So philosophers ever since have been sophists and its just about the battle. Baudriallard then used something Lyotard called "retorsion", when you show an argument against you is in fact speaking for you - reverse uno, nice metaphor.
“ Politics is pretty much everyone that has a noncommittal low effort agreement that some guy, who sounds like he’s got a plan should run things‘ Haha, Love this quote.
I think a frustration is that we know that change won't come without collapse. We want to prevent the suffering brought by collapse, warning of its inevitability, lest we succumb to it. We don't want to suffer while knowing we are destined to suffer if change is to come.
Baudrillard introduced a very necessary perspective back to us. He provided us with vision of self awareness, allows us to take control of this framework we call ideology which we use to interact with eachother and the world. He provided us an opportunity to build mindfully, rather than let it be a product of contingency. Amazing.
I don't know about all the conclusions of the video but the general thrust does flow with something I've noticed in my own organizing: people are busy, exhausted, and primarily want to spend time with their friends, family, and on their hobbies. Doing the "Glorious Revolution (tm)" tends to take time away from those things. So they're only going to bother if the real situation has gotten so bad as to be totally untenable and would rip them away from it anyway or if the action demanded of them is actually *easier* than the status quo in some way. Thus, unless we're going to indulge in accelerationism (which I tend to hate with a violent passion), it looks to me like the real object of left politics has to be learning how to construct systems that make people's lives easier in a particular way that is counter-hegemonic. That is, make it so doing something like going shopping at your local food co-op is *easier* than going to walmart and walmart's inevitable attempt to crush the co-op puts it in the position of specifically making people's lives *harder* in a way that they are likely to resist. No grand speeches about freedom or anything necessary. Just a series of interlocking systems that draw people in and make useful conflicts inevitable.
There's some old theory that could still be useful in this regard, mainly to do with dual-power; constructing new institutions that serve the people while infiltrating existing institutions to make them less violent toward the people.
The better thing to do would be to pressure the legal system to broaden the playing field and limit the power of conglomerates and monopolies. Especially in factory farming examples. I don't know how we can design new systems that don't just encourage the platform owner to rig the deck in their favor. Uber eats and postmates
@@wraithwrecker_ definitely agree with this. It's been a guide to action for me. I feel like much of the criticism of this video can be said to be directed at those who spend their time talking about materialism while doing little to change material conditions. Even if we're to look at the evolution of the bourgeoisie, they didn't spend the majority of their time trying to "convince" people of their liberal-capitalist worldview before their revolutions. They built the damn institutions. All their talk was justification for what they were *already* doing and why they should have an expanded role in society. They actually changed material conditions until a crisis point was reached. While things won't be that straightforward for us, we need to be doing something similar.
@@SAGERUNE The answer to your question about how to design new systems is something to be worked out in practice so I won't waste both of our time by trying to spell it out. But I will point out that, by your own logic, pressuring the legal system would seem to be a waste of effort. The liberal system in a bourgeois-liberal state exists to serve the bourgeois-liberal elite. I'm not sure how we would pressure such a system that does not involve building institutions of counter-hegemonic power that can resist domination.
Idk if I understood the video, but there was one thing said I already knew & think is important & which I find crazy that everybody around me left to right still thinks differently: Revolutions are not made by ideas. People didn't suddenly think the king is stinky one day after thinking he's pogchamp the other, there's open monarchists everywhere today & there have been anti-monarchists since the concept of monarchism. The thing that causes revolutions is material changes.
the final quotation/reflection reminds me of Roland Barthes's preface to Mythologies -- "[M]y claim is to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which can make sarcasm the condition of truth." fantastic video, as usual!
3:44 this point ( in the 90s ) was the moment I hated bauldrillard. I sometimes think Mark Fisher reached this moment as well. Back then there was no spectacle as we know and understand it today, there was no apparatus to virtualise us as content, that dictates that we should know each other as content. Most importantly our social exchanges were framed by a community morality embedded in rights that we acted out - you just couldn’t go around attacking people. Groups like churches, the military and even politicians had to come to your door to personally speak to you if they wanted you to do something. We haven’t begun to pull social media apart in the way we should be.
I disagree, I think there's nothing new under the sun in that respect. Imagine the state of mind of a mid-century middleclass suburban American. They have to carefully craft their image to portray middleclassness. Their house, clothing, decorating, interests and yard are all scrutinized continually. Planting the wrong sort of flowers, or having the wrong kind of hobbies or interests got people rediculed, berated, and othered. (Fussels book on class has more about this) I don't see how this is any different than someone carefully crafting their online profile. The difference now, however, is that we are more free to chose which community we embed ourselves in.
@@karankaushikk yes. We protested. the feeling of disillusionment with voting was prevalent among those fighting for systemic change. However, history also shows that suffrage and political participation were critical in many movements to expand rights and bring about change, though not always immediately or easily.
I was a little skeptical of some of your videos at first (the Derrida video on Hauntology was my introduction), but on further examination I think you do a solid job of steelmanning some of the more interesting aspects of post-modern type thought. These topics can be very intimidating and confusing to say the least, but I respect the light you bring to the subject, especially in a climate that seems particularly hostile to these ways of thinking right now. Bravo!
Absolutely awesome video. The visuals are also incredibly good. I love that you also went for the black and white supplemented with vibrant accent colors kind of aesthetic.
This is something that I've been thinking about for a while now and I'm so glad to see that it's actually being discussed. Humans are not dumb they are lazy and we are smart enough to find ways to stay lazy. We want everything to be as easy and comfortable as possible.
Fucking Gorillas spend something like 75% of their time sitting about "being lazy"...You ever see how swole a groilla is lol??...Nah, "lazy" is a term some greedy capitalist made up in order to make people work harder.
Thought provoking video! And the fact that I happened to get THC gummy commercials thrown in every few minutes really help to accidentally drive home the point.
It’s worth viewing the debate surrounding AI just now. The leading scientist guy at Open AI (Ilya something) said about his work: “Imagine having the world’s best meditation expert in your home.” And his partner said: “AI is an extension of human nature.” Both of these insights point to just how banal it is, and to the banality of life generally. There is nothing interesting about it - beyond the phenomenological catastrophe of it all.
… I’m not sure what you’re saying. Also, there’s no expertise in meditation. You just be in the now which automatically silences your stream of consciousness. There’s no grades or level or effort to it. And ai is just an extension of human nature. Like cars or drawings or anything else humans create What is the point you’re trying to make?
Very accurate representation of Baudrillard. I still think that Baudrillard has some of that disdain for the masses/mass though, and reading too much of him can only be described as an exercise in getting depressed. But he’s important nonetheless
It's one of the best videos I've seen in a while, thank you for that. I do wonder if debord was as idealistic as you make him out to be, but then again back then he didn't have the hindsight we have now. I'll strive to make enjoyable theory from now on
Plastic. Your coverage of Allende’s Chile gave me goosebumps! Do us 🇧🇷 a favor. Please look into the way Brazil came to be, it’s halted potential and how philosophy, culture, and external forces brought us to the grim situation half of our country is facing. And if you get any ideas for a video, that would be awesome as well. Love from Brazil!
"The strategy of theory should be a little more playful. Or artful. A little less self-assured. And maybe a little more fatal." Very well said. And while I agree with many of the other comments that this is a great video on a great channel, I don't think it's enough to diagnose that the obscene is the scene and depth is merely illusionary. The illusion of depth must also be embraced. In metamodern theory I came across the term "depthiness" which seems to put this "illusion" in more neutral terms. An after all, "illusion" comes from "illudere", hence "ludus", thus hinting at the playful character of our desire to see something where there is only void.
