Jean Baudrillard vs. Guy Debord
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- čas přidán 12. 07. 2023
- In this episode, I present the differences between Jean Baudrillard and Guy Debord's views of the spectacle and simulation.
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Brilliant video. These authors and the topics you are discussing is of acute interest to myself. However, I am not an academic or professional philsopher, just a layman with a passion for philosophy (Baudrillard in particular).
Guy Debords 'Society of the Spectacle' and the 'Comments on' - are the best descriptor and introduction to the concept of the spectacle, and its forms. However, for someone watching this video and looking for an introduction to these ideas I would whole-heartedly recommend Baudrillards first book The System of Objects. It is much more approachable and covers many more specific ideas and phenomena that SOTS does.
Baudrillards complete bibliography covers so much ground overall and reading his writings chronologically, which I have done, is an astounding journey. As most are aware, Baudrillard was controversial until his death because he shone a light on terms and concepts taken for granted in all spheres - though mostly sociology - and made it obvious that they existed on rather shaky ground, for lack of better words.
There is a much deeper historical analysis in Baudrillards work, and as with Debord, it wasn't the popularity of television that is indicative to the rise of the spectacle, it is a totally encompassing social relation mediated by images that has developed historically. Alienation, for Baudrillard, in a concept out of touch with our situation - much like Labour, Class, ect. Living in the hyperreal (the spectacle) has erased all our old conceptual values that we used to rely on, we are satalietes reflecting and mirroring signals/images. With Baudrillards concept of the Mass, people are happy to dissolve into a larger object and renounce subjectivity. Thank god we don't have to develop our own identities and realities, they are finally there for ready consumption (granted, if you can afford them).
Baudrillard is a brilliant author and his work in amazing, confusing at times and always thought-provoking. There will be times where you are completely lost but they are overshadowed by the moments you read things with such insight that they could have been written recently (as opposed to close to 40 years ago!) To anyone wanted to explore, read The System of Objects. Watch Rick Rodericks 'Self Under Siege' lecture series, particularly the last episode based on Baudrillard and Debord.
I apologise if this comment is a little loose and off the mark.
A little loose and off the mark? Absolutely not, as far as I'm concerned you've superbly put it.
DeBord’s reclamation of the real is practical. It is impossible to engage with the world as if it were not real, though I think there is an inherent in actionable truth behind Baudrillard’s mystery that can be held in revolutionary times as a metric against absolutism.
You're doing a great job! I support you in your 'project'!
For me Debord > Baudrillard. When Baudrillard states that there's no longer a real, he sounds romantic and one wonders how he can make that statement without 1) presupposing we would know what the real is if it were to appear and 2) from what vantage can he name simulacra or simulation at all. If there's no real then there's no simulacra either. At least for Debord, what he calls the spectacle is part of the larger operation of capitalism, not it's sole operation.
I think Baudrillard meant the real as a psychological concept linked to culture before mass production. It never existed in the first place, but the simulacrum takes it to the next level and doesn't refer to anything. I find it very difficult to understand and explain so any help would be appreciated.
@@khwaac thanks for replying. It's my understanding that Baudrillard is speaking ontologically (not psychologically) when he asserts that there is no world other than the capitalist cultural symbols we inhabit. If that's the case, then what's the real world that has disappeared? Isn't the absence of the real (the real that no longer exists) also simulacra? If so, then why speak of simulacra at all?
@@StarBoyXI I meant that in semiology which he was influenced by, the signified is a psychological concept that doesn't refer to a physical reality. The signifier is the word "real". It isn't ontological, it's a genealogical critique. They aren't cultural symbols they are signs in the semiological sense with no referent. Baudrillard said that in final stage of simulacra the signifier and the signified collapse in on each other and become empty signs.
I remember watching this thinking the intro was very intense and leaving it thinking this is the best video you've done
Thank you! It is excellent work to compare similar theories. Please continue doing so.
More Debord, I disagree with a lot of his views yet, see him as a kindred spirit. I think it would have been cool to be a situationist back in the day the merger of philosophy with art and highly convoluted politics is interesting. Debord was punk rock before there was punk rock.
Television and computers weren't the focus of Debord's theory of the Spectacle, which was developed in the 1960's before these were ubiquitous (especially in Debord's radical milleu). It was more of an extension of Marx's theory of commodity fetishism than a critique of media per se. But, the subsequent dominance of these spectacular media could be seen as evidence that his theories were correct.
This evoked for me Derrida's critique of the metaphysics of presence which seems to play out between these two positions, Debord positing a presence that is occluded by representation or absence and Baudrillard suggesting that this metaphysic is itself a product of an ideology produced by representation. It would be interesting to look at the difference between Derrida and Baudrillard then, if only to survey the array of positions taken up by philosophic thinking of this period, to look at how different thinkers arrayed themselves within this horizon of this period of thought.
