Talk:Jean Baudrillard

message: I have a complaint about this word. My complaint is that it's not a word. "Quotidian" is an esoteric word in itself, and it's really not a good idea to morph the word into an even more esoteric variant (let alone the fact that most lexicographers would tell you it's not a word). How about changing this to "mediocrity"? That's a good solid word that most people understand...
(08 Sept 2007)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.57.124.167 (talk) 17:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Quotidianity

message: I'm not sure who's done the lion's share of the editing here, but the "auteur" seems to be passively hostile to the subject. The writing is fine quality, but doesn't give a fully neutral presentation. Several of Baudrillard's arguments are couched in a somewhat dismissive and minimizing language, and criticisms are mixed in with neutral commentary in many presentations of his ideas here. As someone below pointed out "there seems to be volumnious critique of his work." This is also the impression I had on reading the article; a reader simply trying to get an overview of Baudrillard's philosophy and work comes away with the impression that he was somewhat disregarded as a thinker. The effect is subtle but substantial. I'm not familiar with Baudrillard at all and so can't repair this, but I believe that the criticisms should identify themselves as such rather than being integrated into the presentation of his thinking and work, and the slightly dismissive tone should be eliminated - criticisms are essential but have their own place and Baudrillard deserves a genuine "pro" presentation as well as the "con." Maybe someone who has studied his work can attempt to rectify this? (4/27/2007)
: I think the person who's done the 'lion's share' of the editing is probably myself, so I'd better respond. I'm sorry that you think that's how the article comes aross at present, but please be assured that, personally, I'm not hostile at all. Quite the contrary, I'm a persistent defender of Baudrillard's work (even in published print at times), and I think he's widely misunderstood. The problem, I think, is that wikipedia aims to be verifiable (that is, related to published material), and there aren't a great many vocal defenders of his work - save a small band of not vary accessible academics (check out the international journal of Baudrillard studies for who they might be). In contrast to that there's a huge amount of publications that refer to a kind of stereotyped version of him (i.e. loopy Gallic reality denier). This makes it hard to put his positions across in both an unbiased and 'wikipedian' manner. Ayway, I'll try and have a bit of a tweak with the article and see what I can do.
The Baudrillard article errs I think in citing Dennis Dutton as a critical voice illuminating Baudrillard's work. First of all, Dutton's remarks are ad hominem. Secondly, Dutton has been known to make nearly identical criticisms of a great many postmodernist thinkers. 
Baudrillard's thought is worth thinking about critically, but this quote and others like it simply make it seem that Baudrillard's thought is worth ridiculing. It is not Baudrillard, but a stereotypical 'Baudrillard' that is being discussed. Appian way (talk) 17:00, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Author-Subject Hostility?

message: Note: globalisation is a perfectly valid British spelling. Buffyg 21:48, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: fair enough, but "globaltisation" or something - which was what was there before - isn't :) --csloat 22:00, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed it was "globalsitation." "Globaltisation," however, would have had a certain irony to the mispelling. ;-> Buffyg 22:06, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: British spelling

message: How do you pronounce his last name (don't tell me in IPA, I can't read it). 63.162.73.158 20:34, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently "bō-drē-yär". If someone can convert that to IPA, it'd be a nice thing to note. Sarge Baldy 23:54, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  don't know IPA, but you'd say it bored-ree-are, give or take --212.95.227.168 10:44, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bored-we-are? After studying the guy for a semester that kind of seems accurate. :-) --Jim (Talk) 12:56, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: pronunciation?

message: Can someone explain why in this article there is a section called 'Incomparable Baudrillard' which contains links to sundry pages.  The name of the heading also sounds like an endorsement and none-too NPOV.  These links could surely be placed in External links, because they are worthwhile links.  For instance, one could write about his objurgation of Sontag's visit to Sarajevo 1994 and his intellectual disagreement with her, then use the article as a reference.--Knucmo2 11:28, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Incomparable Baudrillard??