I'm thinking along similar lines like he seems to believe that these soulless, corporate reality TV shows are the pinnacle of representing love even though you can't get any less artful than that
I got rid of virtually all social media and gained a ton my focus and clarity to practice critical thinking, in addition, I’ve turned off ALL viewing and search history on UA-cam and I cannot tell you how even withdrawing just a slivers worth from the culture of “spectacle” is freeing. This makes quite a bit of sense.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:30 🌐 *Postmodernist perspective sees social media as a continuation, not a departure, from the traditional spectacle, blurring the line between reality and the spectacle.* 01:49 🤔 *Baudrillard's strategy questions the existence of a "real" social that can be reclaimed, suggesting it was a theoretical after-the-fact construct.* 02:41 📢 *Baudrillard challenges the idea that more communication will lead to social awakening, arguing that excessive communication, especially through anti-social media, deepens the ideological dream.* 05:07 🧠 *Debord's perspective emphasizes consciousness as crucial for societal change, envisioning intellectuals awakening the masses to economic relations.* 06:35 🤯 *Baudrillard questions the inevitability of mass consciousness, challenging the Enlightenment fantasy and suggesting that the model of consciousness as a choice is flawed.* 08:53 🤷♂️ *Baudrillard challenges the Marxist view of ideology, questioning whether people truly desire freedom and suggesting that theorists might be alienated from the masses.* 11:12 🔄 *Baudrillard proposes dropping the concepts of "consciousness" and "the social" from societal analysis, arguing that the masses' choices are often unconscious and unrelated to ideology.* 13:30 🎭 *Politics is portrayed as a spectacle, revealing the performative nature of political scenes and challenging traditional ideas about rational decision-making in politics.* 16:22 💑 *Relationships and love are demystified, with the spectacle exposing the "scene" as a theatrical production and questioning the deep meanings traditionally associated with them.* 19:28 🌐 *The spectacle, according to Baudrillard, reveals the superficial nature of human desires, highlighting the preference for sign exchanges and seduction over deeper economic concerns.* 21:05 📺 *The end of the spectacle blurs distinctions between true and false, transforming information into a medium where the message is independent of the program.* 23:51 🛋️ *Baudrillard argues that people are not dumb but lazy, preferring to let politicians fail while they enjoy the spectacle, challenging traditional notions of political engagement.* 24:45 🌐 *Baudrillard suggests that "society" is better explained as human + communication media, not necessarily human sociability, politics, or intelligence.* 26:51 🔄 *Baudrillard challenges the idea of individual subjectivities shaping society, arguing that the Mass, influenced by mass media, is an object, not a subject.* 27:45 📊 *Baudrillard criticizes Debord's idea of awakening the masses, claiming it leads to hyper-conformism and suggests that the Mass resists changing history.* 29:15 🔄 *Overproduction of meaning, according to Baudrillard, perpetuates the system's logic, and the strategy should be to stay on the surface and resist seeking depth where it doesn't exist.* 30:16 🎭 *Baudrillard advocates for theory to be less serious, more playful, and artful, aiming to dismantle ancient illusions rather than escaping ideology.* 31:21 🔄 *Baudrillard's escape from illusion involves taking the world's side against subjects, recognizing that history is already dismantling the illusion of the "real real."* 31:51 😌 *Baudrillard's perspective offers relief by asserting that individuals have no agency to control or change the meaning in the universe or the direction of history.* 32:20 🤔 *Baudrillard embraces nihilism not as a lack of belief but as a rejection of holding illusions sacred, suggesting that philosophers should be rated on interestingness rather than illusory depth.* 33:27 🙌 *Baudrillard appreciates the audience's support, emphasizing that they are true producers of history, challenging the conventional notion of subjects and agency in society.* Made with HARPA AI
I appreciate this channel so much - and I really hope that I get to see a time in which this channel engages with the perspectives of bell hooks; specifically, All About Love and The Will to Change, i think this might provide a catharsis to the perspectives of Baudrillard and Lacan and Deleuze and Guittarri - and I say this as someone who used to engage those thinkers and philosophers constantly
@@dunningdunning4711 I get why you'd call it defeatist. At the same time, academics from the humanities (for whom I think this is the core audience of this critique) become trapped in a perpetual state of elaborating their moral revolt, and treat their expository work and theorizing as the groundwork of change. At a certain point, ya gotta wonder why the business daddies don't take theory as a serious threat to their hegemony.
@@feruspriest Not necessarily the groundwork, but useful for identifying issues, such as why revolution doesn't come (Gramsci, Althusser). There's definitely a lot of intellectual masturbation, but I think philosophy and theory both have important, although very modest, jobs. So much of "common sense" is simply the corpse of dead philosophies.
Not sure if this pans out well, but I was connecting this to Indian philosophies. Those philosophies all seem to annihilate the individual from both above and below, so to speak. From above, nondual or materialistic metaphysics demolish the individual as merely parts of a larger whole which is effectively laughing at us parts running around with our anxieties on its stage of entertainment. From below, the metaphysics atomizes (literally in some cases) subjects to objects and processes of objects, also giving the philosopher something to laugh at -- why do we sacks of literal shit get so anxious about other shit? Of course, the concept of delusion and dialectics, with the goal of true consciousness matches up as well. And there is a noted lack of social analysis ie. philosophy of history or politics like in the Western traditions, at least that I'm aware of as something similar to a Marxist worldview. Maybe worth looking into more?
This is a really interesting take with so much to unpack. It would be extremely interesting to talk about this/review it/critique it etc. from a lacanian perspective. Some things, like the primacy of the image/spectacle, the truth being outside, the need (and 'plague') of fantasies fit very well ofc, but then I'm at a loss when talking about subjectivity - for contrasting purposes the place of the Real in its formation and how it links to your position in this video, but also the place of the symbolic and imaginary. Would be very interested to attend a live stream and hear your thughts on this and other links/potential issues that I'm sure you've already at least tentatively thought about.
This has to be one of your best videos to date, it's a very interesting subject that opens up to more in-depth debates. I'm exhausted of talking about revolutions in classical century old marxist-leninist terms.
It is because these are the observation theorist see in the 1st world. The 3rd world, on the other hand, is doomed to harsh conditions, and capitalism will only make it harsher. People in the 1st world may sit there with their own little spectacle, sure, but there is no more obscene than imperialism.
Communicating to get outside of communication is like "washing off blood with blood" however, direct experience does get out of communication by way of the most immediate where everything is like the nonexistence of the social in that it's too late and after the fact and not encapsulative of the phenomena itself. The apex of this thrust of postmodern thought was actually brought all the way to its zenith and beyond by the Tang and Song era Zen (Chan) Masters. There's lots of texts that have been translated too. I think you'd appreciate what's going on with that tradition. A book to look into if you are intrigued by this is the Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching by Dahui translation by the late Thomas Cleary.
Great video! I am living what was described. It isn’t easy to see things as they are. It’s very difficult and taxing at times. And, I can’t go back…to seeing mere representations, not totally. It takes discipline, practice and compassion. The longer I practice, the deeper my perception, the greater my interconnectivity. Reality is no longer a-thing. Ref: Transformation at the Base by Thich Nhat Hahn
How do you know you see things as they are? You mentioned a Buddhist monk, but letting go of desire is at the core of Buddhist enlightenment and the Left, almost by definition, has not done that. Having a vision of "the world as it should be" will always cloud one's vision of the world as it is. Desiring to own the means of production as a collective is still desiring to own the means of production. Collective desire is still desire. Desiring to form a collective to seize the means of production is still desire. Desiring to establish a perfected democracy to manage the use of the collectively owned means of production is still desire. When your sight is clouded by desire, the innocent actions of others will appear as intentional subversion-see Lenin and his fixation on "wreckers." What did Lenin's vision of Communism produce? What did Mao's vision of Communism produce? Let go of the vision; focus instead on the rules for right action, acting in accord with them for their own sake, and letting that be your happiness. True power is the power of contraction. There's a video on UA-cam by Rabbi Simon Jacobsen entitled "Black Magic: The Dark Side of Kabbalah" that explains this in depth beginning at about the 13 minute mark. Powerful action is characterized by a combination of fervent hope and perfect resignation. If you desire nothing, no one can have power over you. They will always need you more than you need them. As Jude Law, in the role of Pope Pius XIII, says in The Young Pope: "Absence is presence." This shouldn't be alien to Leftists, given the history of the general strike as a tool of organized labor. If living as a collective is the way and capitalism is bad, then find like-minded people and form a collective for the purpose of minimizing or eliminating participation in capitalist society at whatever scale is possible in the present. Instead of trying to convince society to provide a certain standard of living, be willing to embrace asceticism as necessary for the purpose of depriving capitalist society of however many workers and consumers you can. Look up the short story, Beggar Prince, from the Elder Scrolls games. Look up chapter 27 of the Digha Nikaya, Aggaññasutta. Meditate on these. Then you'll see things as they are. As importantly, embrace diversity on superficial points rather than trying to change hearts and minds to exactly match your views-don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, the tree that bends doesn't break, and so on. I referenced both Jewish and Christian ideas above perfectly aware that the Left hasn't been on the greatest of terms with them, historically. Despite that, I think you'll find the ideas themselves to be consistent with the overall idea I'm presenting here. Other relevant and similarly bite-sized artifacts of Christianity include the story of St. Mary of Egypt (famous for her asceticism) and the Our Father prayer ("give us this day our daily bread"). If you can vibe with those, some longer form stuff worth considering includes a video from the School of Life channel called the History of Ideas: Consumerism (which paints a very different picture of the relationship between Christianity and capitalism than most Leftist literature), the Abolition of Man and the Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, and the Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton. To close, a particularly poignant line from the Abolition of Man in light of the general topic of postmodernism: "You cannot go on ‘seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see."
