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“IT BECOMES THEIR REALITY”
Quite without meaning to, Tim Footman writes the perfect obit for French reality opponent Jean Baudrillard:
Most notoriously, he argued that the (first) Gulf war did not take place, that it was simply a succession of symbolic gestures conducted by each side, and that it only achieved the identity of a military campaign because it was labelled as such by politicians and the media.
But, in many ways, Baudrillard got it right. He is the thinker most associated with the notion of the simulacrum: essentially that modern society creates representations and copies that are more “real” than the original ... Reality TV is an obvious example: something marketed on the basis of its authenticity becomes more intense and absorbing and important (hyperreal) than the authentic life we see around us. People prefer it to reality. It becomes their reality ...
Not to be outdone, George Bush appeared in Iraq in November 2003, bearing a Thanksgiving turkey. The turkey was intended to represent the peace and prosperity that the coalition forces had brought to Iraq, thus offering a perfect simulacrum - a hyperreal symbol for something that doesn’t exist. And just to add to the postmodern fun, it wasn’t even a real turkey.
Just to add even further to this riot of po-mo hilarity, the fake turkey wasn’t fake! Figure that out, Footman.
(Via Andrew Rutherford)
UPDATE. Leading Cretan thinker Chris Sheil:
For those who get Jean Baudrillard, he was an intellectual superstar whose frequent missives were eagerly received and always enjoyed; and if you happened to be working in the fields he touched on (principally the electronic media), he was a priceless line of critical theoretical supply. For these readers, thinkers and fans, our debts to the man are large and he will be very sadly missed.
“The turkey was intended to represent the peace and prosperity that the coalition forces had brought to Iraq, thus offering a perfect simulacrum - a hyperreal symbol for something that doesn’t exist.”
Actually, it was intended to represent food for hungry troops. The food existed, the troops existed and the hunger existed.
Memo to Guardianista “philosopher”: Spare me the lame ass attempts at metaphysics, shit for brains, you don’t have the intellect to pull it off.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 03 08 at 12:28 PM • permalinksomething marketed on the basis of its authenticity becomes more intense and absorbing and important (hyperreal) than the authentic life we see around us. People prefer it to reality. It becomes their reality ...
Doesn’t this perfectly describe the global warming movement, or Bush Derangement Syndrome, or just plain leftism in general?
“Is there anything dumber than an intellectual?”
Two intellectuals.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 03 08 at 12:55 PM • permalinkHeh. When challenged on the fake turkey thing, Mr. Footman replied thusly:
I stand corrected over the turkey. It was, in an absolute sense, a real turkey.
It was not, however, a turkey intended for consumption, which the President’s action might have been taken to imply, so it was unreal in that sense.
1) How does he know it wasn’t intended for consumption?
2) Oh brother.
#1 Old Tanker
Okay, so during the 1st Gulf War, those were fake bullets being shot at me and I never really returned fire?? Or maybe I just thought I did…..
They may have been real bullets, but they were still merely symbolic gestures, whether you realized it or not.
/zeropean leftist “thinker”
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 03 08 at 01:34 PM • permalink#8 Spiny Norman,
Thanks for clearing that up for me. This whole intellectual thing is so confusing…...
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 03 08 at 02:18 PM • permalinkBecause of the high wattage brainpower of intellectuals they generate powerful electomagnetic fields that surrounds their heads. When one intellectual appraches another their fields have a currious effect of diminishing each other’s brainpower. When enough gather in close proximity, idiocy is bound to ensue.
Posted by nobody important on 2007 03 08 at 02:30 PM • permalinkOK, #12: “Jean Beadrillard, 77, went from being to nothingness Tuesday at his Paris home.” Owzzat?
Posted by Paul Zrimsek on 2007 03 08 at 02:33 PM • permalinkAnyway, isn’t the guy being obit’ed here the perfect evidence that leftist intellectuals are just as given to reality substitution (perhaps even more so) as the most enthusiastic watchers of reality TV whom said intellectuals like to sneer at? I mean, “the Gulf War did not take place”? Jayzus.
Stones, glasshouses, and all that…
Yeah, symbolic gestures like the Highway of Death, huh?
