The System of Objects

by Jean Baudrillard

The System of Objects is a tour de force—a theoretical letter-in-a-bottle tossed into the ocean in 1968, which brilliantly communicates to us all the live ideas of the day.

Pressing Freudian and Saussurean categories into the service of a basically Marxist perspective, The System of Objects offers a cultural critique of the commodity in consumer society. Baudrillard classifies the everyday objects of the “new technical order” as functional, nonfunctional and metafunctional. He contrasts “modern” and “traditional” functional objects, subjecting home furnishing and interior design to a celebrated semiological analysis. His treatment of nonfunctional or “marginal” objects focuses on antiques and the psychology of collecting, while the metafunctional category extends to the useless, the aberrant and even the “schizofunctional.” Finally, Baudrillard deals at length with the implications of credit and advertising for the commodification of everyday life.

The System of Objects is a tour de force of the materialist semiotics of the early Baudrillard, who emerges in retrospect as something of a lightning rod for all the live ideas of the Bataille’s political economy of “expenditure” and Mauss’s theory of the gift; Reisman’s lonely crowd and the “technological society” of Jacques Ellul; the structuralism of Roland Barthes in The System of Fashion; Henri Lefebvre’s work on the social construction of space; and last, but not least, Guy Debord’s situationist critique of the spectacle.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Sociology, Design, Architecture, Art

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

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

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh Baudrillard, I wish that your intuition and insight could have been less psychoanalytically and unilaterally charged in its nature. I say this, of course, because The System of Objects is brilliant in many ways. Baudrillard had a way with observation and a keen ability to take singular examples and make them speak for larger phenomena that were but some signs of his brilliance. Nonetheless, his constant desire to close down readings of things in order to inscribe a singular meaning onto behaviors (in this case, as in so many, behaviors relating to consumption) undercuts his analysis by making it both hopelessly bleak and needlessly essentialist. Having now read this entire volume from which his now infamous collecting essay is taken, I can say that it is worth reading its entirety. Baudrillard paints quite the vast picture here, basically arriving at the conclusion that all consumption is depraved and all objects are signs. But, he's smart about how he breaks things down into different orders of consumption, and treats them separately (even if only to make them ultimately arrive at the same point) and the distinctions are worth considering.

[Maryam Samiei · Rating 3 out of 5]

شاید از این کتاب بیشترین نقل قول ها رو کردم اینجا و این دقیقا به این خاطر بود که عمیقا لذت بردم از ایده های بودریار.
اما با همه این ها خیلی از این مسایل برام شدیدا جای سوال داره و می دونم سیستم و نظامی که برای اشیا ترسیم شده خیلی قسمت هاش
شکاف داره. برای مثال با وجود اینکه این نظام تنها محدود به جوامع سرمایه داری میشه اما این تمایز خیلی اوقات دیده نميشه

ترجمه ی کتاب به نظرم خیلی سخت بود. البته نمی دونم متن اصلی هم به این اندازه سخت بوده یا نه اما دلم می خواست روان تر می بود. برای درک یه قسمت های مجبور میشدم چندبار بخونم متن رو تا متوجه بشم
مفاهیم خیلی جاها بدون اینکه منظم شده باشن تند و تند گفته شدن و حتی بعضا مطالب تکراری هم دیده میشه
کتاب نظام اشیا از جایگاه کالا و شی در جامعه ی مدرن صحبت میکنه. شی به شخصیت یافتن انسان های مدرن کمک میکنه. شی با دلالت ثانویه بر پرستیژ و جایگاه اجتماعی افراد دلالت میکنه
با این همه مسیری که این جامعه مصرفی پیش رو داره از روابط انسانی تهی هست.
یه نکته ی جالب قسمت پایانی کتاب این بود که اصل لذت و اصل واقعیت فروید رو توی دنیای کالاها آورده بود. مثل مارکوزه توی کتاب اروس و تمدن، بودریار میگه کالاها اصل لذت رو تامین می کنند بدون اینکه این افسار گسیختگی غریزه از حد بگذره. چیزی که فروید توی تمدن و نارضایتی های آن معتقد نبود. از نگاه فروید جامعه ای که می خواد متمدن بشه مجبوره که اصل لذت رو فدای اصل واقعیت بکنه
تبلیغات و نظام مصرف به نوعی به افراد آزادی هدیه میکنه اما آزادی ای که اجباریه. در قالب این جامعه ی دموکراتیک مصرف و تبلیغات قرار داره که حکم نمایشی مبتذل رو داره که هدف پشتش استثمار هرچه بیشتر مصرف کننده است