Another banger. I’ll just add that JB’s perspective is the most intuitive of the bunch IF we build our mental model without the notion of free will. The mass of humanity can be defined as monolithic and its history best described as applied methods of survival intent of providing optimal opportunity for growth. It’s not that, philosophy and political theory don’t hold significant weight for all of humanity but they can only be put to use during transitions. Transitions being defined as moments in time where our mental models no longer serve the intended purpose.
Just finished reading Quentin Meillassoux's "After Finitude" and it seems like nice development of the postmodern philosophy. Was impressed by flawlessness of the logics and completely new argumentation. Would be great to listen your analysis and understanding of the Meillassoux, Latour, Harman sometime!
There's something off in this spectacle centric analisys... I mean, there's still starvation, the material conditions are still there. Lenin already identified that the centrality of capitalism exports some of their contraditions to peripheral countries and that's the reason revolutions occurred there. What we're missing is organization, the neoliberalism is making people get up, and if we're not there, someone other will be. Our role is to be organized and create a net of support and communication. We don't choose the time, when it comes we have to be there.
Problem with rating philosophers on their interestingness is that something interesting is the kind of thing that can be regarded as indifferent the next moment and displaced by something else. Thus, interestingness belongs to the economy of overproducing the spectacle, it can be recuperated, appropriated, and sold like Marvel movies. Such interesting philosophy ages and is discarded for something more interesting. The evaluation of something as interesting then has already relegated it to the ranks of the indifferent and soon boring. I don't think that's what Baudrillard was aiming to do.
This might just be the pragmatist in me talking, but it does feel like this doesn't really provide any call to action in any meaningful way. Maybe if you're a theorist, but for me, an ordinary person, what am I supposed to do to make a change to improve my life and the lives of my communities? How am I supposed to resist oppressive forces with these ideas? I guess I don't see the usefulness in these theories as opposed to other theorists who may give "false consciousness" but still give a program of action that can be used to improve your life.
Mate, what Pills is talking here is UTTER GARBAGE! This is just someone in the comfort of his home neglecting the material for the idealistic metaphysics of post marxism and post modernist narrative of a world without structures (which a fabricated lie and a naive form of thinking). Go with Marx and marxist thought mate, you can't go as wrong as you can with Pills.
You're 100% correct. There is a reason the CIA opened a firehose of money at postmodernism. It's an utterly impotent pseudointelectual collection of nonsense words practically designed to alienate any sane person
I genuinely do believe Baudrillard really was a necessary pendulum swing for humanity. Especially coming out of the 20th century where modernist ideologies and the meta-narratives that drove them ran the world. Especially his view of reality and his issues with Marxism and Debord, I really do think those critiques were very apt for the era. Though I think where he swings the pendulum a little too far is when he too ignores the reality in front of him in my opinion. That fundamentally it is more or less that the "consciousness" Marxists were looking to achieve is to live your life while being fully aware of the context of your reality (including the humans in your life) without the distraction of transcendental guarantees or ideological persuasions. In my opinion unfortunately Baudrillard's worldview and its endless skeptical categorizing (and most forms of Marxism with their ideological crusades) still blocks us from seeing the reality in front of us just as much as any other meta-narrative.
Nodding along with what you say, quite digging the exposition, reaching 10:33, I must be the weasel: this statement heavily depends on how you define “revolution.” I can think of turns, evolutions, moments around a catalytic event, which are transformational - indeed, revolutionary - which fall short of the spectacular image of an armed proletariat storming the Bastille. [^1] This doesn’t rob anything from your thesis; it just makes me think, if your thesis is correct, that if change is to come in the future - good or bad - one form it may take will be gradual, resulting from a compact between the bureaucrats and the intelligentsia. Perhaps whoever can capture the imaginations of the bureaucratic class and the intellectual class can enact a transformation - for bad or for good - as effectively as the fascist who hypnotizes the brownshirts and the jackboots. Of course, that’s a vision of change many of us in our hearts would decry as elitist … but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily inaccurate. The hard part is objectively analyzing one’s own class position and asking whether such a conclusion just reflects one’s petty impatience with the great recalcitrant mass of humanity. ^1. They actually stormed the Paris Opera first, speaking of the masses and the spectacle…
You touched base on alot of issues that I've been exploring all within 40 minutes. Very impressive, however there is points you hold that I contrast with. Particularly in sharing Baudrillard's view in eliminating sacristy in religious idealogy. Ontology is still relevant in contemporary philosophy.
0:21 Ok, in effect I get that social media only differs in degree and not in kind from the other categories - but isn't this true inter-category too? Also, if social media is not a separate category what would u include it under - entertainment or news or advertisement or propaganda? It includes all of these categories. Can we may be say it is an overlapping medium over all categories? p.s. I realise it doesn't matter what we call it - this us just casual analysis workout
Excellent video, this is my first of your channel's I've seen. Thanks for putting it together! Watched it 2x and dropping this algorithm boosting comment
amazing video. i really like baudrillard and his stuff makes me happy. side note : I think it's an interesting paradox that you keep saying that you can't fix the problem with yet another book, while literally quoting from a book that Baudrillard wrote about 'not fixing the problem with a book'.
I feel a tinge of capitalism realism in all this... Perhaps it's not so much about a deeper, hidden meaning that we're (not) supposed to uncover, but really something as simple as not being deprived of basic material conditions, not being alienated from the product of your labor, not having your humanity denied. These are all very materialistic things in a sense, and it's hard to dismiss them as a grandiose spectacle when you're constantly deprived of their realization. Yeah, politics is a spectacle and who gives a fuck anyway? But class struggle is as real as it gets at the end of the day.
At the very least, I feel like it must only be dominant in the more culturally postmodern, core regions of the capitalist world system. I have reservations even there, but I really just can't see how Baudrillard's theory would be more relevant to a garment factory worker in Bangladesh than Marx's, for example.
But people know who the billionaires are, know how fucked inequality statistics have become, and arguably, there's more than enough easily digestible leftist content on youtube to "wake the consciousness of the masses". At this point, it's safe to say they don't care. Or rather, will not care unless they're starving. And even then, they'll probably turn to fascism, cause that's the easy choice: just keep deferring responsibility to a political grand daddy figure who'll take care of you and do all the complicated stuff for you.
@@alynames7171 Nah, Marxism might not be relevant to them, but the Marxist that provides in the historical moment (starvation, enough frustration, fear) a direction for change wherever these "change" might be leading. Since its almost guaranteed that the "change" gets perverted from the outside or within it doesn´t really matter.
brilliant vid. Yes, its basically non-controversial to me, as well. "consciousness" is just secularized, pasteurized enlightenment teleology, which itself was secularized Christian deliverance. Hunger, that's the name of the game. Also, I missed it, was there a specific text from Baudrillard you are referencing?
