Jean Baudrillard
In media society signs no longer point to reality but only to other signs, so copies without originals become more real than the real.
Placement
Simulacra and simulation: signs refer only to other signs – hyperreality.
Key ideas
- Simulacrum
- Hyperreality
Influence
Influenced by 3
Friedrich Nietzsche
influenced by ✓
Baudrillard said he had been a great devotee of Nietzsche, more ingrained than cited (Baudrillard Live, 1993); commentators link his simulacra to Nietzsche’s ‘true world’ become fable. M. Gane (ed.), Baudrillard Live: Selected Interviews (1993); F. Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung (1889); SEP “Jean Baudrillard”
Friedrich Nietzsche › 1844–1900
Walter Benjamin
influenced by ✓
Baudrillard took Benjamin’s analysis of technical reproducibility (1935–36) as a step toward his order of simulacra, in which reproduction precedes any original (L’échange symbolique et la mort, 1976). J. Baudrillard, L’échange symbolique et la mort (1976); W. Benjamin, “Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit” (1935–36); SEP “Jean Baudrillard”
Walter Benjamin › 1892–1940
Roland Barthes
influenced by ✓
Baudrillard applied Barthes’s semiology of myth and fashion to consumer goods, analysing everyday objects as a system of signs (Le système des objets, 1968). J. Baudrillard, Le système des objets (1968); R. Barthes, Mythologies (1957); Système de la mode (1967); SEP “Jean Baudrillard”
Roland Barthes › 1915–1980
Influenced 1
Gerald Vizenor
influenced
In Manifest Manners (1994) Vizenor took up Baudrillard’s concept of simulation to describe the ‘indian’ as a colonial simulation behind which real Native people disappear. G. Vizenor, Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance (1994); J. Baudrillard, Simulacres et simulation (1981)
Evidence: AI draft
Gerald Vizenor › b. 1934
Criticism
Criticizes 2
Karl Marx influenced by
influenced by ✓
Baudrillard extended Marx’s analysis of the commodity to consumption, adding sign value to use and exchange value (Pour une critique de l’économie politique du signe, 1972). J. Baudrillard, La société de consommation (1970); Pour une critique de l’économie politique du signe (1972); SEP “Jean Baudrillard”
criticised
In The Mirror of Production (1973) Baudrillard argued that Marx’s critique remains within the productivist logic of the political economy it criticises, as its mirror image. J. Baudrillard, Le miroir de la production (1973)
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Michel Foucault
criticised
In Oublier Foucault (1977) Baudrillard argued that Foucault’s analysis of power and sexuality mirrors the powers it describes, just as these are dissolving into simulation. J. Baudrillard, Oublier Foucault (1977)
Evidence: AI draft
Michel Foucault › 1926–1984
Works
Marxism remains trapped in the image of production.
The map precedes the territory.
Position
Baudrillard began with a critique of consumer society: we buy objects less for their use than as signs of status and difference. Gradually he turned against Marxism, which in his view remained trapped in the logic of production. His best-known thesis is the theory of simulation: in media society, images and signs no longer refer to a reality behind them but only to other signs. Copies without originals – simulacra – produce a “hyperreality” that seems more real than the real; like a map that precedes the territory. Disneyland, opinion polls or televised wars were his examples, culminating in the provocative essay “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place.” His ideas influenced media theory, art and even the film The Matrix.
Life & context
Baudrillard was born in Reims in 1929 and first worked as a German teacher and translator of authors such as Brecht and Peter Weiss. He studied sociology with Henri Lefebvre and taught from 1966 at the University of Paris X Nanterre, where he witnessed the student revolt of 1968. He later became a widely read essayist and also worked as a photographer.
Further main works
- The System of Objects (1968)
- The Consumer Society (1970)
- Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976)
- America (1986)
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