در کل کتاب رو دوست داشتم و دوست دارم توی یه مقاله ی جدا راجع بهش بنویسم :)

[شیرین عبادی · Rating 4 out of 5]

به شدت سخت خوان و پراکنده ست طوری که برای فهمیدن بعضی جمله ها چندبار باید از اول تا اخرشون رو بری بیای. اما ایده به شدت جذابی داره. از رابطه روانشناختی ما با اشیا و نحوه چینش اونها، تا هویت روانی خود اشیا با توجه به جنس، رنگ و ...

[Syd Amir · Rating 5 out of 5]

در این کتاب به زندگی اشیا پرداخته شده گاهی تحلیل های روانکاوانه گاهی جامعه شناختی و البته بحث های فنی - فصل سوکارکرد ها ربات ها و گجت ها برام جالب بود من این کتاب رو در ادامه و در پیوند چند کتاب دیگری مطالعه کردم که در باره ی تکنولوژی بود:
ماهیت تکنولوژی و هنر تکنولوژیک
مارکس و تکنولوژی- مارکس و تکنولوژی - قانع بصیری
توی این کتاب در مورد سه نسل سیستم های تکنولوژیک صحبت های جالبی پیدا میشه
پرسش از هایدگر، تکنولوژی چیست؟- پرسش از هیدگر تکنولوژی چیست - قانع بصیری

[Tintarella]

نظام اشیا اولین کتاب و در واقع حاصل تز دکترای بودریار هست که در سال 1968 منتشر شده. کتاب از 5 بخش تشکیل شده و در کل هم ساختار منسجم و دقیقی داره و هم نثر خشک و منطقی.
1. نظام کارکردی یا گفتمان عینی
2. نظام غیرکارکردی یا گفتمان ذهنی
3. نظام فراکارکردی و سوءکارکردی: گجت‌ها و رُبات‌ها
4. نظام اجتماعی-ایدئولوژیک اشیا و مصرف
*نتیجه‌گیری: به سوی تعریف مصرف

حقیقت اینه که اصل قضیه بر می‌گرده به سوسور که با صورت‌بندی مسئله‌ی دال و مدلول ساختارگرائی رو شکل داد. متفکران چپ نشانه‌شناسی معمولاً بر روی نقطه‌ای می‌ایستند که تقابل دال/مدلول را شبیه تقابل شی فی نفسه/ابژه‌ی استعلایی کانتی می‌کنه (به نظرم تقابل مدل/سری توی این کتاب با همین مفهوم متناظره)، ولی نکته‌ای هگلی در این‌جا پنهانه (که باعث گذر از ساختارگرائی به پساساختارگرایی می‌شه): هر ذاتی به صورت پس‌گستر ساخته می‌شه و چون همه‌چیز در نهایت در حیطه‌ی آگاهی قرار داره پس مفهوم شی فی‌نفسه‌ی کانتی دچار تغییر می‌شه (در نهایت زنجیره‌ی دال‌های بدون مدلول)؛ در واقع بودریار (به تاسی از استادش بارت) روی رمزگان‌هایی کار می‌کنه که می‌تونه در گسست حاصل از دال/مدلول بارگذاری بشه. دقیق‌تر این‌که مسئله‌ی اصلی به کشف ایدئولوژی پنهان در هر نظام رمزگانی تبدیل می‌شه.
پی‌نوشت: انتظار نداشتم زیاد کتاب رو دوست داشته باشم ولی نقد بودریار خیلی دقیق و ظریفه و به نظرم بعد از بیش از نیم قرن از نوشته شدنش، مسائل مطرح شده توی کتاب هنوز موضوعیت دارن و حقیقتاً از قدرتمندترین نقدهائیه که به علیه جامعه‌ی مصرفی نوشته شده.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Baudrillard takes moments of insight and stretches them into a totalizing, suffocating system that attempts to explain far too much than his simple thesis can bear: possessions once meant more to us than they do now because once upon a time they were made by us to last for generation after generation. Now our possessions are disposable, and their functionality has been replaced by desire--for status, for the illusion of projecting our individuality (mass-produced objects!) in an industrial age that long ago disposed of individuality. . . While that may be so in some ways, it doesn't constitute a monolithic force driving all of our urges.