So the highway of death was only an illusion?
Tell it to this poor sod.If Baudrillard taught us anything, it must be this: don’t believe the hyper.
I know I won’t believe the hyper bullshit these non-intellectuals.#21 Grimmy
Thanks. That imagery will never leave me. I’ll be in mid-conversation today and blanch. Yech.Post-modernism: brought to you by the same geniuses who came up with pre-emptive surrender and collusion. Only the French would come up with a philosophy whose solution to existential crisis is to deny existence. Ol’ Descartes must spin in his grave.
oh man, a fake fake symbolic turkey. My head’s going to explode.
Posted by daddy dave on 2007 03 08 at 05:42 PM • permalinkThe fake turkey story was intended to represent the lies of the Bush administration, thus offering a perfect simulacrum - a hyperreal symbol for something that doesn’t exist. Adding to the discredit of postmodern, it was a real turkey.
Deciphering Projection 101
Posted by armageddon on 2007 03 08 at 06:27 PM • permalink“I can’t even put the words european and philosophy together with out getting a mental image of a ruptured anus gushing out a sick slurry of shit and blood.”
Yeah, thinking about the Euros’ triumphant political philosophies like communism or fascism or nazism will do that to you.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 03 08 at 06:28 PM • permalinkLydia, I’m pretty sure his column wasn’t meant for consumption.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 03 08 at 06:55 PM • permalinkIsn’t that about the best sneer of intellectual superiority you’ve ever seen? A 9.9 from the USA judge. Well done, sir! Please proceed to the head tilt competition.
I’m certain I read that the display turkey was taken back to the kitchen, carved and served for dinner.
I stand corrected over the turkey. It was, in an absolute sense, a real turkey.
It was not, however, a turkey intended for consumption, which the President’s action might have been taken to imply, so it was unreal in that sense.
We need to start collecting the corrections. Like the “it doesn’t matter if the turkey is fake because it’s a perfect metaphor” correction, this is a classic.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 03 08 at 07:02 PM • permalinkI raise your two intellectuals and offer you this
(note: includes a couple of non-fuckwits, but don’t strain your eyes looking)
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 08 at 07:28 PM • permalinkTroll alert, Fake but Jew
Yay for Fruitloop Friday!
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 08 at 07:50 PM • permalinkI have gone beyond despising intellectual wankers. I admit, I am myself an intellectual and a wanker, but not an exhibitionist intellectual wanker: one who titilates and teases himself, or herself, with couragous, vanguard positions out on the edge, in full view of the public - oh, look what a smart boy am I! Without regard to reality but conforming to his peer group’s views.
So, I don’t despise, or even pity, this idiot. Zero is nothing.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 08 at 08:04 PM • permalinkThanks 1.6.
Hey what’s this button…woah! Hey Tim Tam! Look at me!
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 08 at 08:05 PM • permalink#8 No, those bullets were the actualization of a symbolic gesture. Like, they stuck a middle digit agressively in the air at the enemy, spat, said eff u, and then
shot theactualized the bulletsPosted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 08 at 08:12 PM • permalink#29 galenmk
Thanks for the advance welcome!
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 03 08 at 08:17 PM • permalink#18 Mojo, yes I remember that. The left hates when we win outstanding victories; this was an example, as was the sinking of the Belgrano.
I cheeered at this, but the lefties wrang their hands and said mea culpa (Or is that culpamus?). Arseholes. It was a military victory. A success. The good guys won.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 08 at 08:22 PM • permalink#21 Grimmy, that is the most revolting image I’ve had suggested to me all day. Well done.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 08 at 08:24 PM • permalink#27 Simulacrum? Well done, ten points.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 08 at 08:27 PM • permalink#48 I thought that was some kind of ointment.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 08 at 08:29 PM • permalinkThat ain’t a simulacrum. This is a simulacrum.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 08 at 08:33 PM • permalink#54 Viz is a classic habib, though haven’t seen it selling in Australia for a while.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 08 at 08:51 PM • permalinkThe local newsagent to my office carries it, but it’s usually a month or two behind, and outrageously marked up; I’ve been meaning to renew my subscription but I’m lazier than a narcoleptic wharfie that’s been attacked by a swarm of tsetse flies.
also the quality has fallen off a bit in recent years, but there’s still the odd item that goes very close to causing a trouser accident.
