NP Baudrillard

[John Doe]

Not quite apples and oranges....IF B. explicitly has
or would imply a disclaimer with his generalizations
TO the effects you have listed, then yeah, my
criticism of what he attempts to entail by his
postualtions would be overkill... no question...but if
he has tacitly assumed that "everyone" lives in a
post-modernist world, then I have the said
justifications; he would need to explain more clearly
what he means by post-modern influences, and more
importantly, upon WHOM, exactly, does he imagine them
to be working on? Being an intellectual yourself, I
assume, don't you think it intellectually responsible
for him to be more precise? Or, if not precise, to
simply admit "I am not being very precise here" or"
given certain conditions, A, B and C, THIS is what I
take to be the case"...etc...I mean, My beef with his
kinda Theorizing is that, ironically, it's LESS humble
and willing to admit errors of judgement than an
average scientist's...hmmmmmm...kinda strange for the
discipline that is ostensibly SOOOOOOO dogmatic, so
Absolutist. etc....most scientists freely admit to
errors all the time; it's part of what they know to be
good science..sure, each one has their favorite ideas
and agendas..of course!...but within the community so
to speak, a ill-wrought theory will collapse or be at
least tweaked eventually....usually, but granted not
always, sooner than later....and REALLY dumb ideas
don't last much longer than lunchtime for the most
part...and if they do...they will have their turn to
be put to the test as well...

--- Sean Mannion <third_eye_unmoved at hotmail.com>
wrote:

> 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
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >__________________________________
> >Yahoo! Music Unlimited
> >Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.
> >http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/
> 
> 
> 



	
		
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