Organizations and Markets

Pomo Periscope VIII: Jean Baudrillard “Dies”

| Nicolai Foss |

Apparently, it happened Tuesday last week, but I didn’t notice until this morning: Pomo-thinker Jean Baudrillard has fallen victim to the Keynesian long run (see this). Baudrillard became famous for his notion of hyper-reality, and for his habit of indicating the (media) manufactured nature of events by an extensive use of quotation marks (the most notorious example being the “Gulf War”). He was the author of sentences such as this one: “Perhaps history itself has to be regarded as a chaotic formation, in which acceleration puts an end to linearity and the turbulence created by acceleration deflects history definitively from its end, just as such turbulence distances effects from their causes” (quoted from this classic piece). And here is an example of a profound contribution to political philosophy: “All of our values are simulated,” he told the New York Times in 2005. “What is freedom? We have a choice between buying one car or buying another car? It’s a simulation of freedom.” The problem now is what to make of media reports of his death. A simulated reality?

10 March 2007 at 2:48 am Nicolai Foss 1 comment