulter.htm
sometimes you just have to push things further and further in the same direction to make them flip around...

[chaz wyman]

JB has nothing of any value to contribute except entertainment of the intellectual.

I beg to differ. Some of his ideas are truly fresh and inspiring.

So, perhaps you would like to tell me exactly what he is saying?

[chaz wyman]

The irony of the PM validates that which it pretends to critique.

Baudrillard has written a lot about irony and reversibility.
http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudi ... oulter.htm
sometimes you just have to push things further and further in the same direction to make them flip around...

Of course he has! That 's the whole point.

He could not push a donut across a table without questioning the existence of the empty middle of the donut and asking ironically it the emptiness in the centre represents the jam or the death of jam. His donut would never reach his hand let alone his mouth.

[doolhoofd]

So, perhaps you would like to tell me exactly what he is saying?

You want me to summarize his entire body of work?
I can't do that.

[chaz wyman]

So, perhaps you would like to tell me exactly what he is saying?

You want me to summarize his entire body of work?
I can't do that.

Since he is not actually making any positive step towards a philosophy then you might like to try anything.
If someone were to ask me about say Hume; I would be able to respond by laying out one or two of his key contributions to philosophy. As JB has made none I can see why you hesitate to answer with anything positive.
Why not choose a text and give us the low down on it?

[doolhoofd]

I'll see what I can do for you today.

A Conjuration of Imbeciles
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=176

main idea (imo):

good never comes from a purification of evil (evil always retaliates in a forceful way), but rather from a subtle treatment which turns evil against itself.

[doolhoofd]

Dust Breeding
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=293

"To think like a woman undresses," Bataille used to say. Perhaps, but Catherine Millet's naivete is to think that people undress in order to get naked, to reach the naked truth about sex and about the world. People take off their clothes to be revealed (pour apparaître). But not to be revealed in their nakedness like truth (can anyone still believe that truth remains when its veil of secrecy is lifted?) but to join the realm of appearances, of seduction. That's totally different.

So, why not propose a reverse hypothesis (opposed to the idea of voyeurism and collective stupidity)? Why not suggest that what people want, what we all want in our quest which inevitably stops in front of the fortress of obscenity, is precisely to gain the sense (pressentir) that there is nothing to see, that we'll never get the final clue?

[doolhoofd]

Seduction
http://free.art.pl/fotografie/baudrilla ... CTION.html

We live today the promotion of nature [...] Seduction, however, never belongs to the order of nature, but to that of artifice [...] Above all, seduction supposes not a signified desire, but the beauty of an artifice.

[chaz wyman]

I'll see what I can do for you today.

A Conjuration of Imbeciles
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=176

main idea (imo):

good never comes from a purification of evil (evil always retaliates in a forceful way), but rather from a subtle treatment which turns evil against itself.

This is just a platitude based on undefined and dubious metaphysical concepts.
There is no evil, no good, except what men identify. They are not forces of nature to be attributed such generalisations.
Would you call this a contribution to philosophy or an entertaining journey into JB non analytic conceptions of his personal fears?

[doolhoofd]

Radical Thought
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudril ... l-thought/

The radical prediction is always that of a non-reality of the facts, of an illusion of the factual. [...] While being a transporter of meaning, language is at the same time a supra-conductor of illusion and of the absence of meaning. [...] By its very force, it calls for the spiritual imagination of sounds and rhythms, for the dispersion of meaning in the event of language, similar to the role of the muscles in dance, similar to the role of reproduction in erotic games. [...] if language wants to "speak the language" of illusion, it must become a seduction. [...] Ciphering, not deciphering. Operating illusions. Being illusion to be event. Turning into an enigma what is clear. Making unintelligible what is far too intelligible. Rendering unreadable the event itself. Working all the events to make them unintelligible. Accentuating the fake transparency of the world to spread a terroristic confusion, to spread the germs or viruses of a radical illusion, that is to say operating a radical disillusion of the real.

[chaz wyman]

Dust Breeding
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=293

"To think like a woman undresses," Bataille used to say. Perhaps, but Catherine Millet's naivete is to think that people undress in order to get naked, to reach the naked truth about sex and about the world. People take off their clothes to be revealed (pour apparaître). But not to be revealed in their nakedness like truth (can anyone still believe that truth remains when its veil of secrecy is lifted?) but to join the realm of appearances, of seduction. That's totally different.

So, why not propose a reverse hypothesis (opposed to the idea of voyeurism and collective stupidity)? Why not suggest that what people want, what we all want in our quest which inevitably stops in front of the fortress of obscenity, is precisely to gain the sense (pressentir) that there is nothing to see, that we'll never get the final clue?

So what is that about?