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The Deconstruction of Baudrillard: The "Unexpected Reversibility" of Discourse (Problems in Contemporary Philosophy)

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The Deconstruction of Baudrillard: The "Unexpected Reversibility" of Discourse by Aleksandar S. Santrac (Problems in Contemporary Philosophy: Edwin Mellen Press) Jean Baudrillard is a unique, postmodernist philosopher, who developed amid controversies, directly in the contemporary postmodernism of his time and the most important tradition of modernism and premodernism, which, as counterpoints, actually define him.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism stresses that in the "meta-narratives" of philosophy, reason cannot satisfactorily resolve the existential problems of present-day mankind. Hence, the postmodernistic fundamental critique of rationalism, of progress, of truth, of systems, and metaphysics; the deconstruction of the meaning of the discourse and of metanarration; advocating positive fragmentariness and the plurality of effective "small narratives," "new linguistics," the end of History . . . and pataphysics - in Baudrillard one finds all these basic characteristics of postmodernist philosophy, according to which he is a traditional, postmodernistic author.
Apart from the aforesaid, among the features of non-Baudrillardean postmodernism, we also find mainly linear chronology, the crisis of dialectics and the semiological approach to the discourse, from which Baudrillard unsuccessfully dissociates himself. He also distances himself from the other leading postmodernists, primarily with his radical critique not only of modernism but also of postmodernism; as well as with his understanding of theory not as the reflection of reality but as simulation and seduction.
All these differences from the postmodernism of that time are not a sufficient reason for defining Baudrillard as a post-postmodernist, to which he himself aspires, but more precisely qualify him simultaneously as a traditional and
unique postmodernist thinker, whose philosophical stands are condensed into an asystemic fragmentarism of critical criticism, that are the essential, specific, general, methodical and ontological terms of simulation, seduction and pataphysics.
Simulation and Seduction
In the modernistic world, the principle of reality prevails, to which the notions of system, determination, purposefulness, ideologies and suchlike belong, Baudrillard believes .. .
The postmodernist world, however, is ruled by the PRINCIPLE OF SIMULATION, this philosopher claims, whose para-notions - new signs are asystem, non-determination, hyperreality, the code, the simulacrum and so on. With the floating of these and other signs upon reality, postmodernism produces the ineffective that has no origin in reality: essentially, simulation lies in that, the exchange of signs that have no referential value in reality. . .. Its products are the simulacrum, "objects of the world of simulation" which is more perfect than true reality . . . . As paradigmatic examples of hyperreality of the postmodernistic world Baudrillard mentions present-day cinematography, television, computers, cloning, Disneyland . . . ; all this and the essentially similar are perfectly counterfeited realities, "the perfect crime" of killing reality and the realization of the hyperreal . . . the illusion before the phenomenon. The most complete simulation today is happening on the Internet, Baudrillard believes, with the absolute, momentary synchronization of all existence: of all places and epochs in the UBIQUITOUS, which as the newly discovered fourth dimension (past + present + future = ubiquity) of hyperreality "erases all else," in which Man ceases to be a human being and becomes a "kiborg - the mythical man-machine," which the new science of man exams; "cyber-anthropology" .. .
These stands on simulation and ubiquity are the "principal positive contribution" of Baudrillard's philosophy, Santrac considers; they radically change the hitherto understanding of anthropology because Man, in interference with the machine, can become a specter, a technological mutant. . . . Rather differently from Baudrillard, the author of this study stresses that as a whole, the human world nevertheless always "was, is, and will be woven" out of reality and
simulation, that even Baudrillard too, contrary to his own intention, irrationally, always included reality in this simulational world, as well, in which the paradoxical compatibility of reality and simulation in his work, which is an implicit "deconstruction of the explicit message of his writings."
Seduction is the other strong methodical idea of Baudrillard's philosophy. And, that term in his work is the metaphor whose meaning is hard to fathom through psychoanalysis, sexuality, feminism . . . and even [...]