[Ion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to Baudrillard's works, consumerism and materialist semiotics (aka the study of objects as sign-objects, as signifiers) that leads naturally into his later work 'The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures'.

[Myles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.2/5.0 Minor Baudrillard. Stick to the simulacra, you dense French bastard.

[Pedro Pirata]

Una buena introducción a la obra de Baudrillard, lo que no sorprende, pues es su primer libro. En El sistema de los objetos se expone la base de las argumentaciones y los casos elegidos por el autor que luego le irán llevando hacia sus conceptos más conocidos (simulacro, hiperrealidad, etc.). Aquí, Baudrillard, como buen sociólogo estructuralista, se encarga de elementos concretos de lo que ve a su alrededor para ir definiendo lo que llama el sistema de los objetos en su totalidad. Decoración de interiores, automóvil, crédito, publicidad... Mención especial a los apartados sobre el objeto único y el coleccionismo que han logrado que entienda un poco mejor el psicoanálisis lacaniano (aunque Baudrillard no menciona a Lacan en ningún momento, su influencia es clara). Se recomienda una dosis considerable de manejo de los principales conceptos psicoanalíticos antes de entrarle al libro.

No quiero entrar en detalles del desarrollo argumentativo de Baudrillard (más por falta de tiempo que de ganas), pero lo relevante, que da comienzo al libro, es la disociación entre función de los objetos, que refiere a su capacidad técnica de resolver un problema, de satisfacer una necesidad, etc., y la funcionalidad en el sistema de los objetos, que opera en un segundo nivel que incluso llega a perturbar o impedir el propio desarrollo técnico y la función concreta de los objetos. Éstos se acaban imponiendo como depositarios del deseo general y la libido que, vehiculados por la falta, ponen en movimiento una producción que no es sólo la de mercancías sino también de consumo (lo cual será la tesis de partida del siguiente libro, La sociedad de consumo). ¿Será que algunas categorías y oposiciones filosóficas que usa (esencial/inesencial, estructural/anestructural...) son algo simplistas? Por ejemplo, ¿proponer el sistema de los objetos como una inmanencia total exenta de negatividad posible es fruto de lo observado o de la mirada que proyecta esa totalización? Desconfío, pero por otro lado el mundo no me ofrece prueba alguna de refutación (por ahora). Estaría encantado de charlar con alguno de mis fellow goodreaders sobre el tema.

En fin, una gran lectura que, como todas las grandes, añade a la mirada sobre el mundo una cantidad nada despreciable de conceptos y matices, además de ayudar a asentar muchos conceptos del psicoanálisis. De hecho, parece sorprendente que con los limitados objetos a los que tenía acceso haya podido extraer semejante análisis, que hace parecer a los desarrollos tecnológicos de finales del siglo XX y siglo XXI como meras consecuencias y prolongaciones lógicas de la dinámica sistemática que Baudrillard analiza. Además, me parece curioso que esta no sea una lectura mucho más extendida y recomendada, pues sigue completamente vigente. Una lectura completamente recomendada (no llego a comprender el tono mayoritariamente negativo de las reseñas que he leído en Goodreads).

[Jennifer Hullinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this text is a bit too Freudian/Marxist for my taste, it does point out a very existential process between the consumer society and the individual. Many of the observations Baudrillard points toward are some I've noticed by observing both my own consumption habits/feelings associated in my relationship with objects, and the same dynamics in others. While this text was written long before iphones, it tends to really hit home in a quasi-prophetic way. Consumption is no longer about sustaining the human body's needs, but rather, a socio-psychological desire instead.

