Violence, Society and Radical Theory: Bataille, Baudrillard and Contemporary Society
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Contents:
This thesis explores the 'theories of Bataille and Baudrillard' in relation to the problem of extreme violence. The particular events of concern are the death of James Bulger, the Dunblane massacre and the 'serial killers' Frederick and Rosemary West. The thesis argues that dominant traditions in the social sciences are unable to engage with the horror of such events with anything approaching adequate terminology and that alternatives are urgently required.
The study is theoretical not empirical and these cases act as crucial reference points throughout the theoretical discussions. Such events seem to disable reason and are frequently referred to as 'inexplicable' or 'evil'. They appear to be 'in excess' of the established explanatory paradigms. The thesis investigates the possibility of 'thinking excess' in new and alternative ways, more commensurate with the intensity of such events.
The importance of Bataille notions of the sacred, sacrificial expenditure and non-dialectical negativity in approaching changing forms of extreme violence are emphasised. Bataille specifies a fundamental 'need' for violent expenditure or sacrifice that persists in a contemporary age no longer equipped to recognise these principles.
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Since then he has watched the constant and terrifyingly successful effort to build a post catastrophic, globalizing mass-mediated consumerist consensus. This prepared him to be much more fearful of a state capable of ending terrorism, than terrorism itself. People who think Baudrillard supports terrorism, a ridiculous position that betrays a lack of reading his work, do not seem to understand this.
But again, the analysis there is steeped in his reading of Bataille and Mauss, the gift, the symbolic, exchange. The so-called third world does not hate the West for what it took the standard leftist understanding of core periphery relations since long before Wallerstein , they hate us for what we gave, never stopping to ask if it was wanted. Perhaps Baudrillard is one of the few listening. He has a deep respect for ancient and for aboriginal cultures — for how they understand the world in very different, and often more powerful, ways than the modern West.
I think the Perfect Crime and Impossible Exchange are very important books as much as are the much more widely discussed Symbolic Exchange and Death and Simulacra and Simulation The world has spent the past twenty years trying to catch up to Baudrillard as have some of his early critics.
The current work develops out of his past thinking into an analysis of the fundamental conflict of our time: the West versus those indestructible singularities one of which is radical Islam. Of course, the Islamic terrorists do not make sense.
English-Language Bibliography of Writings About Cornelius Castoriadis
How are you going to stop the Westernization of Islamic societies and cultures by blowing up trains in London or Madrid or knocking down skyscrapers in New York? It is a country with little history and one that quickly obliterates what history it has — the violence of its founding and westward expansion — the savage destruction of aboriginal cultures and later of settler cultures.
The American government in Washington has been at war with small town America for over a century. Today it is joined by large companies and the victory is almost complete. This is little different from what has taken place in other Western countries — France or Germany. What is interesting to me about America is that America is a curious combination of manifest destiny and fear.
France worries incessantly about its lack of morale. Neither suffer from fear as does America. In my view the American sense of manifest destiny and foreign policy have long been driven by fear — today it seems their major motivation. Where has the focus on the short term led America? It has led it into a war on terrorism it cannot win what government or military could?
This is one area where Canadians and Americans are now remarkably similar. We are both middle class countries and the middle class is currently trapped in a mass-mediated web of fear. As long as Canadians and Americans value surveillance over privacy they will get the kind of government they deserve. On my way home from Ireland last month I sat in Shannon airport watching over U. To Kabul, to continue the occupation of one of the poorest countries on earth.
Where do we find America? And the President tells Americans that America is winning the war on terror! Today Baudrillard stands for the non-fundamentalist position as he has for over two decades. Perhaps this is why students of contemporary theory find him so useful today — he makes a space for the non-believer. In an age rapidly becoming characterized as fundamentalist be it Muslim, Christian, or the fundamentalist integrists of corporate globalization , it is very important to have things in which not to believe — a non-fundamentalist position.
He helps us to broaden the dialogue on terrorism and points to a space for those who do not wish to follow either bin Laden or Bush. GC : Yes, in the transpolitical, politics goes on as well or better than before — and there is no reason to exclude Marxism from this even if almost no one really believes in it anymore.