I tend to side with Baudrillard, we don't know what we don't know in the material world nor the transcendental realm.
just watched this video while shitting, thank you for breaking down the key differences between baudrillard and debord 👍🏽👍🏽
I LOVE Baudrillard content-great vid
gotta go with Baudrillard, it seems that the simulacrum is too embedded into all individuals lives, invading their psyche and thus we can't to truly break free from capitalisms oppressive force as we understand majority of living experiences through the systems of capitalism (more specifically not just politically but apolitically, use of symbols and such). We do need to try focus more on the self through Baudrillard's suggestion to embrace the indeterminacy of the world and its absurdity (although we can't access true reality, the attempt is worth it), to confront the struggle (we are struggling but attempting to negate it, which is ironically more sufferable) is not to be a part of the human experience no more as we got to this point for a reason and continue to try to progress this agenda (thus as Baudrillard expresses there is no one to wake up). At the same time however, since we are so far gone how can we also not ignore the horrible things which continue to happen due to capitalism?
Thank you
I am also a scholar of these areas and I think Debord and Baudrillard are more different than similar. Debord was the shining star of the international situationists. I think you would really like Sadie Plant's book about situationism and its product Malcolm Mcdowell and the sex pistols.
I think that both are worth reading. Debord's work (SotS and the later Comments to SotS) is much more approachable and it could be a bridge for someone towards Baudrillard's work (whose take I find more interesting and relevant even though I am more familiar with Debord's work). I don't like the preoccupation with economics/capitalism/whatever and put more emphasis on the technological development (la technique, Ellul) providing the basis for the phenomena that both Debord and Baudrillard deal with.
have you read Debord's sequel to the Societ of the spectacle?
I like both, but I would say I tend to agree with Baudrillard more then Debord.
It seems to me a bit too easy to assume the existence of an objective reality. Gotta go with Baudrillard, but I'd love to see a comment on how (and if) his view intersects with Marxist struggle.
Amazing video as always 😊
Y chromosome detected
Baudrillard here is much more insightful on the true situation. As you maybe alluded Debord is sort of more naive here. Baudrillard here makes me think about the ways which the simulation has existed before but in different ways than today’s version which in and of itself has many ways in which it exists.
For Baudrillard, there is no alienation, only integral reality.
Hard for me to disagree with baudrillard on an epistemic level. The world is not grapable, and this warning over a complete and certain truth is, maybe, scary, but not hopeless. Just that this has always been the case, and this uncertainty and unending struggle is innately human.
Guy was thinking which way 2 walk
What is that tapestry
And awesome video
Sounds like critical interactionism vs post structuralism. Post structuralism only finds an active subject in their resistance to power. Together that means they are both right. Questioning reality is real... I think therefore I am, you I am not so sure about.
From an amateur photographer:
Well, Baudrillard is an amazing amateur photographer ("Car l'illusion ne s'oppose pas à la réalité...", several exhibitions). Debord is not as far as I know.
I think baudrillard is an augmentation of debord, and that they aren't necessarily incompatible. I think a good question for baudrillard would be what existed before these simulations started? Surely there was a reality at that time correct? Did homo erectus exist in a simulacra? If so I'd like to hear the argument lol. I think you could say debord is talking about that "reality" when he says reality. Whether we can even return to that reality is another thing, but I think it would be naive to predicate the revolutionary objective of Marxists on the existence of some fundamental reality. If capitalist realism is one reality then I suppose Marxist want to create socialist realism or whatever they would call it.
I'm more of a modernist than a postmodernist. I prefer a more clear-cut worldview. Debord's view seems more rational to me. Baudrillard's view tends towards a subjective, relativist view of the world. I think the progressive way forward is through sheer brute logic. Many different perspectives can claim truth, but truth-seekers should be objective and rely on scientific knowledge to parse through facts and fiction. Of course, no one can have a perfect understanding of objective truth, yet we should try anyways. If we give up on objectivity in the name of tolerance, then fascists can use that to their advantage. They don't care about truth; they care about power. The best way to fight fascism is to be ruthlessly objective and knowledgable.
Exactly, the fact that we can not go back is Baudrillard's message. I think you should look at his quote of the "hyper reality" that the "hyper reality" is now more real than real. Which is what you are saying, but I think you are misquoting him. Because Baudrillard does not believe the world is real, he believes it is a hyper reality. Also, look at "Death and the impossible exchange" We can not as baudrillard puts it "buy the market." Some things are not exchangable - the flaw in the system. In other words, reality is hidden - and therefore can come back - but can't be done by choice - as your other philospher suggests. The only way we can affect this hyper reality and make it more real is through the hyper reality - not by ignoring it - of course.
The difference between the two thinkers resides in the fact that Debord comes from a working class background and Baudrillard a higher middle class, this colors their respective frame of reference and outlook where one will be bolder and down to earth in his statements and the other loftier and apprear more sophisticated.
Baudrillard comes from a farmers family.
@@leprofesseur4264 thanks for telling me intuition was wrong, i'm glad to be corrected in a safe place like this ;)
Baudrillard is correct tbh but Debord is awesome
Against the real world.
I think you excluded a lot of what comes up in Comments on Society of the Spectacle, which is a much more pessimistic work and would be very significant for this comparison
Also, this isn’t important but your attempt French pronunciation actually seems to be farther from the real pronunciation than your English pronunciation
bro you're wrong though. the spectacle is debord's concept, whereas simulation is baudrillard's. didn't even listen because you fucked up initially lol
Your wisdom radiates!
😂