Reading Baudrillard as a Writer
Jean Baudrillard. Photo by Europeangraduateschool, CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons
I think I finally understand Baudrillard, which is to say, I think I finally understand how to read him. Take a phrase like, “The real is not real.” It’s infuriating. It doesn’t mean anything. Of course, that’s half the point. If you don’t see that, then you’ll set him down and never pick him up again. But maybe you understand that kind of statement comes with the territory. You’re still infuriated, but you recognize there’s something there, and you want to keep reading.
You will remain infuriated and dissatisfied with the way Baudrillard writes unless you accept that it is not serious. Imagine a voice reading his work out loud, but dripping with irony, maybe even sarcasm. That is how you must imagine the underlying tone in order to take anything Baudrillard writes seriously.
If what I’m saying sounds insulting to you, then that is part of the problem that I think Baudrillard was attempting to confront. To be “not serious” is not a moral failing. Moreover, to be labeled “not serious” by critics is not the insult or pejorative criticism you think. The assumption that serious-ness is a significant or worthwhile value would be a subject of Baudrillard’s critique.
But he wouldn’t say it the way I just said it — that would not be an effective critique, since the debate over the binary “serious/not serious” is moot in his view. Neither exists. Neither signifier points to anything real. He’s not going to enter a forensic debate on the merits of concepts that a signifier is meant to represent. In his view, the word “serious” doesn’t represent anything.
Thus, it can represent anything.
That’s more an example of what he would say, because instead of debating on a plane where the logic of signs still has purchase, he asserts that logic does not exist. He expresses his philosophy in such a way that the rhetoric is an example of his argument. In other words, his work embodies McLuhan’s assertion that “the medium is the message.” And because Baudrillard’s critique relies on signs to convey the emptiness of signs, this expression is filled with paradoxes, such as “The real is not real.”
So, at least for this writer, it is the expression that makes Baudrillard readable, an expression that depends entirely on the irony of communicating the incommunicable. His writing is an exercise in rhetoric, by means of which he pushes the boundaries of language and thought by denying boundaries exist. He is so committed to the expression that critics dismiss him and acolytes misunderstand him. I could never be an acolyte – I find his use of hyperbole and irony almost mawkish in the year 2023 — but I could never dismiss him. I think Baudrillard’s expression is singular, artistic, poetic. He is worth reading for reason alone.