[Bernardo Moreira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surpreendentemente bom.
Nunca tinha lido nada do Baudrillard antes, achei uma ótima introdução. A proposta do livro é interessantíssima: uma análise não apenas dos aspectos técnicos mas socio-culturais do sistema de objetos.
And he goes deep: de móveis à iluminação, de souvenirs de viagem à máquinas de lavar, de carros à relógios de pulso. Alguns momentos são bem marcantes: as análises sobre a organização dos cômodos, a função dos carros, as coleções, os objetos automatizados, o objeto-publicidade. A profundidade e precisão do panorama de Baudrillard sobre uma instância central da sociedade de consumo surpreende por o quão longeva é a análise: escrito no fim dos anos 60, vimos uma intensificação brutal do processo ali descrito.
Não entrarei à fundo em cada ponto do livro, apenas gostaria de ressaltar uma questão presente no posfácio da tradutora: o recurso de Baudrillard aos modelos da linguística e da psicanálise por vezes reduzem bastante certos aspectos do objeto em questão (piada: após um tempão de conversas sobre o falo, uma sã alma ressalta "a banana também é uma fruta!"). Mesmo assim, não é um problema que invalida o texto.
Consumo enquanto marcador de prestígio social, objetos-que-consomem-gente: longe de uma democratização pela variedade das mercadorias, há um aspecto discriminatório inerente ao sistema de objetos. O objeto aparenta preencher um vazio 'produzido' pela lógica do crédito, do consumo, da antiprodução; entretanto apenas se insinua como aquilo a ser consumido/consumado - função imanente a um sistema que se independentiza das necessidades que ele oferece suprimir.

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exploration of Objects, and how we move about them. It's Baudrillard, so we are abstract and difficult at times - but worth the read! There seems to be some sort of debt to the memorable essay in Barthes' Mythologies on washing powders.

Particular highlights are the section on advertising towards the end (how it induces a double compulsion), and the final chapter upon consumption (what is consumption!?), punning all the while between (to) consummate and (to) consume.

[P M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I've ever read.
I can't really describe it you just gotta read it for yourself but before getting into it prepare yourself for the deconstruction of reality and your old perception of it.

[Dat-Dangk Vemucci · Rating 3 out of 5]

First half on the 'taxonomy' of interior design objects was a bit of a slog, second half more theoretical and rewarding. Wordy translation with an uncharacteristically formal academic tone for the early Baudrillard, though the last chapters have flashes of the poetic-aphorist style he would become best known for.

[Eirik · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is definitely not an easy book to recommend. It's an incredibly dense read, and at times it felt like nothing but intellectual masturbation. Beyond that some of the things he say have aged somewhat poorly, and for the casual reader like me, it's simply not an enjoyable read. However, I will say that his analysis of consumer society is incredibly insightful and is perhaps even more relevant today than it was when the book was first published.

I read an English translation and, assuming that it's an accurate rendition of the French, the prose is almost comically pompous. At times it felt like Baudrillard went out of his way to make the work as inaccessible as possible, deliberately choosing more complicated phrasings than necessary to get his point across. I get that it's not a popular novel meant for easy consumption, but still. There's virtue to communicating clearly.

Part of the problem does, however, lie with me. At several points in the book, I felt like I was in over my head, that there was a wider context I was missing. Baudrillard assumes that you're already familiar with the context in which he is writing. This basically results in two things: 1) you will get lost if you're not well versed in the philosophical discussions of his time, and 2) he sometimes makes wild jumps in logic without any explanation, simply expecting you to understand where he's coming from.

The age of the book really shows in how he apparently bases everything on a Freudian view of psychology, where everything, absolutely everything, revolves around sex. Everything is a phallus, and everything we do is because we miss our childhood and our parents.

But if you can get past the ridiculously dense prose and the constant references to phalli, you will find that he did have some extremely keen insights. At times it was about putting hunches I've had into words, but there were also a handful of epiphanies about how we relate to the objects that make up our daily lives.

In short, I feel like this book could have been much better, had it been written in a clearer, less aggressively arrogant language. There are valuable points to be taken away from it, and anyone interested in better understanding our consumer society could learn a lot. Unfortunately, it is what it is, and as such it might be better to just read a summary of it.

[Brooks Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's fun to read a book which Tyler Durden would call 'inspirtional'

Baudrillard has quite the following, specially amongst those who preach post-modernist thought or post-Marxist thought, at least. A promising beginning, The System of Objects is a reasonably dry read which delves into exactly what purpose 'objects' themselves serve and represent within our lives, and how this has changed over the course of centuries.

Early on, this is explained to us in a very digestible manner - interior design. As a counterpoint to various philosophies (Objectivism comes to mind) which believe in functionality of objects over all other qualities, Baudrillard poses that there are many more levels to all that we deal with. Something as simple as color is considered to be part of the larger philosophy of the times, representative of the philosophy of the one who chose it.

As the book progresses, the theme changes from the study of objects in themselves to exactly what they represent within societies, and how society handles them. Whether it is discussions the psycho-sexual discourse of the car world (womens cars are decidedly a step down from the version they sell a 'man') to the handling of purchases via credit card, Baudrillard paints an interesting picture about how we have moved from a time where objects were once possessions, but now such objects own us.

