La Gauche divine

by Jean Baudrillard

Nous vivons la fin de la représentation. L'essentiel aujourd'hui n'est plus d'être représentatif mais d'être branché. Les hommes politiques s'y essaient désespérement : leur intervention se résume désormais à un calcul d'effets spéciaux et de performances. Leur idéologie même n'en appelle pas à nos convictions profondes : elle nous branche ou ne nous branche pas. Victoire de la politique spectacle et des professionnels des médias. Echec d'une gauche qui se voudrait encore "divine", transparente, vertueuse et morale, représentative des valeurs profondes, des valeurs définitives de l'histoire. Elle ne peut que rencontrer l'indifférence ironique des masses. Cette chronique de la gauche de 1978 à 1984 analyse notre monde de simulation où l'emportera celui qui saura jouer avec les nouvelles stratégies de l'indifférence.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction

148 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 6, 1985

About the author

Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet, with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulation of concepts such as hyperreality. Baudrillard wrote about diverse subjects, including consumerism, critique of economy, social history, aesthetics, Western foreign policy, and popular culture. Among his most well-known works are Seduction (1978), Simulacra and Simulation (1981), America (1986), and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991). His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism. Nevertheless, Baudrillard had also opposed post-structuralism, and had distanced himself from postmodernism.

Reviews

[michal k-c · Rating 4 out of 5]

impotence of the political class, impotence of “power”, the left reducing itself to simple reformers, the misery of leaders won’t cure the misery of the masses, so on and so forth. some pretty prescient stuff in here, not the least of which being the passage where he basically predicts Trump // reality tv politics

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 2 out of 5]

So dependent on a particular time and political situation in France at that time, that it is pretty useless without some context and almost none of that context is given. The notes are practically useless. Could be brilliant, but it's impossible to give it much consideration without a lot more information that this slim volume provides.

[lalala Manel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tou a começar a fartar me disto, de tudo

“lEcstasy characterizes the transition to a pure state, in its purest form, of a form without content or passion. Ecstasy is the antinomy of passion.
In this way one can speak of an ecstasy of the state. Dis-impassioned, disincarnate, disaffected, yet all-powerful in its transparency, the state accedes to its ecstatic form, which is that of the transpolitical.”

“"The C.P. is the most beautiful, protective, and therapeutic institution in the Western world. Let's not decry it in the name of rambling reformism and self-critical conformity. After the dictatorship of the proletariat, must we renounce the dictatorship of the Party?
Nothing says there is any objective progress in that, since we know that free speech and desire is the modern and globalized form of surveillance and silence."


“Heroic measures are the only ideology
now. That's what the Socialists are practicing on the social, what the ecologists are practicing on nature, what we are all practicing on a host of dead ideologies.”

[Tyler Shaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most uncomfortable and eerie book I’ve ever read. Every sentence is so repulsive you can’t put it down. Baudrillard presents an argument so surreal it can’t possibly be true—yet every counter-argument feels naive. To critique him, you’d have to reframe—and therefore dismiss—our current political problems entirely.

[Bachpach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sorprendentemente (o no) actual.

[Joaquín Ollo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un análisis sesgado, unilateral y rápido en sentencias, pero aún así un libro interesante.

[ᔡᕱᖇᕱᗁ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never a better time to read this book than in 2022, when “Leftist” has taken on such a moralist, divine, undefined character as viral floating signifier.

[Rafael Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una lúcida y vitriólica crítica a la izquierda de Francia. Pese a haber sido escrito antes de la caída del comunismo no perdió la vigencia de la crítica al todo el sistema político.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review published in The French Review 60.5 (1987): 742-744.