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In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities
"The whole chaotic constellation of the social revolves around that spongy reference, that opaque but equally translucent reality, that nothingness: the masses. A statistical crystal ball, the masses are 'swirling with currents and flows, ' in the image of matter and the natural elements. So, at least, they are represented to us."Written in 1978 and first published in Engl...more
Paperback, 128 pages
Published
June 1st 1983
by Semiotext(e)
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brilliant, pretentious, aphoristic, often indecipherable, insightful, peculiar...
One of the most interesting portions of this particular edition is a little essay (Event and Non-Event" = "Le Virtuel et l'événementiel") dating from 2003 on the Twin Towers and on history and the non-event -- which ends with Baudrillad's acceptance that, in fact, there may be irruptions into the fabric of the simulacrum, and which ends thus:
"There is a beautiful metaphor in a video by an artist who pointed his came...more
One of the most interesting portions of this particular edition is a little essay (Event and Non-Event" = "Le Virtuel et l'événementiel") dating from 2003 on the Twin Towers and on history and the non-event -- which ends with Baudrillad's acceptance that, in fact, there may be irruptions into the fabric of the simulacrum, and which ends thus:
"There is a beautiful metaphor in a video by an artist who pointed his came...more
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This book really got me excited. I read an introduction to Baudrillard before this book, expecting his writing in general to be incredibly confusing, and in hindsight, I don't think I really had to. I'm sure reading it while trying to understand it all would have been much more difficult, and taken much longer, but it's just a matter of deciphering the quarter to half page long sentences and breaking down some of the terminology. I can't wait to receive another book like this in the mail, readin...more
Apr 02, 2007
Kevin Lewis
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Marxists
An interesting new attempt to put nails into Marxism's coffin, the book analyzes a Debordian spectacle and responds with nihilism. There's some interesting and good stuff here, but it's buried under piles of simplistic, pessimistic, annoying drivel.
black holes... woahhhh!
Baudrillard, your anger and desperation make me nervous and sometimes I don't know how to live like a radical thinker-critic would. I'm caught in apathy and negligence... :( !!
Baudrillard, your anger and desperation make me nervous and sometimes I don't know how to live like a radical thinker-critic would. I'm caught in apathy and negligence... :( !!
JB exploring the failure of the politically motivated to affect 'the masses' one way or another.
Cover rather ugly.
Cover rather ugly.
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Jean Baudrillard (27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism.
Jean Baudrillard was also a Professor of Philosophy of Culture and Media Criticism at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he taught an Intensive Summer S...more
More about Jean Baudrillard...
Jean Baudrillard was also a Professor of Philosophy of Culture and Media Criticism at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he taught an Intensive Summer S...more
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“But it must be seen that the term 'catastrophe' has this 'catastrophic' meaning of the end and annihilation only in a linear vision of accumulation and productive finality that the system imposes on us. Etymologically, the term only signifies the curvature, the winding down to the bottom of a cycle leading to what can be called the 'horizon of the event,' to the horizon of meaning, beyond which we cannot go. Beyond it, nothing takes place that has meaning for us - but it suffices to exceed this ultimatum of meaning in order that catastrophe itself no longer appear as the last, nihilistic day of reckoning, such as it functions in our current collective fantasy.”
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