message: I put in a quote at the end of the first paragraph of the Gulf War bit that I think sums up his views quite well. If anyone wants to footnote it (because I'm unsure of how to) I got it from Introducing Postmodernism by Richard Appignanesi and Chris Garratt. However I'm sure it could be referenced better from somewhere else. --Horses In The Sky 20:02, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gulf war 

message: The article on 'pataphysics says: "Philosopher Jean Baudrillard is often described as a pataphysician and did consider himself as such for some part of his life.".  I don't see any mention of that here; if true, it seems like it'd be useful to include some information on that in his biography. --Delirium 04:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a source for this too - The article on the Stanford page speaks of Baudrillard's pataphysical elements in his work.  Baudrillard has mentioned Jarry in his works, too. --Knucmo2 14:30, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He also wrote an essay 'The pataphysics of the year 2000'. Any reference to his Pataphysics might usefully point out that the stated purpose of the College de 'Pataphysique is to do 'learned and inutilious research', with 'inutilious' seemingly being a word in pataphysical English which translates the French word 'inutile', which in 'vulgar' pre-pataphysical English means 'useless'. This suggests that Pataphysics is just a monumental and sometimes funny joke, and Baudrillard just a monumental and useless bore trying to be funny, but succeeding in making lots of money in spite of failing to be funny, which would presumably itself be telling us something unflattering about Western society. But Wikipedia rules presumably prevent us from saying this as it would violate rules banning original research, requiring neutral point of view, etc. Plus it would presumably be a kind of politically incorrect ('disrespectful', 'bigoted', etc) quasi-blasphemy that would earn the undying enmity and contempt of devotees of the quasi-religion of Baudrillardolatry, and of those with vested interests in things like selling more of his books, or their books about him, etc... Of course 'logically' they should be perfectly happy that we dismiss him - after all, Baudrillard never existed, by the same 'logic' that he would have used to tell us that the Gulf War never happened, if he had in fact existed. And we should thus presumably 'logically' delete this entire article on the grounds that it's a work of fiction about somebody who never existed :) Tlhslobus (talk) 03:18, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Pataphysics? 

message: the post-marxism article was pointing to neo-communism, i split it out, but it will need much work to get it up to a basic level.   if people are interested, please contribute what you know, edit my starter drivel :), and help build that article too. --Buridan 13:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  post-marxism 

message: I am fascinated by his concept of hyperrealism, and was wondering, since there seems to be volumnious critique of his work, whether or not there are any critiques of this particular idea.
*
It was better when hyperreality had its own dedicated wiki page.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.55.199.158 (talk) 13:34, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  hyperrealism critique 

message: His argument can be summarised as being an attempted subversion of the (now rather outdated) thesis of Francis Fukuyama
how does this passage have any sense - what does it mean that Fukuyama's thesis is outdated? And why is it 'rather' outdated, and not simply outdated? And by this logic, would this mean that each philosopher discussin Plato or Aristotle should be prefaced with warnings that they are talking about 'outdated' positions? I think this is a nonsensical claim and will remove it. --83.131.133.28 13:43, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: outdated opinion? how? 

message: The first paragraph of the Criticisms of Baudrillard section:
:Baudrillard's writing, and his uncompromising positions, have led to criticism the force of which can only be compared to, in contemporary social scholarship, Jacques Lacan. Only one of the two major confrontational book-length critiques — Christopher Norris's Uncritical Theory: Postmodernism, Intellectuals and the Gulf War () — however seeks to reject his media theory and position on 'the real' out of hand. The other — Douglas Kellner's Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond () — seeks rather to analyse Baudrillard's relation to postmodernism (a concept with which Baudrillard has had a continued, if uneasy and rarely explicit relationship) and to present a Marxist counter. Regarding the former, William Merrin (as discussed above) has published more than one denunciation of Norris's position. The latter Baudrillard himself has characterised as reductive (in Nicholas Zurbrugg's Jean Baudrillard: Art and Artefact). (emphasis added)
Re the first sentence, is that really right?  And does that refer to Lacan's writings or writings of others on Lacan?  Re the last sentence, does that refer to postmodernism or (probably more likely, but no citation is given) Keller's analysis of "Baudrillard's relation to" it?  --zenohockey 02:11, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ambiguity, etc. 

message: "But Baudrillard supplemented this argument by contending that, although this 'dropping out' may have taken place, the global world (which in Baudrillard's writing is sharply distinct from a universal humanity) is, in accordance with its spectacular understanding of itself, condemned to 'play out' this illusory ending in a hyper-teleological way — acting out the end of the end of the end, ad infinitum. Thus Baudrillard argues that — in a manner similar to Giorgio Agamben's book Means without Ends — Western society is subject to the political restriction of means that are justified by ends that do not exist."
What does any of this mean? Wikipedia should strive for clarity. We need better writing than this. Misodoctakleidist 14:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gibberish 

