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Wednesday, March 07, 2007
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We Wouldn't Have Had White Noise Without Him Jean Baudrillard, theorist of hyperreality and simulacra, has died. Although UD learned quite a bit from some of his early essays, she finds the quotations from him that newspapers are featuring in his obituaries quite stupid. Here's one, from a Canadian paper: "Santa Barbara is a paradise; Disneyland is a paradise; the U.S. is a paradise. Paradise is just paradise. Mournful, monotonous, and superficial though it may be, it is paradise. There is no other." No other! Give up looking! Similarly, notes the New York Times, "Since illusion reigns, [Baudrillard] counseled people to give up the search for reality." No reality! Give up looking! “All of our values are simulated,” he told The New York Times in 2005. “What is freedom? We have a choice between buying one car or buying another car? It’s a simulation of freedom.” It's all simulated! Forget it! |