23:36 - Totally following u upto the scene and obscene of politics, the masses being lazy and not wanting power, but can we say the masses can jusr chill? Coz living conditions and working conditions are quite abysmal for a huge chunk of the population. 12hrs working day with minimum wage or less. Not saying the material condition is prompting them to bring change or anything like that. May be one can participate in the spectacle without really chilling?
Imma resist the urge to call Baudrillard a total hack, because he wrote all of this stuff in the aftermath of may 68. A more constructive thing to say would be to call It outdated. Lately I've been reading Latour and I'd say that he does a pretty good job at articulating a new view that can withstand all the arguments and criticism that pills has summed Up. The main criticism that I could object to his view, IS that, even though Baudrillard is Trying to break free from the sociological stances prior to him, he's still articulating a reified totallity, all right its no longer society, now it's hiperreality, but still is another good all totallity to superimpose on reality. At the same time another objection that could be made, IS that his criticism to sociology on the basis that its humanist and predicated on false assunptioms, far from being and ultimate objection to the possiblity of sociology, it's a diagnosis of the failures of the sociology of his time. For example in Latours reassembling the social, or DeLandas Assemblage theory you can find new articulations of this phenomena that aren't reduced to the humanist tradition, but at the same time break free of Baudrillards hyper skepticism, and beyond his reduction of the social to the media sphere, towards a more material point view
Damn. “The sight of human affairs deserves admiration and pity. And he is not insensible who pays them the undemonstrative tribute of a sigh which is not a sob, and of a smile that is not a grin.” Joseph Conrad
You simply keep slaying, even if it's your own work and theoretical framework on the cutting end of the axe. Mad respect. Excellent production as always. Much to think about.
Maybe I missed this point, but a key feature for me when it comes to “new philosophy” is the question of what is it supposedly asking us to do. And maybe it is just me, but Beaudrillard seems to be suggesting that we shouldn’t be fighting against what has us miserable and distorts our thoughts and actions. Why fight against something for what is deep down, when there is nothing deep down. When the suggested action is give up and stay the course I don’t find it to be a good philosophy. Everything else seems like a performance of word games.
Idk, this conception is very interesting and somewhat persuasive, but is it useful in any way? Even if the possibility of change by mass action is an illusion, does abandoning that illusion help us accomplish anything?
Ive had to watch this like a dozen times just to remind myself that the people I get into arguments with about why they should be against capitalism/imperialism are pointless since most people just want to come home from work and play video games. What a relief.
Just watched the beginning: Yes, we just have too much self-referential communication about leftism. The channels that do talk about leftism should tie that communication with movements that directly improve people's material conditions: From vegan consumer boycotts to establishing local food cooperatives.
there is a small booklet from 1977 by baudrillard titeled "the agony of the real"...in it there is a very interesting passage where he refers to the events of may 1968 in france...what he says there (10 yrs after these events) is that basically his generation was the last(!) generation that lived in the double of history aka lived in the euphoric and catastrophic perspective of a revolution...i think these events of mai 68 in paris...these events shaped what the "real" meant for him...and everything that came after that was mere agony of the real..a copy of an original that no longer exists..in one word: he was a nostalgic
The people never have the power, only the illusion of it. And here is the real secret: they don't want it. The responsibility is too great to bear. It's why they are so quick to fall in line as soon as someone else takes charge. They WANT to be told what to do. They YEARN for it
I am enjoying Baudrillard. I am surprised by another J. Peterson contradiction, though. JP seems to insist that Post Modernism wants to crush and annihilate the individual. Whereas Baudrillard seems to have said (in 1978), the masses have already accomplished that? Am I getting that right? I am also liking some consistencies with Chomsky and Manufacturing Consent. Am I way off base here?
Excellent pick up... reactionaries shooting the doctor for their diagnosis and then fantasizing about a non-existent past where the sickness never existed...
@@PlasticPills Thank you for your time. I fear being overly tangential. If I can ask again, Is it unreasonable to extend the idea of Mcluhan's Tribalism as exemplified by Peterson, not only as the medium but also that manifestation of the dynamic towards tribalism and absence of individuality? For Mcluhan it seems that tribalism occurs. It would not require "the left" in Peterson's case. It seems that Peterson's assertion of an existential attack on the individual seems simultaneously an invitation to a hegemonic tribalism. Effectively projection? I ask because he appears fairly vulnerable when critically reviewed. The medium being the message buried in obscene spectacle?
@@PlasticPills There's a character in the town where I live who has an office on the main street (sporting a Trump(Spalding) Support Our Police sign) who likes to post rude or corny jokes in his window. A recent sample "The doctor gave me 1 year to live. I shot him and got 15 years. Problem solved" (OTOH, I happen to know he wrote a letter of support for a couple of artists in town who are fighting a zoning battle with their in-need-of-psychiatric-help neighbors. But I won't tell anyone because I don't want to spoil his image)
Great argument. I do think it’s a chicken or the egg situation. I think what people want is freedom. Freedom to create and engage with life how they see fit. The problem is that the “mass” has chosen to move in a direction that there is no time or energy for that level of freedom, so we delude ourselves into believing that we have freedom, within a certain boundary. As an anarcho-futurist, I think that if there wasn’t a leader and the mass was guided by free association, we would find that we can lean on each other (and technology) thereby utilizing our laziness, (meaning producing as little as necessary to survive and to share with others knowing that they will share their bounty with us) and freeing ourselves up to then engage with life as we see fit. I argue that we’re not just lazy, we’re burnt out. I know some people that lay around and veg out on theirs days off but I know many more that go out and create and engage and socialize. The problem really is the mass. And if the mass were divided into multiple smaller masses, free to make their own way, you would see less laziness.
I feel the need to correct a lot of what this video is saying. One of the most basic ideas that Marxists often reference is that of "praxis"-- the idea that theory must be applied in struggle and continuously modified, applied, modified, etc, etc. The practice of praxis (and the "Mass Line", in MLM) is why Marxism is different from the practice of other passive, alienated modernist philosophies, in my view. In the video, the UA-camr also seems to misunderstand "class consciousness" as though it is some kind of magical thinking modernist notion-- that by simply telling people the truth of capitalism and their condition that they will rise up against it. That's now what class consciousness is really about, in my view. In my view, class consciousness is about workers understanding that, due to their relationship to the capitalist system, they are able to translate collective will power into material change (though withholding of labor, consumption, blocking distribution of goods, etc, etc). Under capitalism, it seems quite obvious to me that the capitalist class is a "subject", and individuals members of the capitalist class are also subjects-- not merely objects. That is what capitalism does. Economic power "is" political power "is" material power to be exacted on the world around us. If we admit this is true, then we can say that, by collectively withholding labor, consumption, distribution, etc, etc, the working class can collectively become a "subject" which can challenge the hegemony of a capitalist "subject". That's why any of this matters. He's right in saying that we're not "human beings" under capitalism. And therefore are not individual "subjects" with true individual autonomy on our human systems. And it's true that this notion is externally placed on us by liberal modernist theory. What's not true, is that therefore there are no subjects and no one has any autonomy under capitalism or in the world period. Obviously that is a step too far, entirely unhelpful, lazily fatalist, and downright self-indulgent.
Funny this video comes up as I was just instructed to read a paper written by this guy as part of my University courses. In it, he's talking about this idea of how that consumption operates in terms of experiencing, using, or destroying something only to then recreate or echo it at a later time in some bastardized, festivalized, or parodic form; with one example given being of how that dead-serious historical events are reenacted for fun and entertainment a century later. That, of course, strikes me as a very useful theory for thinking about how "cultural appropriation" racism operates in the USA and elsewhere (even more egregiously - China's Han-dominated "state capitalist" government's commodification-genocide of the Uyghur), which is something that a Marxist dogmatist would probably have a harder time explaining. Would be interested to see more of what he's written.