An incredibly detailed, fascinating dive into the Fight Club line "The things you own, end up owning you".

[Alex Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, Baudrillard tries to classify our consumerist obsession with objects. This text is a bit dated. He moves from a life-style hyperreal plateau of objects (in terms of how we experience them and then think about them) before moving towards describing the function of objects as a kind of functional-ontology. From there, he goes towards advertising and finance.

This book is not very big. I think he could have organized the text better in order to go from a "phenomenological" approach towards a finance-ontology. Perhaps this kind of semiotic examination was not really done before in this time period. This book also does not connect with hyperreality which I think is a minus -- also he may not have yet developed the concept of the hyperreal as of yet. Truly Simulacra and Simulation is a better book! But that book is also hard to read because he explains the concepts "from the middle". This book has a better grasp of things, although he is still struggling on the surface of the world we still live in, as we are still dealing in the shadow of post-ww2 consumerism.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering this is fifty years old, there is much that is still poignant, if not a little overwrought. It’s a shame the real juice takes three quarters of the book to get to. I enjoyed the ideas around objects as signs; model and series; choice, personalisation and credit as the three cornerstones of consumer society; and the desire for status mediated by advertising as opposed to the actual acquisition of objects themselves as a definition of consumption.

[Seth King · Rating 2 out of 5]

He's a fine writer, and an important one. But I'll say what I'm not supposed to say on an app for bookworms: just watch 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her instead.
Trying to build a phenomenology of the inanimate world creates crossed-eyes.

[Markus]

Constantly between brilliant and irrellevant

[Floris De Jongh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zeker een goed boek, maar de filosofische bullshit tolerantie moet wel vrij hoog liggen om er doorheen te komen. Mensen klagen over dat Baudrillard té veel probeert te claimen in zijn analyses die inderdaad soms best ver gaan en ook best abstract zijn. Wat dat betreft houdt hij zich zeker niet aan proportionaliteit van bewijslast ten opzichte van zijn claims. Maar mensen die dit zeggen zien niet dat deze vorm van postmodern denken niet in de wetenschappelijke sfeer thuis hoort maar eerder in de creatieve/esthetische sfeer. De mensen die daar niet tegen kunnen, moeten maar Wittgenstein of Russell gaan lezen.

Het boek gaat over de filosofie van interieurontwerp, de consumptiemaatschappij en de relatie tussen mens en objecten in het algemeen. De consumptiemaatschappij heeft in het leven van de mens een nieuwe structuur geïntroduceerd van objecten die beladen zijn met tekens die productief zijn voor het verlangen naar deze objecten. Wanneer we dus een object consumeren/gebruiken, consumeren we ook het (inter-)subjectief teken dat op de achtergrond verweven zit met een stelsel van tekens dat elk een waarde, moraal of onderbewuste genoegen signaleert. Twee denkers staan hierbij prominent op de voorgrond (ook al worden zij niet expliciet genoemd), namelijk Marx en Freud. Het Marxistische component van de analyse leidt over het algemeen tot conclusies dat objecten een kapitalistische of bourgeois economische ideologie uitdragen. Bijvoorbeeld de radicaliserende hoeveelheid aan auto's die je kunt kopen wekt de liberale schijn van keuzevrijheid maar fungeert tegelijkertijd als een soort indeling mechanisme van sociale klasse (welk type auto iemand koopt zegt iets over zijn/haar sociale stand). Het Freudiaanse deel is vooral gericht op het aantonen dat men een onderbewuste discourse van driften projecteert op de objecten van consumptie. Volgens de psychoanalytische analyse zou de auto een soort overmeesteringsdrift of wil tot macht van ruimte en tijd bevredigen waarbij de natuur overwonnen of beheerst wordt. Interessant genoeg wordt er dan juist inspiratie gehaald uit diezelfde natuur — denk aan een Amerikaanse vin op de achterkant van de auto, een attribuut dat tegen stroomlijning, en daarmee de formele functie van de auto ingaat — om die overwinning triomfantelijk te signaleren.

