NP Baudrillard

[Sean Mannion]

Sorry, don't want to interrupt you when you're on roll like this, but out of 
the things i could say or ask about what you've written here, i'm really 
ultra-curious to know, is there such a thing as 'post-modernist' stimuli? 
Don't all sense data get made at the same factory, so to speak? or is the 
'post-modernist stimuli' catered for by means of a factory outlet store?

Sorry, point being that should it not seem a tad obvious that the 
"generalisations" made by Baudrillard have their context within cultural and 
social conditions? As such we aren't concerning ourselves with "human 
thought processes" in the global sense we would be if we were all talking 
about the philosophy of mind, but modes of interpretation specific to 
individuals in a given culture. Is this right, or am I missing something 
really crucially important to debate here?

If this is what were talking about, then of course Baudrillard's "us" won't 
be referring to the super-marginalised; if the super-marginalised is a 
by-word for individuals and social groups in underdeveloped nations then 
they won't be included in the term "us" because they do not exist under the 
same cultural conditions as westerners. I can't see anything racist in this 
description, unless you account for the way it inherently describes an 
inequality arrived at in some extent or another through over a hundred years 
of savage exploitation and exclusion on "our" part. Even then, Baudrillard 
has his faults but I hardly think its fair -- or sane -- to personally blame 
him for evils of Capitalism, global or otherwise.

Again, it should be stressed that Baudrillard is a cultural and social 
theorist; not a philosopher, a psychologist (or a child psychologist for 
that matter). And again, saying that a social theorist's description of 
western societies in the late twentieth century is nonsense because it 
doesn't take account for starving people in non-western societies seems 
slightly dubious. It's a bit like saying an alarm-clock in London set for 
9am is at the wrong time because it goes off two hours earlier than one set 
for the same time in Moscow. Apples and Oranges.


Sean


>From: John Doe <tristero69 at yahoo.com>
>To: jbor at bigpond.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: NP Baudrillard
>Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 17:01:56 -0700 (PDT)
>
>
>
>--- jbor at bigpond.com wrote:
>
> > On 17/10/2005 Otto wrote:
> >
> > > To be honest about it: no idea.
> > >
> > > There are about 800 to 850 million people starving
> > in Africa. This is
> > > surely no argument against the Critical Theory.
> > "That style of
> > polemic really scrapes the bottom of the barrel, and
> > it only highlights
> > the polemicist's ignorance imho."
>
>No, most probably DON'T have much to say about them,
>since those scientists aren't professing to be
>elucidating the subtle processes of perception and
>cognition, the way Baudrillard ostensibly does when he
>talks about how this post-modern world effects
>"us"....the point of my question was, WHO, exactly,
>does he have in mind? Who are this "us", and who be
>NOT this "us"?....if you ( meaning B. ) are going to
>make generalizations about human thought processes,
>you'd BETTER take into account the super-marginalized,
>along with all your super-educated French pals, or
>else you're theory isn't worth shit...since, again,
>unless he wants to risk the implication that he's a
>racist, there should be NO difference between how an
>African teenager's brain deals with "signs" and how
>Baudrilard deals with them...if there is, either A)
>human brains are differently "wired" and respond very
>differntly to the stimuli of Post-modernism, in which
>case his theses are rather dilute, vague, limited in
>application and vagarous, or B) how people respond
>post-modernist stimuli ( whatever they may be ) is
>really dependent on nurture and environment..in which
>case, he's really talking about verbally agile,
>well-read, comfortable urban intellectuals...and if
>that's the case, he should say "I have NO clue how
>people who live in so-called "primitive" circumstances
>deal with reality; all I know is how bright, verbal,
>ideally French, intellectuals deal with
>it"....theories about human psychology should include
>people's EVERYWHERE, or else they're not worth a
>damn...I have the same reaction to the newer
>"disorders" like ADD,SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER, and even
>so-called clinical depression....hey, stick that
>supposed ADD kid in front of a Playstation and he'll
>be riveted! Gee - what suddenly happened to his ADD?
>Could ADD be what used to be, before PC times, called,
>gets-restless-because-he-sucks-at-math-so-naturally-we-get-easily-distracted-from-something-we-suck-at....hey,
>when it comes to balancing my check book I have ADD!
>Give me a sexy equation to measure impedance and I
>focus....I don't see much difference..plus the kicker
>is again; if this disorder is endemic, shouldn't it
>appear in Inuit kids, African bushman kids etc.? What?
>are mental disorders suddenly only a Continental
>phemomenon? That's absurd...unless you're a
>racist...then one could say "well, gosh, Bob..it seems
>poor mud-eating black kids don't suffer ADD...their
>brains, being different of course from ours,chuckle
>chukle, just don't respond the same way that my
>urbanized white son's does..."
>
> > I'd say that astrophysicists and molecular
> > biologists also don't have
> > much to say about (or to) that poor, starving 12
> > year old Ethiopian.
> > (Not that it's an argument against "Science"
> > either.) That style of
> > polemic really scrapes the bottom of the barrel, and
> > it only highlights
> > the polemicist's ignorance imho.
> >
> > Thx for the Baudrillard/Star Trek link. (Haven't
> > read 'The Mote in
> > God's Eye' btw.)
> >
> > best
> >
> > > In the end it doesn't matter if you die at 12 of
> > starvation or at 55
> > > of cancer.
> > > Nobody gets out here alive!
> >
> >
>http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol2_2/shapiro.htm
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
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