There's something to be said for 'stress'. Increase the output (work etc.), or decrease the input (food etc.) without the other being balanced out and the outcome tends towards 'survivalism' effects like 'nationalistic isolationism' (I was going to use a censored 'f-word'). And it makes sense. People's 'ability' to consider others is lower-down the hierarchy. When push comes to shove; self-preservation usually wins out. Turn up the stress, turn down the empathy. Want to cause division, a la Bre-xit - enact aust-erity first to make the populace easy to direct. This works on an amplified level too. Want a war? Enact fam-ine. (Edited to get around AdTube's intentionally ambiguous censorship rules enacted to train us into self-censorship).
Not everyone will engage with politics to the same degree, and we can't expect most people to care that much today. So, if we want to affect positive change then those changes have to be incremental and easy to assimilate. Revolutions caused by starvation are not the only way to change, nor the better way. Those of us radical enough to question the foundations of society must boil our strategies down into small and specific proposals that can be snuck in through the system and change the rules of the game.
Entrepreneurial Capitalism needs people to accept 'individualism' unquestioningly. Because it is the theoretical axe that divides any populace, makes the population fragmented, alone and manageable. Turning the 'endless possibilities' of the post-war West into a pure Capitalist dystopia. There can be 'no mandates' for change with a completely divided population. With politics in the West made redundant, the population are made impotent. Identity politics is Capitalism personified. It divides and obliterates collective meaning. It helps destroy the single plateau theory. That we all have exactly the same basic needs. Which we can all work together to achieve. Individualism - It subversively divides and weakens the population. That's why it is the Capitalist West's lynchpin idea. By embracing it, you can never escape the Capitalist dystopia. By embracing it, you wholeheartedly embrace your own individual greed. And you live in a playground full of possibilities to enjoy your personal avarice. Capitalists understand the fact... that the secret to human potential, is having a series of collective objectives. Objectives people can understand and believe in. Humans can achieve anything if bound together as one. Every collective dream is achievable. Individualism means the few can control the many... for their own, petty individual aims. Capitalism is the story of how personal or individual greed became normalised, and defeated the innate power of 'modern' humanity.
so collectivism where a few control many but for "THE GREATER GOOD" is the solution? yeah no thanks capitalism is already on its way out anyway grandpa... maybe read less dusty books or for starter at least your late marx
![Rick Roderick on Baudrillard - Fatal Strategies [full length]](/img/n.gif)
So, Baudrillard played a reverse uno on philosophers trying to wake up the masses?
Underrated comment
So philosophers ever since have been sophists and its just about the battle. Baudriallard then used something Lyotard called "retorsion", when you show an argument against you is in fact speaking for you - reverse uno, nice metaphor.
Nice
“ Politics is pretty much everyone that has a noncommittal low effort agreement that some guy, who sounds like he’s got a plan should run things‘ Haha, Love this quote.
Your happiness Depending on a group all agreeing to some political cause is a recipe for disaster. Good luck and god speed. I ain’t got time for that.
Yes and that's how we get these base humans at the "top."
I think a frustration is that we know that change won't come without collapse. We want to prevent the suffering brought by collapse, warning of its inevitability, lest we succumb to it.
We don't want to suffer while knowing we are destined to suffer if change is to come.
"Everybody wants to change the world, but nobody wants to die"
@@selfsaboteursounds5273 “Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights.” - Ronnie Coleman
Baker's philosophy of can't have our cake and eat it too. We're too comfortable or complacent. I think we ought to burn the idea of money.
Baudrillard introduced a very necessary perspective back to us. He provided us with vision of self awareness, allows us to take control of this framework we call ideology which we use to interact with eachother and the world. He provided us an opportunity to build mindfully, rather than let it be a product of contingency. Amazing.
I don't know about all the conclusions of the video but the general thrust does flow with something I've noticed in my own organizing: people are busy, exhausted, and primarily want to spend time with their friends, family, and on their hobbies. Doing the "Glorious Revolution (tm)" tends to take time away from those things. So they're only going to bother if the real situation has gotten so bad as to be totally untenable and would rip them away from it anyway or if the action demanded of them is actually *easier* than the status quo in some way.
Thus, unless we're going to indulge in accelerationism (which I tend to hate with a violent passion), it looks to me like the real object of left politics has to be learning how to construct systems that make people's lives easier in a particular way that is counter-hegemonic. That is, make it so doing something like going shopping at your local food co-op is *easier* than going to walmart and walmart's inevitable attempt to crush the co-op puts it in the position of specifically making people's lives *harder* in a way that they are likely to resist. No grand speeches about freedom or anything necessary. Just a series of interlocking systems that draw people in and make useful conflicts inevitable.
There's some old theory that could still be useful in this regard, mainly to do with dual-power; constructing new institutions that serve the people while infiltrating existing institutions to make them less violent toward the people.
The better thing to do would be to pressure the legal system to broaden the playing field and limit the power of conglomerates and monopolies. Especially in factory farming examples. I don't know how we can design new systems that don't just encourage the platform owner to rig the deck in their favor. Uber eats and postmates
@@wraithwrecker_ definitely agree with this. It's been a guide to action for me. I feel like much of the criticism of this video can be said to be directed at those who spend their time talking about materialism while doing little to change material conditions. Even if we're to look at the evolution of the bourgeoisie, they didn't spend the majority of their time trying to "convince" people of their liberal-capitalist worldview before their revolutions. They built the damn institutions. All their talk was justification for what they were *already* doing and why they should have an expanded role in society. They actually changed material conditions until a crisis point was reached. While things won't be that straightforward for us, we need to be doing something similar.
@@SAGERUNE The answer to your question about how to design new systems is something to be worked out in practice so I won't waste both of our time by trying to spell it out. But I will point out that, by your own logic, pressuring the legal system would seem to be a waste of effort. The liberal system in a bourgeois-liberal state exists to serve the bourgeois-liberal elite. I'm not sure how we would pressure such a system that does not involve building institutions of counter-hegemonic power that can resist domination.
so you learned that you actually have to explain shit and give people a viable alternative?
wow
"Now, I am currently not in the mood for a mental breakdown today, so let''s just avoid the real."
--plastic pills
Maybe Pills was referring to Lacan's real (with a wink).
@@pugix You got the joke
Idk if I understood the video, but there was one thing said I already knew & think is important & which I find crazy that everybody around me left to right still thinks differently: Revolutions are not made by ideas. People didn't suddenly think the king is stinky one day after thinking he's pogchamp the other, there's open monarchists everywhere today & there have been anti-monarchists since the concept of monarchism. The thing that causes revolutions is material changes.
1916 Ireland
best channel ever. hands down.
Bro deberías colaborar mas con este chico
Una colaboración estaría de huevos
@@emilianobasurto548 he’s been on Pills’s podcast twice, if my memory serves
@@theethanatorem ohhh, that's true. Thank you so much, bro :)
Viejo hace falta más canales como este en habla hispana!! Pero pills es un genio
the final quotation/reflection reminds me of Roland Barthes's preface to Mythologies -- "[M]y claim is to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which can make sarcasm the condition of truth." fantastic video, as usual!
Bro. You actually understand Baudrillard better than anyone on UA-cam. What more can I say? Kudos
You obviously don't understand french to dare to say that...
I know you said we communicate too much and ultimately messages are lost, but thank you truly for making this video.
He's saying the message you seek does not exist, stop seeking!
nvm, I don't actually know what you mean by message.
I’m literally just saying I enjoyed the video lol
3:44 this point ( in the 90s ) was the moment I hated bauldrillard. I sometimes think Mark Fisher reached this moment as well. Back then there was no spectacle as we know and understand it today, there was no apparatus to virtualise us as content, that dictates that we should know each other as content. Most importantly our social exchanges were framed by a community morality embedded in rights that we acted out - you just couldn’t go around attacking people. Groups like churches, the military and even politicians had to come to your door to personally speak to you if they wanted you to do something. We haven’t begun to pull social media apart in the way we should be.
I disagree, I think there's nothing new under the sun in that respect. Imagine the state of mind of a mid-century middleclass suburban American. They have to carefully craft their image to portray middleclassness. Their house, clothing, decorating, interests and yard are all scrutinized continually. Planting the wrong sort of flowers, or having the wrong kind of hobbies or interests got people rediculed, berated, and othered. (Fussels book on class has more about this)
I don't see how this is any different than someone carefully crafting their online profile. The difference now, however, is that we are more free to chose which community we embed ourselves in.
