Jean Baudrillard's "Why Theory?"

This week, I take on Jean Baudrillard's "Why Theory?" which can be found in "The Ecstasy of Communication" but it deserves its own episode.
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[@matth464]

Hey David! 👋 seeing a video on Baudrillard is a nice surprise! 👌

[@TheDangerousMaybe]

Really wonderful summary of the Baudrillardian Real. You and I basically have the same understanding of it. Anyway, another excellent video! And thanks for making the 'Why Theory' essay known to me. I haven't read that one yet. Keep up the great work, David!

[@pipersolanas3322]

Thank you for this! Always delighted to see you talking about Baudrillard

[@mat145395]

great video, really clear and enjoyable

[@rafaelcarvalho3928]

Killer video!!! Very very nice!

[@gabriellesenft9009]

Thank you for this Video! 💯

[@Inhumanform]

Thanks David, Baudrillard's work is amazing, as are your videos.

[@TuniQ]

Love your videos David, could you do one on Baudrillards critique of Beaubourg at some point? I was fascinated by that passage essay but a bit confused at the same time.

[@wizard8995]

This passage is insanely dense, I really like the breakdown. My only thought is that perhaps Baudrillard is arguing that theory is always forced to be an acceleration of logic, and much like a lot of his work in the period, argues that "we" as subjects must also become a form of acceleration rather than only relying on writing? The ending paragraph or two remind me of a passage in S&S where he discusses a child growing up, and the rejection at all levels that takes place, as relational to the double-bind a system of late-stage capitalism puts everyone into, with only a mode of hyper-conformity, to push something to it's limits, as a method to escape. That being said, I think especially in these last few paragraphs it shows for me, a terminal issue in Baudrillard's work, in which he never really describes a way out of all of this and each time he describes a method to escape, he disagrees with it within a later article, though that may be his point, that we are doomed to fail and attempts to fix things merely sustain the system. That being said, I am no Baudrillard scholar, I've just read a lot of his work.

[@victorburnett6329]

Let's have a look at that bookcase.

[@billhaywire]

Also the title of a Gang of Four song. Actually why the title caught my interest.

[@pinecone421]

Any thoughts on animal ethics?

[@romanticplacebo3693]

Great video, in fact, I think it might be your elaboration on simulation here that's finally helped me understand how it changes the idea of historical materialism. My question is whether Baudrillard's view of theory making the world less understandable through extremes can be seen as an expansion of Marcuse's view of negativity and contradiction in actions and images as counters to ideological empiricism? Baudrillard's fatal strategies seemed to accept the one-dimensional absorption of imminent critique, but as he said, "be more true than true" which he always framed as a kind off wager, which is what allowed him to posit that the world had gotten away from itself rather then nailing it down to an ideological set of operations.

[@StAsshole]

This gave me a feeling of taking a function to its limit and see if it collapses, a lot of the new fields in math and physics were discovered beyond these limits. i.e. imaginary numbers, quantum physics etc..

[@funnyhandle]

I bought HATRED OF CAPITALISM many years ago merely because I needed that spine on my bookshelf

[@RobWickline]

im having trouble finding this text. is it in a collection or somewhere online?

[@nicholasv7560]

Is baudrillards conception of the real more similar to lacans conception of the symbolic than lacans conception of the real? I’m trying to grasp these concepts through comparison

[@eanji36]

Yes! I've came to that conclusion too. Baudrillard has some direct refernces to Lacans Real and in all of them he clearly misunderstands the real as simple trancendance

[@joe-joe8928]

Great summary! I feel like it's saying the work of theory is the goal of theory but in a profoundly complex way. It's a nice thought, but it actually feels pretty sarcastic. Like, this feels intentionally annoying.

[@JAYDUBYAH29]

Don’t tell it to the pilot flying the plane!

[@adamwadley6086]

You never say where the essay is from, I can't find it

[@anjaliprakash3075]

Can I get your mail id..need to talk about Baudrillard more.. my doctoral thesis is about him.

[@HegelsOwl]

Baudrillard took an early interest in "pataphysics." So, never possible to take him seriously. This interest accounts for his impressive skill at being trivial and pedantic at the same time.

[@thornspitfire3977]

If what you introduced is what Baudrillard says, then he's just a guy who renamed Kant's ideas and had a bad take on them. In relation to itself his take on theory is self destructs. He's asserting "there's no truth/we can't get to truth" based on a statement he considers true, which is of course a huge contradiction. All we can say is we don't necessarily know our truths are real unless we have complete knowledge of the real.

[@amarshmuseconcepta6197]

🎯 LOL ...how can we have" real "when everything we have indoctrinated with has been a lie!? "start at the younger dryas and go backwards 👍pip pip 😉

[@thornspitfire3977]

@@amarshmuseconcepta6197 you already assume "everything we have known is a lie" as truth. that argument falls apart on it's own.

[@bubblegumgun3292]

Ok hear me out I've been having similar talks. But first some background where im coming from. You see in evolutionist vs creationist debates one big talking point from creationist is that the laws of physics facts and all truths are reliant on God to make them true, to uphold them consistently. But you see not all theist are the same . While i agree you need a god for "facts" in saying this there is a massive exploit is revealed. You see if laws of physics and facts rely on a authority to make them objective and true you are at the same time also admitted all "facts" and laws of physics are just a construct but instead of government enforcing them its a God. So the fact the a tyrannical government killing you for violating the speed limit is no different from god's universe killing you because you went so fast you burnt up from friction due to laws of physics. Because you see your facts only remain true WITH IN the universe outside of it is chaos. So facts are no longer facts. It is in this egg we call our universe that we can make consistent observations. But at the same time we admit we live in a matrix thus its also false . Its a super position like saying a character getting killed in video game with no saves would be fact in that video game. But outside the video game its not really real despite it being real to the character in game. Its Meta Af. So it may sound out there but ive been able to prove some of it So yeah Jean is right nothing is "real" but only "real" within the egg. but here is where Foucault is also right Power is the only thing to really aim for since god needs power to apply order from chaos , because might makes right.

[@xboofman3081]

Ironically very socratic if one assumes that he reinstates the whole are u sure that u know smt to the fullest extent? xD

[@adame6425]

The real is traditional society which was still in contact with natural law. Ever since the industrial revolution we have been living in a simulation. The world grows more unreal day by day and we are no longer tethered to our roots. People used to be very happy thinking that God picks the sun up with His hand every morning and placing it in the sky, they believed that because they believed in God and God mattered to them. Conversely, the fact that the earth spins at a certain speed and revolves around the sun really doesn't have that personal of an impact on my life. Many of civilization's greatest works of fiction involve the voyage into uncharted waters, a quest into the dark unknown forest, etc. There is no mystery to the world anymore now that ever inch of it has been charted. What difference does it make to the average human that scientists can now split atoms? We are told this is progress but it certainly isn't fulfilling.