In the transeconomic, capital similarly proliferates and circles the globe via satellite even though almost no one believes in it anymore. There is always a place for nostalgia and to be a Marxist today is to live in nostalgia. I like to compare it to the descendants of the old European aristocracy who dress up in 18 th century garb and pledge allegiance to the descendants of the Bourbons. Empire , and especially Multitude, as books, do not work — they tumble into their own discourse and become lost — nobody knows what they mean.
This will guarantee them at least a twenty-year shelf life in academe — a publishers dream! The world is full of people with good ideas which end up causing a lot of evil and I suppose we can be impressed that human history has not been more bloody than it has. But there is no reason to believe that it will not remain bloody.
Multitude has two meanings — the optimistic tone of Hardt and Negri and the one we develop with a cool eye on life and death and human history. This later view, which I am partial to, is rather more skeptical of multitudes. Multitude makes me think of Youth in Seattle and it also makes me think of Rwandan Genocide. History is a river always overflowing its banks. The twenty-first century will be a rather bad time for the multitude I am afraid, not unlike the twentieth.
Population escalation, resource declination, climate change, biotechnology. Star Trek and its Federation of peace loving Planets made good escapist science fiction for a century everyone wanted out of. By the 24 th century they will look back on how good we had it. They will of course be taught to revile us — Star Trek got that right at least.
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Maybe America will have even won its war on terrorism by then which of course would mean the establishment of an absolute form of total control the likes of which even Hitler could not achieve — there were constant acts of terror against the Third Reich from within by German resistors. It makes one think seriously about just what kind of state would be capable of ending terrorism and what would it look like? I do not doubt the sincerity of Hardt and Negri or their followers. Multitude, as a term, also speaks to me of the restrictions of the social, global surveillance, one roots for the computer virus!
GC : You will have to ask him. For me, the transpolitical he has described means traditional political categories are of no use to us anymore.
Critical Criminology
Baudrillard has been accused of being right wing — but only by those who have read him at the most facile level or, those who are so deeply immersed in a moral crusade that anyone not so involved is immediately labeled right wing an unfortunate way the contemporary left mirrors George Bush. Baudrillard says he wants to become the Rushdie of the left.
Shedding light on the relationship between violence and contemporary society, this volume explores the distinctive but little-known theories of violence in the. Summary. Shedding light on the relationship between violence and contemporary society, this volume explores the distinctive but little-known theories of.
But for me, he is neither right nor left and has never occupied the centre. These old political locations no longer exist in the transpolitical. Like all of us he longs for meaning, a cause to attach oneself to, but there are none.
Micro political issues still exist and Baudrillard still becomes involved in them in Paris. Baudrillard is in challenge — he has one strategy he says, that is all — so like Kristeva — a process of constant revolt — theory as challenge. Such uncertainty as we face is quite intolerable, but so human. I think one of the most important things Baudrillard alerts us to is that there is one thing worse than living in uncertainty: living in a world where there is none — where everything is mapped, modeled, predictable and planned — a world without computer viruses, disease, terrorism: without evil.
All these things are protecting us from something worse — total consensus — unless that is what we are secretly dreaming of?
Coleman, Editor. This project, influenced by Barthes [], [], and [] , centers on the system of objects in the consumer society the focus of his first two books , and the interface between political economy and semiotics the nucleus of his third book. These efforts are vitally important for access to scholarship around the world. The Castoriadis Reader. But there is no reason to believe that it will not remain bloody. This critique of new media is extended in Baudrillard's recent theorisation of "integral reality". Consequently, he became world-renown as one of the most influential thinkers of postmodernity.
We do keep telling pollsters that security is more important than privacy. Yet, I am happy to report that I saw a poll on the web last week telling its readers that 70 percent of those polled reported lying to pollsters. Baudrillard, Derrida, Foucault, etc. Theory can only exist as challenge, anything else is quickly consumed with banality. Theory is a space that stands in for liberty and authenticity in an epoch that recognizes neither. Who is freer than Baudrillard?
Jean Baudrillard | The MIT Press
Nietzsche may have come close. These two understood what it meant to write with a joyful wisdom. A suspicion of culture. A place for very well established and not at all established writers on Baudrillard. A lot of hard work and a good deal of joy.