"The opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference."
"if voting changed something, they wouldn't let us vote"
@@karankaushikk yes. We protested. the feeling of disillusionment with voting was prevalent among those fighting for systemic change. However, history also shows that suffrage and political participation were critical in many movements to expand rights and bring about change, though not always immediately or easily.
love every person making videos about theory on youtube unconditionally but WOW nice to have one delivered by someone who can communicate so clearly
I was a little skeptical of some of your videos at first (the Derrida video on Hauntology was my introduction), but on further examination I think you do a solid job of steelmanning some of the more interesting aspects of post-modern type thought. These topics can be very intimidating and confusing to say the least, but I respect the light you bring to the subject, especially in a climate that seems particularly hostile to these ways of thinking right now. Bravo!
"Faith is not the opposite of doubt. In fact, doubt is a sign that you genuinely have faith."
- Paul Tillich
Well said❤
Absolutely awesome video. The visuals are also incredibly good.
I love that you also went for the black and white supplemented with vibrant accent colors kind of aesthetic.
This is something that I've been thinking about for a while now and I'm so glad to see that it's actually being discussed. Humans are not dumb they are lazy and we are smart enough to find ways to stay lazy. We want everything to be as easy and comfortable as possible.
Fucking Gorillas spend something like 75% of their time sitting about "being lazy"...You ever see how swole a groilla is lol??...Nah, "lazy" is a term some greedy capitalist made up in order to make people work harder.
great video once again! I feel like this would be a great transition into George Bataille’s Theory of Religion or Solar Economics
Thought provoking video! And the fact that I happened to get THC gummy commercials thrown in every few minutes really help to accidentally drive home the point.
It’s worth viewing the debate surrounding AI just now. The leading scientist guy at Open AI (Ilya something) said about his work: “Imagine having the world’s best meditation expert in your home.” And his partner said: “AI is an extension of human nature.” Both of these insights point to just how banal it is, and to the banality of life generally. There is nothing interesting about it - beyond the phenomenological catastrophe of it all.
… I’m not sure what you’re saying.
Also, there’s no expertise in meditation.
You just be in the now which automatically silences your stream of consciousness.
There’s no grades or level or effort to it.
And ai is just an extension of human nature. Like cars or drawings or anything else humans create
What is the point you’re trying to make?
Very accurate representation of Baudrillard. I still think that Baudrillard has some of that disdain for the masses/mass though, and reading too much of him can only be described as an exercise in getting depressed. But he’s important nonetheless
It's one of the best videos I've seen in a while, thank you for that. I do wonder if debord was as idealistic as you make him out to be, but then again back then he didn't have the hindsight we have now. I'll strive to make enjoyable theory from now on
Plastic. Your coverage of Allende’s Chile gave me goosebumps!
Do us 🇧🇷 a favor. Please look into the way Brazil came to be, it’s halted potential and how philosophy, culture, and external forces brought us to the grim situation half of our country is facing.
And if you get any ideas for a video, that would be awesome as well. Love from Brazil!
"The strategy of theory should be a little more playful. Or artful. A little less self-assured. And maybe a little more fatal."
Very well said. And while I agree with many of the other comments that this is a great video on a great channel, I don't think it's enough to diagnose that the obscene is the scene and depth is merely illusionary. The illusion of depth must also be embraced. In metamodern theory I came across the term "depthiness" which seems to put this "illusion" in more neutral terms. An after all, "illusion" comes from "illudere", hence "ludus", thus hinting at the playful character of our desire to see something where there is only void.
I'm thinking along similar lines like he seems to believe that these soulless, corporate reality TV shows are the pinnacle of representing love even though you can't get any less artful than that
I got rid of virtually all social media and gained a ton my focus and clarity to practice critical thinking, in addition, I’ve turned off ALL viewing and search history on UA-cam and I cannot tell you how even withdrawing just a slivers worth from the culture of “spectacle” is freeing. This makes quite a bit of sense.
and yet you are here posting comments.... the fucking irony. you are PART of the spectacle you are trying to not be part of lmao
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:30 🌐 *Postmodernist perspective sees social media as a continuation, not a departure, from the traditional spectacle, blurring the line between reality and the spectacle.*
01:49 🤔 *Baudrillard's strategy questions the existence of a "real" social that can be reclaimed, suggesting it was a theoretical after-the-fact construct.*
02:41 📢 *Baudrillard challenges the idea that more communication will lead to social awakening, arguing that excessive communication, especially through anti-social media, deepens the ideological dream.*
05:07 🧠 *Debord's perspective emphasizes consciousness as crucial for societal change, envisioning intellectuals awakening the masses to economic relations.*
06:35 🤯 *Baudrillard questions the inevitability of mass consciousness, challenging the Enlightenment fantasy and suggesting that the model of consciousness as a choice is flawed.*
08:53 🤷♂️ *Baudrillard challenges the Marxist view of ideology, questioning whether people truly desire freedom and suggesting that theorists might be alienated from the masses.*
11:12 🔄 *Baudrillard proposes dropping the concepts of "consciousness" and "the social" from societal analysis, arguing that the masses' choices are often unconscious and unrelated to ideology.*
13:30 🎭 *Politics is portrayed as a spectacle, revealing the performative nature of political scenes and challenging traditional ideas about rational decision-making in politics.*
16:22 💑 *Relationships and love are demystified, with the spectacle exposing the "scene" as a theatrical production and questioning the deep meanings traditionally associated with them.*
19:28 🌐 *The spectacle, according to Baudrillard, reveals the superficial nature of human desires, highlighting the preference for sign exchanges and seduction over deeper economic concerns.*
21:05 📺 *The end of the spectacle blurs distinctions between true and false, transforming information into a medium where the message is independent of the program.*
23:51 🛋️ *Baudrillard argues that people are not dumb but lazy, preferring to let politicians fail while they enjoy the spectacle, challenging traditional notions of political engagement.*
24:45 🌐 *Baudrillard suggests that "society" is better explained as human + communication media, not necessarily human sociability, politics, or intelligence.*
26:51 🔄 *Baudrillard challenges the idea of individual subjectivities shaping society, arguing that the Mass, influenced by mass media, is an object, not a subject.*
27:45 📊 *Baudrillard criticizes Debord's idea of awakening the masses, claiming it leads to hyper-conformism and suggests that the Mass resists changing history.*
29:15 🔄 *Overproduction of meaning, according to Baudrillard, perpetuates the system's logic, and the strategy should be to stay on the surface and resist seeking depth where it doesn't exist.*
30:16 🎭 *Baudrillard advocates for theory to be less serious, more playful, and artful, aiming to dismantle ancient illusions rather than escaping ideology.*
31:21 🔄 *Baudrillard's escape from illusion involves taking the world's side against subjects, recognizing that history is already dismantling the illusion of the "real real."*
31:51 😌 *Baudrillard's perspective offers relief by asserting that individuals have no agency to control or change the meaning in the universe or the direction of history.*
32:20 🤔 *Baudrillard embraces nihilism not as a lack of belief but as a rejection of holding illusions sacred, suggesting that philosophers should be rated on interestingness rather than illusory depth.*
33:27 🙌 *Baudrillard appreciates the audience's support, emphasizing that they are true producers of history, challenging the conventional notion of subjects and agency in society.*
Made with HARPA AI
Herbert Marcuse "One Dimensional Man" and his concept of Repressive desublimation is a good follow up to this video essay.
Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.
Friedrich Nietzsche
One of the heavier and forward thinking takes. thanks for giving a new perspective!
I appreciate this channel so much - and I really hope that I get to see a time in which this channel engages with the perspectives of bell hooks; specifically, All About Love and The Will to Change, i think this might provide a catharsis to the perspectives of Baudrillard and Lacan and Deleuze and Guittarri - and I say this as someone who used to engage those thinkers and philosophers constantly
Giodarno Bruno has the best breakdown for love I've ever read. 17th centiry occultist/philosopher.