message: The article on Simulacron and Simulation contains approximately as much info as the section here does, but most of it is different.  The two should be merged into that article, and, assuming that article is to be kept, a brief summary should be included here in the S&S section.  The Jade Knight 05:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oppose. It's essential that this be kept in this article, and the the S&S article be expanded.  This section is relatively short anyway, and removing it would be like removing the Trial of Socrates from the Plato article.  I count only 18 lines of text on my screen for that section -- for one of this philosopher's greatest and most well-known contributions, this section may actually be too short. Leave this section be, and put some work into the S&S article itself: it's a pretty sad article.  Cutting the spleen out of this one to try to make that one look prettier is a bad way to go about building a better Wikipedia. TeamZissou 19:06, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Support The Simulacra and Simulation article is sadly sparse, and needs to be added to, and this a good section to add to it. We aren't cutting the spleen out of the Baudrillard article, someone can just write a quick paragraph on S&S, and all will be fine. I'd do it, but I'm lazy. Potatoes9000 (talk) 11:11, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  S&S Merge 

message: May I politely suggest that this is not the space for links in German and Spanish?  There are, after all, Wikipedias in both of those languages.  I feel that the Wikipedia English community is better served with links in English.  For a scholar of Baudrillard's stature, most of the vital commentary gets translated into English anyway.  I think such links are a waste of space, better allocated to English commentary.--Dylanfly 14:05, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Delete references in German and Spanish?

message: May I suggest a link to Derrida's concept of differance in the second paragraph of the "introduction to his work"?Auctor Ignotus 15:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Differance

message: What does this word mean? Lot 49atalk 07:47, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  (ab)reaction 

message: The difference between points 3 and 4 under the heading "The object value system" introduced by "He wrote that there are four ways of an object obtaining value. The four value-making processes are as follows:[12]" is not clear:
3. The third is the symbolic value of an object; a value that a subject assigns to an object in relation to another subject. A pen might symbolize a student's school graduation gift or a commencement speaker's gift; or a diamond may be a symbol of publicly declared marital love.
4. The last is the sign value of an object; its value within a system of objects. A particular pen may, whilst having no functional benefit, signify prestige relative to another pen; a diamond ring may have no function at all, but may suggest particular social values, such as taste or class.
To me it seems as if 4 is another way of saying 3. What's the difference? If there is one it's not clear (to me at least).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.168.163.52 (talk) 13:44, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This is very funny! I have added it to my favorite diffs. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 17:59, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Under "The object value system" the distinction between 3 and 4 is not at all clear 

message: The passages on Marx and use value showed a poor grasp of Marxian categories, which might be inherited form Baudrillard's texts. Marx's concept of use value is not a normative concept. As clearly stated in the opening passages of Capital, it refers to the fact that using (or consuming) a commodity fulfills a need of whichever kind. It doesn't distinguish genuine from non-genuine needs, or physical needs from symbolic needs. Accordingly, a nuclear bomb has a use value, and so has a fashionable, branded piece of clothing. From a Marxian standpoint, the distinction between use value and sign value doesn't make sense, and the assumption that needs are never just physical, but always already socially 'constructed' needs is fully compatible with Marx's Critique of Political Economy.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.249.20 (talk) 22:44, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: That's completely incorrect, to my understanding.  This is p 126 of the Ben Fowkes translation: "The usefulness of a thing makes it a use-value. But this usefulness does not dangle in mid-air. It is conditioned by the physical properties of the commodity, and has no existence apart from the latter. It is therefore the physical body of the commodity itself, for instance iron, corn, a diamond, which is the use-value or useful thing."  Pretty clearly establishes physical properties as a delimitation on what can be considered a use-value. csloat (talk) 23:45, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Marx and Baudrillard 

message: Should be something on his writings about sexuality. seduction, etc... AnonMoos (talk) 15:05, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: sexuality

message: His grandparents were pheasants?  Is this a joke?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.225.70 (talk) 10:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untitled 

message: I get the sense that a decent chunk of this article is someone trying to pull a cruel joke on serious readers and editors.
174.4.14.34 (talk) 04:41, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Or Baudrillard and/or others trying to play a joke on the rest of the world - read the discussion on Pataphysics above (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jean_Baudrillard#.27Pataphysics.3F ) Tlhslobus (talk) 06:36, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Parody

message: For me there seems to be a huge chunk of Baudrillard's theory missing from the article which is found in the intelligence of evil... When the media replaces the event. The gulf war stopped being a war when it was replaced by the media spectacular. 9/11 stopped being a terrorist attack when it started being reported by the media. Hostages in Lebanon stopped being the event of hostage taking when the journalists took the centre stage and the story became more about the journalists and less about the hostages. 
I think this is Baudrillard's most important contribution and it is completely absent from the article. 
Let's just apply this concept to 9/11 as an example... the event only happened for those people who were present... for everybody else what happened was a media show... camera angles were chosen, clips were edited and replayed, so-called 'experts' were consulted, journalists added their opinions, editors chose to add video footage from various countries in the Middle East appearing to celebrate the attack... and so forth. The actual event of the attack became lost in the multitude of interpretations that presented the event to the world as a media spectacular... it stopped being 9/11 and became a completely different story. In this way, I think Baudrillard has took an idea first expressed clearly by Nietzsche and then again by Levi-Strauss. To miss this important part of his work is to completely miss the whole concept of the gulf war did not happen.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.23.27.50 (talk) 23:43, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  the intelligence of evil or the lucidity pact 

