Re: Baudrillard

[James Heartfield <James@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In message <73A00651E78@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Ricardo Duchesne
<RDUCHESN@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>Nothing absurd about Baudrillard's analysis of the Gulf war.

Wouldn't Baudrillard be disappointed with the judgement that his work
was not absurd?

> The war
>was hardly "real" in that we merely experienced it through a
>series of entangled simulated images

Mediated is not the same as unreal. 180 000 Iraqis were killed in the
initial raids. Tens of thousands more have died since as a result of the
embargo on Iraqi oil, and the shortages of medicine and foodstuffs.

>...Callinicos is not to be
>trusted on Baudrillard, or any postmodernist; he has yet to outgrow
>the infantilism  of international revolution.

Does postmodernism aim at maturity? I don't think so. Is it maturity to
make peace with the United Nations continuing war against the Iraqi
people, or to pretend that it is all spectacle?

Fraternally
--
James Heartfield