@@feruspriest thank you for the recommendation! Im excited to check it out
Persuasive.
Depressing and relieving.
I'm not sure I buy it, but there's no denying how compelling this position is.
I don't find it relieving, personally. I find it to be defeatist.
@@dunningdunning4711 I get why you'd call it defeatist. At the same time, academics from the humanities (for whom I think this is the core audience of this critique) become trapped in a perpetual state of elaborating their moral revolt, and treat their expository work and theorizing as the groundwork of change.
At a certain point, ya gotta wonder why the business daddies don't take theory as a serious threat to their hegemony.
@@feruspriest “trapped in a perpetual state of elaborating their moral revolt” might be my favorite phrase since “intellectual masturbation”
@@Nich0Latte thank ya kindly!
@@feruspriest Not necessarily the groundwork, but useful for identifying issues, such as why revolution doesn't come (Gramsci, Althusser). There's definitely a lot of intellectual masturbation, but I think philosophy and theory both have important, although very modest, jobs. So much of "common sense" is simply the corpse of dead philosophies.
Not sure if this pans out well, but I was connecting this to Indian philosophies.
Those philosophies all seem to annihilate the individual from both above and below, so to speak. From above, nondual or materialistic metaphysics demolish the individual as merely parts of a larger whole which is effectively laughing at us parts running around with our anxieties on its stage of entertainment. From below, the metaphysics atomizes (literally in some cases) subjects to objects and processes of objects, also giving the philosopher something to laugh at -- why do we sacks of literal shit get so anxious about other shit?
Of course, the concept of delusion and dialectics, with the goal of true consciousness matches up as well. And there is a noted lack of social analysis ie. philosophy of history or politics like in the Western traditions, at least that I'm aware of as something similar to a Marxist worldview. Maybe worth looking into more?
@Annie Mouse thank you for the recommendations! I will check out those episodes
I just love this video, keep coming back to it
Follow up: thank you for such an incredibly clear overview here! Wow! I feel like everyone has incredible leads to follow as we may take deeper dives!
"Fiberoptic buzz" gives "one hand clapping"
This is a really interesting take with so much to unpack. It would be extremely interesting to talk about this/review it/critique it etc. from a lacanian perspective. Some things, like the primacy of the image/spectacle, the truth being outside, the need (and 'plague') of fantasies fit very well ofc, but then I'm at a loss when talking about subjectivity - for contrasting purposes the place of the Real in its formation and how it links to your position in this video, but also the place of the symbolic and imaginary. Would be very interested to attend a live stream and hear your thughts on this and other links/potential issues that I'm sure you've already at least tentatively thought about.
Damn banger high-quality video. You also made the argument really well, saying it in different ways multiple times, good shit.
This has to be one of your best videos to date, it's a very interesting subject that opens up to more in-depth debates. I'm exhausted of talking about revolutions in classical century old marxist-leninist terms.
It is because these are the observation theorist see in the 1st world. The 3rd world, on the other hand, is doomed to harsh conditions, and capitalism will only make it harsher. People in the 1st world may sit there with their own little spectacle, sure, but there is no more obscene than imperialism.
Communicating to get outside of communication is like "washing off blood with blood" however, direct experience does get out of communication by way of the most immediate where everything is like the nonexistence of the social in that it's too late and after the fact and not encapsulative of the phenomena itself. The apex of this thrust of postmodern thought was actually brought all the way to its zenith and beyond by the Tang and Song era Zen (Chan) Masters. There's lots of texts that have been translated too. I think you'd appreciate what's going on with that tradition. A book to look into if you are intrigued by this is the Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching by Dahui translation by the late Thomas Cleary.
Great video! I am living what was described. It isn’t easy to see things as they are. It’s very difficult and taxing at times. And, I can’t go back…to seeing mere representations, not totally. It takes discipline, practice and compassion. The longer I practice, the deeper my perception, the greater my interconnectivity. Reality is no longer a-thing. Ref: Transformation at the Base by Thich Nhat Hahn
How do you know you see things as they are? You mentioned a Buddhist monk, but letting go of desire is at the core of Buddhist enlightenment and the Left, almost by definition, has not done that. Having a vision of "the world as it should be" will always cloud one's vision of the world as it is.
Desiring to own the means of production as a collective is still desiring to own the means of production.
Collective desire is still desire.
Desiring to form a collective to seize the means of production is still desire.
Desiring to establish a perfected democracy to manage the use of the collectively owned means of production is still desire.
When your sight is clouded by desire, the innocent actions of others will appear as intentional subversion-see Lenin and his fixation on "wreckers." What did Lenin's vision of Communism produce? What did Mao's vision of Communism produce? Let go of the vision; focus instead on the rules for right action, acting in accord with them for their own sake, and letting that be your happiness.
True power is the power of contraction. There's a video on UA-cam by Rabbi Simon Jacobsen entitled "Black Magic: The Dark Side of Kabbalah" that explains this in depth beginning at about the 13 minute mark. Powerful action is characterized by a combination of fervent hope and perfect resignation. If you desire nothing, no one can have power over you. They will always need you more than you need them. As Jude Law, in the role of Pope Pius XIII, says in The Young Pope: "Absence is presence."
This shouldn't be alien to Leftists, given the history of the general strike as a tool of organized labor. If living as a collective is the way and capitalism is bad, then find like-minded people and form a collective for the purpose of minimizing or eliminating participation in capitalist society at whatever scale is possible in the present. Instead of trying to convince society to provide a certain standard of living, be willing to embrace asceticism as necessary for the purpose of depriving capitalist society of however many workers and consumers you can. Look up the short story, Beggar Prince, from the Elder Scrolls games. Look up chapter 27 of the Digha Nikaya, Aggaññasutta. Meditate on these.
Then you'll see things as they are.
As importantly, embrace diversity on superficial points rather than trying to change hearts and minds to exactly match your views-don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, the tree that bends doesn't break, and so on. I referenced both Jewish and Christian ideas above perfectly aware that the Left hasn't been on the greatest of terms with them, historically. Despite that, I think you'll find the ideas themselves to be consistent with the overall idea I'm presenting here. Other relevant and similarly bite-sized artifacts of Christianity include the story of St. Mary of Egypt (famous for her asceticism) and the Our Father prayer ("give us this day our daily bread"). If you can vibe with those, some longer form stuff worth considering includes a video from the School of Life channel called the History of Ideas: Consumerism (which paints a very different picture of the relationship between Christianity and capitalism than most Leftist literature), the Abolition of Man and the Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, and the Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton.
To close, a particularly poignant line from the Abolition of Man in light of the general topic of postmodernism:
"You cannot go on ‘seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see."
Another banger. I’ll just add that JB’s perspective is the most intuitive of the bunch IF we build our mental model without the notion of free will. The mass of humanity can be defined as monolithic and its history best described as applied methods of survival intent of providing optimal opportunity for growth. It’s not that, philosophy and political theory don’t hold significant weight for all of humanity but they can only be put to use during transitions. Transitions being defined as moments in time where our mental models no longer serve the intended purpose.
Damn Pills, your editing skills on point!! 🙌🙌 Great content!
Just finished reading Quentin Meillassoux's "After Finitude" and it seems like nice development of the postmodern philosophy. Was impressed by flawlessness of the logics and completely new argumentation. Would be great to listen your analysis and understanding of the Meillassoux, Latour, Harman sometime!
There's something off in this spectacle centric analisys... I mean, there's still starvation, the material conditions are still there. Lenin already identified that the centrality of capitalism exports some of their contraditions to peripheral countries and that's the reason revolutions occurred there. What we're missing is organization, the neoliberalism is making people get up, and if we're not there, someone other will be. Our role is to be organized and create a net of support and communication. We don't choose the time, when it comes we have to be there.
Problem with rating philosophers on their interestingness is that something interesting is the kind of thing that can be regarded as indifferent the next moment and displaced by something else. Thus, interestingness belongs to the economy of overproducing the spectacle, it can be recuperated, appropriated, and sold like Marvel movies. Such interesting philosophy ages and is discarded for something more interesting. The evaluation of something as interesting then has already relegated it to the ranks of the indifferent and soon boring. I don't think that's what Baudrillard was aiming to do.