Modernistic metaphysics strived to abolish phenomena and attain the essence, in which it found the meaning of the discourse. Conversely, postmodernistic "seduction stresses the game of phenomena as a . . . principle" and endeavors to "deprive the discourse of meaning." According to the meaning and determination of science in reality, "seduction shines as non-sense" with its non-definition . . . . While sex is "based on the rules of the game"; seduction will "merely play with the signs of sex," it is arbitrary, perverse, quasi-transparent .. . As such, essentially, seduction is "the will for power . . . in the form of the simulacrum," "the effect of truth that conceals that truth does not exist"' . . . . The secret of seduction, therefore, lies in the fact that it "permits the subject to live in the illusion that it has conquered the object, whereas, in fact, it is seduced by the object."
Baudrillard's stands on seduction conceal "a false and ideological dichotomy between the object and the subject" with the illusion of the total victory of the object, Santrac believes. The subject and the object are relations, they only exist simultaneously, so too in Baudrillard's seduction, simulation and suchlike. The allegedly destroyed subject always implicitly survives at least as their (self)understanding . . . Therefore, as opposed to Baudrillard's explicit stands on the non-sense of seduction and the complete victory of the object . . with him there is always the presence of the paradoxical compatibility (1) of the subject and the object, (2) of seduction and knowledge.
The dominant ontological idea of simulation and mainly epistemological metaphor of seduction are Baudrillard's methodical instruments of de/construction of the subject, history, epochs, nihilism, Good, Evil, Death .. . metaphysics and pataphysics, which this study deals with.
Binary opposites and the world ...
In contrast to Baudrillard's exclusion of one member of his essential binary opposites (simulation and reality, seduction and knowledge, the object and the subject, the end and history/time, Evil and Good, pataphysics and metaphysics . . . ) according to the model of either - or, Santrac has succeeded in demonstrating an unexpected inclusivity of the relations of these opposites according to the model of both - and: in other words, NOT "either simulation or reality," "either seduction or knowledge," "either pataphysics (the marginal . . . ) or metaphysics (the central . . .) . . .," as Baudrillard does this rigidly, preferring the initial members; BUT "both simulation and reality" . . . . Thereby, one does not achieve a new philosophical system, but only the implosion of Baudrillard's a-system by means of deconstructing his deconstruction, claims Santrac.
Baudrillard's considerations about simulation, seduction and pataphysics and striking preference of the simulative and marginal compared with reality and the essential (the central . . . ) help us, in fact, to reach a fuller truth about the human world and about paradoxical synthesis and the simulative and the real, and the marginal and the central . . . , which is not merely a subjectivist view, but always every historical state: therein really lies "the foundation and the crown of Baudrillard's philosophy," Santrac claims. Is not, perhaps, the "solution of the mystery of existence" at this point "of encounter between the simulational and the real, " the author of this study asks himself
This historical mysticism is really "the ultimate achievement of Baudrillard's thought," whereby he is among other things, "one of the most original thinkers of today," Santrac concludes.
This study by Santrac about Baudrillard's postmodernism was done on the basis of all the available primary sources and an adequate selection of others. In it, concisely and painstakingly, the author innovatively and correctly interprets
Baudrillard, subjecting his ideas to criticism with arguments, within the framework of which he formulates several of his own original views . . .
A special feature of this study is Santrac's highly successful "translation" of Baudrillard's most significant, irrational and scarcely communicable statements and para-notions into comprehensible philosophical stands and concepts, particularly, in interpreting simulation, seduction and pataphysics, those crucial, methodical and ontological terms of this philosopher, but also several belonging to others . . .
According to all this and other things, this is the most exhaustive and best scientific philosophical work in Yugoslav territory and one of the most thorough in the world about the most intriguing, living thinker of postmodernism. Therefore, I heartily recommend it to all readers, who are interested in contemporary philosophy and books on philosophy.
Zdravko Munisic, Professor Emeritus, Belgrade University, Belgrade, March 24, 2005