Naast de buitensporige claims heeft het boek, naar mijn mening, 2 minpunten:

1. Economisch/technologisch determinisme:
In de analyse van Baudrillard gaat een opvatting schuil dat het individu volledig onderworpen is aan economische en technologische structuren die zodanig het gedrag beïnvloeden dat het onderscheid tussen object en subject moeilijk te duiden is. Het individu is volledig overgeleverd aan de grillen van de continuen uitwisselingsstroom van tekens die het denken en gedrag bepalen. Er is dus geen ruimte voor het individu om tot revolutie van de sociale orde te komen, want deze wordt bepaald door de structuur van de objecten en hun ideologische relaties. Hier zou bijvoorbeeld Gilles Deleuze — die stelt dat de mens een revolutionaire macht van explosief verlangen is dat niet kan bestaan zonder het risico om totale sociale regimes overhoop te gooien — het sterk mee oneens zijn. Deleuze zou waarschijnlijk gezien moeten worden als een tegenpool in dit opzicht (en dit opzicht alleen).
Over het algemeen heeft het determinisme in dit werk iets naïefs omdat het te veel macht toekent aan de sociale structuren die het verlangen sturen en produceren.

2. Psychoanalyse
In het boek komen veel orthodox Freudiaanse analyses voor die vaak leiden tot conclusies waarbij alles nog maar weer eens een keer gereduceerd wordt tot de seksualiteit of papa-mama-complexen. Er zijn veel bekende problemen met het Freudiaanse raamwerk en op het moment dat dit als basis wordt genomen voor de analyse neemt de analyse automatisch ook al die problemen over. Het punt is niet dat er geen interessante inzichten gegenereerd kunnen worden met behulp van psychoanalyse maar eerder dat het al snel een dogmatische toon aanslaat die gewoon niet nodig is.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some books send my little brain off into flights of fancy and I put off reviewing them (like this) for half a year or so... But maybe I don't need to make sense of it or to you. Here's me embracing the chaos:

BAUDRILLARD [dressed as Obi Wan Kenobi; waves hand at reader]:
These are not the objects you're looking for. (But then he ruins the scene by pressing a passage into your hand: "It is this disturbance, and the way the rationality of objects comes to grips with the irrationality of needs, and the way this contradiction gives rise to a system of meanings that seeks to resolve it—it is these things that we are concerned with here… ")

REVIEWER [dressed in standard reviewer burlap complimented by a lime green paisley European man scarf]:
Bruh, what exactly are you asking of these objects?

BAUDRILLARD [looking smug]:
Functionality as a complete system combining design and atmosphere; a kind of modularity to our living; our modern environment becomes a “sign system.” Increasing automation of objects and interactions reduced to mere gestures. Think of how we went from action, to virtuality, to mimicking action–e.g., images on your phone that you push or swipe as if they were actual buttons or switches. [He whispers to the second camera that he doesn't actually speak English and that anything not in quotes might be a perversion of the English translation further mutilated by the paraphrasing of so-called REVIEWER. He sneers and then we cut back to first camera.]

REVIEWER:
Oh, so like when you "catch" a Pokémon on your phone?!!

BAUDRILLARD: [rolls his eyes, but not really 'cause he died in 2007... just to be clear]

REVIEWER:
Is all this about control? I mean, it feels like you're saying the homogeneity and modularization of our objects serves as a kind of control to sublimate society's drives and desires. Like they trying to force these signs down our throats. But please talk about the car again. That sounds kind of nostalgic and romantic and symbolically-laden...

BAUDRILLARD:
"Without going so far as to treat the car as a modern version of the old centaurian myth of a fusion between human intelligence and animal strength, one may certainly describe it as a sublime object, for it open a parenthesis, as it were, in the everydayness of all other objects. The material that it transforms, namely space-time, cannot be compared to any other. And the dynamic synthesis of space-time that the car offers in the shape of speed is likewise radically distinct from any kind of normal function."

REVIEWER: But is there an “outside” of the system, a Place Beyond the Signs?

BAUDRILLARD:
"The ‘underdeveloped’ fetishize power by means of the technical object; technically advanced, ‘civilized’ people, for their part, fetishize birth and authenticity by means of the mythological object. ... For we want at one and the same time to be entirely self-made and yet be descended from someone: to succeed the Father yet simultaneously to proceed from the Father. Perhaps mankind will never manage to choose between embarking on the Promethean project by reorganizing the world, thus taking the place of the Father, and being directly descended from an original being. Our objects bear silent witness to this unresolved ambivalence. Some serve as mediation with the present, others as mediation with the past, the value of the latter being that they address a lack."

REVIEWER:
That's not really answering my question...