Jean Baudrillard is an ex-postmodernist.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 03 08 at 09:25 PM • permalinkFrom Andrea’s link:
Isn’t there something to be admired about someone who can weave a cloth of silly lies so well and make a living from it…well, I suppose as long as they are not leading an army of the tyrant’s dogs through the freedom we all love at the same time.
Posted by: Alan McLeod at March 8, 2007 03:38 PM
Jean Baudrillard, the Edward Lear of post-modern philosophy.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 03 08 at 09:58 PM • permalinkYes, like that jackass Derrida, Baudrillard is “dead”.
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2007 03 08 at 10:01 PM • permalink#39
I have gone beyond despising intellectual wankers. I admit, I am myself an intellectual and a wanker
Wimpy Canadian, me too. I guess we’re “self-hating intellectual wankers.”
Posted by daddy dave on 2007 03 08 at 10:29 PM • permalinkGrimmy - “I can’t even put the words european and philosophy together with out getting a mental image of a ruptured anus gushing out a sick slurry of shit and blood.”
Yeah, thank God, Oktoberfest is once a year, eh?!
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 08 at 10:34 PM • permalink#65 - I think I’ve had that hangover before.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 08 at 10:56 PM • permalink#67 From your link
“But he was also attacked by gay groups offended by his stereotypical portrayal of a theatrical homosexual.”
The re-runs of “Are You Being Served?” in Sydney at the moment remind me that Mr Humphries was portrayed with great affection at a time when homosexuality was still taboo.
In short, Inman did more to normalise queers in mainstream media than just about anyone I can think of. More importantly, he was funny. Ungrateful pillow biters.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 08 at 11:18 PM • permalinkSo long as it’s not one of those plastic ones.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 08 at 11:35 PM • permalink#74 - I would say both. Depends how crowded the toilets are really.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 09 at 12:05 AM • permalinkFor those who get Jean Baudrillard, he was an intellectual superstar whose frequent missives were eagerly received and always enjoyed
What you do in the boudoir is up to you sport, but that’s too much information.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 09 at 12:13 AM • permalinkDang, IT’s on fire as usual.
#76 You shouldn’t have needed real money.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 09 at 12:17 AM • permalinkThe Sheil thread is hilarious.
In essence he wishes to convey the fact he is very knowledgeable about old drill’ard and rather superior to other commenters without having to prove it by writing something about what drill’ard stood for.
Thus we get:
In most respects, if not every word, William’s views can be taken as mine. If genuine readers wish to raise any specific queries about Baudrillard from William’s essay, I will try to answer them, if they don’t require much work or many words.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 09 at 12:29 AM • permalinkIf Sheil thinks Baudrillard was “an intellectual superstar”, then it’s a cinch that Baudrillard was actually a cretin.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 09 at 12:36 AM • permalinkI would have said “cretan”, but I don’t want to insult the residents of that island, even if Sheil is a cretan himself.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 09 at 12:37 AM • permalink#78
Sheil has no problem with the frequency of his missives - shame nobody enjoys them.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 09 at 12:39 AM • permalinkMy favorite is, “I feel it in my heart that the turkey wasn’t fake.”
Posted by dean martin on 2007 03 09 at 12:41 AM • permalinkI like B.‘s cheek:
“Racism is desperately seeking the other in the form of an evil to be combated. The humanitarian sees the other just as desperately in the form of victims to aid ... The scapegoat is no longer the person you hound, but the one whose lot you lament. But he is still a scapegoat. And it is still the same person.”
My mercifully small book on him talks about his notion of ‘charity cannibalism’, i.e. what he views as the moral and sentimental exploitation of poverty. ‘We exchange pity and compassion,’ says my crib paraphrasing the the Big B,’ for the spectacle of the destitution of others ... International solidarity, humanitarian interference and bloodsucking protection follow.’ We envy the earthquakes, tsunamis and floods of the third world while ‘God ignores us. Additionally with the price of raw materials crashing, the West will not pay adequately for the staple goods on which it lives. These other countries reply by exporting the only overpriced (illegal) commodity that maintain their existence - drugs - and therefore pay off their world debt by exporting degeneracy and death at fantastic prices.’