message: That is putting it very gernerously!    — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.153.110.25 (talk) 21:06, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Almost everything on this page is a total misrepresentation of Baudrillards work 

message: I have commented out most of the section on Simulacra and Simulation because, quite simply, it doesn't make sense.
First of all the terms "Simulacra" and "Simulation" are not defined, and yet they appear to be used in technical ways that are different from the ordinary use of these terms.
Secondly, it is not clear how these concepts fit into or emerge out of Baudrillard's previous work on semiology and economics. 
Finally, a set of three examples is given, which are alleged to come from Baudrillard's writing, though no citation is given, and each of these examples is weirder than the last, and seems to make even less sense. How, for instance, is a ménage à trois with a set of identical twins, in any sense a paradigmatic example of a concept Baudrillard would claim illustrates a general phenomenon of consumer-capitalist culture worldwide?24.61.43.101 (talk) 22:06, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simulacra and Simulation 

message: Chas. Caltrop, if you want to change the wording of the "core ideas" section, then you need to discuss the issue on the talk page and try to gain consensus for your changes. I do not consider the changes you made here an improvement in any way, and you should not have restored them without discussion, as you did here (you should also not have marked the edit as minor). FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:25, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Core ideas section 

message: his word simulation was meaningless. he played with language, nor was talking bout the computer simulation (the often meaning). Yoandri Dominguez Garcia 08:04, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  The internal link to simulation aint needed 

message: Hi all, I think there is an error in the Second paragraph of "Key Concepts".
The paragraph says that Baudrillard had views that contrasted with "Post-structuralism (such as Michel Foucault), for whom the formations of knowledge emerge only as the result of relations of power". 
Not a professional continental philosopher here but I think I know enough to say that the assertion that knowledge is formed by power relations is not post-structuralist, but critical theory.
Moreover, Foucault personally rejected the label that he was a post-structuralist, so we shouldn't label him as one.
::he may have rejected the label but contemporary sources tend to categorize him as poststructuralist, also Baudrillard had a bit of a beef with Foucault, so that might be why he is the "such as," but not an expert either so who knows.  Acousmana (talk) 15:22, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  complaint: article has inaccuracy regarding the things Baudrillard rejected. 

message: The section starts off with saying that Poster thinks Baudrillard is relevant...and then backs this up with a lengthy quote by Poster that appears to be harshly critical of Baudrillard's work.  So...huh?  Thus the self-contradictory tag.  Also, not quite contradictory, but it then says .  This seems like Wikipedia accepting Poster's view of Sokal and Norris's view of Baudrillard as definitive, but it may very well be a mischaracterization.  If Poster thinks so highly of Baudrillard (or does he?), it's inappropriate to state this in Wiki-voice.  Better would be to actually go to Sokal and Norris for some more direct criticism, and then offer Poster's response.
Unfortunately, this is all opaque horsetwaddle ("The concurrent spread of the hyperreal through the media and the collapse of liberal and Marxist politics as the master narratives, deprives the rational subject of its privileged access to truth"...*barf*), and I don't have access to the sources anyway, so I'll just leave this here in case anyone has the ability and/or desire to clean this up a bit.  35.139.154.158 (talk) 00:47, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Is this an improvement? FatalSubjectivities (talk) 03:53, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

text: Is itLess self-contradictiory nwow FatalSubjectivities (talk) 03:54, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: it is impossible to make justice of critical opinions of B. (Or of anyone) if the review of criticism is a mere collection of sound bites. These sections on reception of works, common in Wikipedia, are often no more than a collection of blurbs from book jackets. Pointless to argue. Useful to expand. 93.44.1.162 (talk) 10:56, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poster 

message: Sophistry: The use of reasoning or arguments that sound correct but are actually false. The Britannica Dictionary
Given some of his lack of clear logic or sound 'thinking', why are people spending their time on the Talk page debating and defending the ideas of Jean Baudrillard? Instead of being seduced/side-tracked by his fine-sounding words, might not Wikipedia editors step back and ask: how much of what he says means anything and how much is pure Sophistry?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.166.176 (talk) 18:59, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Truth,  Half-Truth and Nothing Like The Truth?