BAUDRILLARD:
"But since blood, birth and titles of nobility have lost their ideological force, the task of signifying transcendence has fallen to material signs—to pieces of furniture, objects, jewellery and works of art of every time and every place. The door has thus been opened to a mass of ‘authoritative’ signs and idols (whose authenticity, in the end, is neither here nor there); the market has been invaded by a whole magical flora of real or fake furniture, manuscripts and icons. The past in its entirety has been pressed into the service of consumption."

REVIEWER:
The American dream!
...
Did you just pat me on my head?!!


BAUDRILLARD:
"What a man gets from objects is not a guarantee of life after death but the possibility, from the present moment onwards, of continually experiencing the unfolding of his existence in a controlled, cyclical mode, symbolically transcending a real existence the irreversibility of whose progression he is powerless to affect."

REVIEWER:
Hmmm. So, like, we project ourselves into these objects we possess/collect/acquire as a sort of displaced dream of immortality. Materialism as denial of death. I mean those plastic Happy Meal Toys are going to outlast me by quite a bit...

BAUDRILLARD:
"Desire is, in fact, the motor of the repetition or substitution of oneself, along the infinite chain of signifiers, through or beyond death. And if the function of dreams is to ensure the continuity of sleep, that of objects, thanks to very much the same sort of compromise, is to ensure the continuity of life."

REVIEWER:
That's what I just said. But wait, let's pause and address the Wookie in the room: You really think "science fiction has absolutely no prophetic value?!!" Seems a bit harsh.

BAUDRILLARD: [belches loudly and ignores the question]
"This is a society whose embrace of technological progress enables it to make every conceivable revolution, just so long as those revolutions are confined within its bounds. For all its increased productivity, our society does not open the door to one single structural change."

REVIEWER:
This is about to get really depressing, right? I mean it feels like we’re forever behind trying to catch up with our objects---credit creates a new ethics; as if consumption precedes production meaning we obtain/use them before earned via credit.

BAUDRILLARD:
" … objects now are by no means meant to be owned and used but solely to be produced and bought. ... In every individual the consumer colludes with the production system while having no relationship to the producer—the victim of the system—that he also is. Paradoxically, this split between producer and consumer is the mainstay of social integration, because everything is done so that it can never take the living and critical form of contradiction. ... [Advertising] generates an anxiety that it then seeks to calm. ... Advertising is very canny here, for every desire, no matter how intimate, still aspires to universality."

REVIEWER: [holding back tears]
The individual still yearns to belong.

BAUDRILLARD:
" ‘Free to be oneself’ really means free to project one’s desires onto commodities."

REVIEWER:
I can see why you weren't popular at parties. [offers a parting fist bump to B] Too bad you never got to see Temu...
--------------------------------------------
WORDS THAT FEEL GOOD IN THE MOUTH WHETHER YOU KNOW THEM OR NOT
Seraglio | syntagma | polysemy | gnomic | fissiparity | immiserated
--------------------------------------------
In a parallel future part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Baudrillard lives on and releases his latest book titled: "I'm Finna Whip This Ride" ...

[Dmitry Kurkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Бодрийяр предвосхищает икеизацию, айфонизацию и робот-пылососизацию мира (для последнего у него зарезервировано чудесное понятие "штуковина"). Надо признать, что размышления его очень неплохо состарились: тексту уже полвека с гаком, а наши отношения с вещами не то чтобы сильно разошлись с прогнозами.

[Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baudrillard doesn’t name Lacan or objet a even once here, and yet I think this text might well have been the key to my finally unlocking the latter’s true meaning. That’s gotta count for something right?

[Ally · Rating 5 out of 5]

My armchair really HAS made me a citizen of the industrial society.

This book, though super challenging, really pushed me to think about the system of tangible monotony. From antiques, cars, pets, and fashion, Baudrillard's work (though occasionally a little out of the freudian pocket), is one of those books you read that fundamentally change your outlook on academia and on life.

Okay French sociology!!!! you ate it with this one <3

[Ted J. Gibbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

good stuff. love it.

[Filipe Siqueira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baudrillard freudiano se saiu melhor do que esperava

[Senna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the inspo for Stephen King's Christine.

Really interesting, silly at times, freudian.

[robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the first half of the book to be pretty boring, but the later parts on publicity, consumerisms and signs are all pretty interesting

[Alex Braun · Rating 5 out of 5]

he was right about everything