He was also contemptuous of human rights as another postmodern attempt to drain life of risk. ‘We are already avoiding the sun for fear of cancer,’ says B, ’ ... we have given up on sex on account of the danger, we express ourselves less and less in public, we have stopped smoking, drinking, screwing. The New Political Ecology is on the march ... and have as little fun as possible.’ B. believes that our great ambition is to make ourselves disappear.
There was a lot of RWDB in B. and under the wank plenty of sense too.
I am so frickin sick of this. I was there on Thanksgiving Day Nov 03, in the 1st AD mess hall on BIAP when the President came to visit. Myself nor any of the other hundreds of service members there gave a rats ass about the turkey. Nobody was looking at the turkey. It was pretty emotional, but not because the turkey was real or fake, it was because the President had come to visit us. My everlasting hatred radiates towards these brainless leftwing empty nutsacks. Damn them ALL to hell. Enough about the turkey.
Aaron, you aren’t the youngest. I think that might be Ian Deans or Ash.
Aslo, while I’m OT, is Old Tanker the same how comments over at B5?
And as has already been said, if you ever make it to Oz, sir, consider yourself the recipient of plenty of beer. :)
You and your brothers and sisters in arms are more than welcome here.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 03 09 at 05:46 AM • permalinkMost notoriously, he argued that the (first) Gulf war did not take place, that it was simply a succession of symbolic gestures conducted by each side, and that it only achieved the identity of a military campaign because it was labelled as such by politicians and the media.
What a Bau-dullard!
I bet the Iraqis taking cover in sand trenches while B-52s carpet bombed them, and those caught in the notorious Death Highway helo gunship shootout would describe it a little differently.Damn. preview is not my friend today. Either that or the vodka. Aslo = also.
my bad.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 03 09 at 06:16 AM • permalinkContrail, I’d say the answer to that question is “yes”.
disclaimer:My only knowledge of Mr Shiel comes from this blog, and I’ve not read the others, either. Life is too short to waste on trying to make sense of some of these idiots.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 03 09 at 07:14 AM • permalinkTBob I have one thing to say:
Bugger. Thanks for pointing that out lol.
Hang on, here’s another to say:
I think I need another vodka.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 03 09 at 07:15 AM • permalink# 88 Nilknarf Arbed
Yes, I’m the Old Tanker at Blackfive, Op-For, LGF and a few others
man it’s hard to spell backwards…...
Posted by Old Tanker on 2007 03 09 at 10:39 AM • permalink#95 Just stick with Nilk. Everyone else does :)
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 03 09 at 05:01 PM • permalinkJust bagging this easy “century” thread for my collection.
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2007 03 09 at 11:47 PM • permalink#92
Left school when I was 16, so I am trying to develop an understanding of things that a stunted education has denied me.
Contrail, don’t read those idiots. If you want to be informed and entertained at the same time, you can’t go past a Steven Pinker book. Any of them. You’ll breeze through it and feel 10 IQ points smarter at the end. For a comprehensive trashing of leftoid lunacy, you can’t go past The Blank Slate. Now there’s an intellectual.
Posted by daddy dave on 2007 03 10 at 01:55 AM • permalinkBut did “Jean Baudrillard” “really” “exist”, or was s/h/it just a random series of texts created by the postmodernism generator “?”
Posted by Jim Geones on 2007 03 10 at 05:35 AM • permalink#103, blast that hurts my eyes, whip! :)
And my brain. It’s not like Nilknarf is difficult to read.
I’m not very good at being anonymous, either, I can see. Just as well I’m not trying hard to do so.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 03 10 at 05:49 AM • permalink
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Okay, so during the 1st Gulf War, those were fake bullets being shot at me and I never really returned fire?? Or maybe I just thought I did…..
Video notwithstanding, heck, we all know that the moon landing was shot on a sound stage here in the U.S.
I suppose the simulacrum would be this guy believing he has a cogent thought.