This might just be the pragmatist in me talking, but it does feel like this doesn't really provide any call to action in any meaningful way. Maybe if you're a theorist, but for me, an ordinary person, what am I supposed to do to make a change to improve my life and the lives of my communities? How am I supposed to resist oppressive forces with these ideas? I guess I don't see the usefulness in these theories as opposed to other theorists who may give "false consciousness" but still give a program of action that can be used to improve your life.
Mate, what Pills is talking here is UTTER GARBAGE! This is just someone in the comfort of his home neglecting the material for the idealistic metaphysics of post marxism and post modernist narrative of a world without structures (which a fabricated lie and a naive form of thinking). Go with Marx and marxist thought mate, you can't go as wrong as you can with Pills.
You're 100% correct.
There is a reason the CIA opened a firehose of money at postmodernism. It's an utterly impotent pseudointelectual collection of nonsense words practically designed to alienate any sane person
I cant see the replies on this comment for some reason
Why should you want to make your community better? Why not make it worse just for the lols
@@HumidPuzzleWagon because I’m not a 14 year old edgelord
I genuinely do believe Baudrillard really was a necessary pendulum swing for humanity. Especially coming out of the 20th century where modernist ideologies and the meta-narratives that drove them ran the world. Especially his view of reality and his issues with Marxism and Debord, I really do think those critiques were very apt for the era. Though I think where he swings the pendulum a little too far is when he too ignores the reality in front of him in my opinion. That fundamentally it is more or less that the "consciousness" Marxists were looking to achieve is to live your life while being fully aware of the context of your reality (including the humans in your life) without the distraction of transcendental guarantees or ideological persuasions. In my opinion unfortunately Baudrillard's worldview and its endless skeptical categorizing (and most forms of Marxism with their ideological crusades) still blocks us from seeing the reality in front of us just as much as any other meta-narrative.
Is it possible to find a photo of Baudrillard where he ISN'T smoking?
Once a photographer took a photo of him for a book jacket and he wasn't, but Baudrillard got mad, lit one, and told him to retake it.
I've been out since the Kayne stream, but you're bringing me back in
Nodding along with what you say, quite digging the exposition, reaching 10:33, I must be the weasel: this statement heavily depends on how you define “revolution.”
I can think of turns, evolutions, moments around a catalytic event, which are transformational - indeed, revolutionary - which fall short of the spectacular image of an armed proletariat storming the Bastille. [^1]
This doesn’t rob anything from your thesis; it just makes me think, if your thesis is correct, that if change is to come in the future - good or bad - one form it may take will be gradual, resulting from a compact between the bureaucrats and the intelligentsia.
Perhaps whoever can capture the imaginations of the bureaucratic class and the intellectual class can enact a transformation - for bad or for good - as effectively as the fascist who hypnotizes the brownshirts and the jackboots.
Of course, that’s a vision of change many of us in our hearts would decry as elitist … but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily inaccurate.
The hard part is objectively analyzing one’s own class position and asking whether such a conclusion just reflects one’s petty impatience with the great recalcitrant mass of humanity.
^1. They actually stormed the Paris Opera first, speaking of the masses and the spectacle…
The distinction between "uprising" and "revolution" becomes especially poignant with the starvation element.
I have a lot of problems with Baudrillard, but wow, this video was a very accurate rendering of his thought.
1:27 - the retrograde mythical "social" is a copy without an original?
You touched base on alot of issues that I've been exploring all within 40 minutes. Very impressive, however there is points you hold that I contrast with. Particularly in sharing Baudrillard's view in eliminating sacristy in religious idealogy. Ontology is still relevant in contemporary philosophy.
I don't necessarily agree with the propositions in the video, but it certainly demonstrates a certain point of view quite coherently.
0:21 Ok, in effect I get that social media only differs in degree and not in kind from the other categories - but isn't this true inter-category too?
Also, if social media is not a separate category what would u include it under - entertainment or news or advertisement or propaganda? It includes all of these categories. Can we may be say it is an overlapping medium over all categories?
p.s. I realise it doesn't matter what we call it - this us just casual analysis workout
Excellent video, this is my first of your channel's I've seen. Thanks for putting it together! Watched it 2x and dropping this algorithm boosting comment
This is one of the greatest works ever.
Hope some day we can all focus on the important things.
after watching the neomarxist video, I was thinking about how writing books won't help the cause. Thank god I clicked on this one!
amazing video. i really like baudrillard and his stuff makes me happy. side note : I think it's an interesting paradox that you keep saying that you can't fix the problem with yet another book, while literally quoting from a book that Baudrillard wrote about 'not fixing the problem with a book'.
I feel a tinge of capitalism realism in all this... Perhaps it's not so much about a deeper, hidden meaning that we're (not) supposed to uncover, but really something as simple as not being deprived of basic material conditions, not being alienated from the product of your labor, not having your humanity denied. These are all very materialistic things in a sense, and it's hard to dismiss them as a grandiose spectacle when you're constantly deprived of their realization. Yeah, politics is a spectacle and who gives a fuck anyway? But class struggle is as real as it gets at the end of the day.
At the very least, I feel like it must only be dominant in the more culturally postmodern, core regions of the capitalist world system. I have reservations even there, but I really just can't see how Baudrillard's theory would be more relevant to a garment factory worker in Bangladesh than Marx's, for example.
But people know who the billionaires are, know how fucked inequality statistics have become, and arguably, there's more than enough easily digestible leftist content on youtube to "wake the consciousness of the masses". At this point, it's safe to say they don't care. Or rather, will not care unless they're starving. And even then, they'll probably turn to fascism, cause that's the easy choice: just keep deferring responsibility to a political grand daddy figure who'll take care of you and do all the complicated stuff for you.
@@alynames7171 Nah, Marxism might not be relevant to them, but the Marxist that provides in the historical moment (starvation, enough frustration, fear) a direction for change wherever these "change" might be leading. Since its almost guaranteed that the "change" gets perverted from the outside or within it doesn´t really matter.
@@alynames7171 Totally agreed.
@@alynames7171Baudrillard wouldn't necessarily disgaree
Can't believe Baudrillard said "good luck, have fun" to everyone as project.
Summary:
- be a bit less boring
- aesthetics are key
- surface is the place to be
check
32:22 So, question - why is "nihilist" always considered a pejorative adjective?
brilliant vid. Yes, its basically non-controversial to me, as well. "consciousness" is just secularized, pasteurized enlightenment teleology, which itself was secularized Christian deliverance. Hunger, that's the name of the game.
Also, I missed it, was there a specific text from Baudrillard you are referencing?
He mentions in the video description what chapters he was using as source material
23:36 - Totally following u upto the scene and obscene of politics, the masses being lazy and not wanting power, but can we say the masses can jusr chill? Coz living conditions and working conditions are quite abysmal for a huge chunk of the population. 12hrs working day with minimum wage or less. Not saying the material condition is prompting them to bring change or anything like that. May be one can participate in the spectacle without really chilling?
Imma resist the urge to call Baudrillard a total hack, because he wrote all of this stuff in the aftermath of may 68. A more constructive thing to say would be to call It outdated. Lately I've been reading Latour and I'd say that he does a pretty good job at articulating a new view that can withstand all the arguments and criticism that pills has summed Up.
The main criticism that I could object to his view, IS that, even though Baudrillard is Trying to break free from the sociological stances prior to him, he's still articulating a reified totallity, all right its no longer society, now it's hiperreality, but still is another good all totallity to superimpose on reality.
At the same time another objection that could be made, IS that his criticism to sociology on the basis that its humanist and predicated on false assunptioms, far from being and ultimate objection to the possiblity of sociology, it's a diagnosis of the failures of the sociology of his time. For example in Latours reassembling the social, or DeLandas Assemblage theory you can find new articulations of this phenomena that aren't reduced to the humanist tradition, but at the same time break free of Baudrillards hyper skepticism, and beyond his reduction of the social to the media sphere, towards a more material point view
Damn.
“The sight of human affairs deserves admiration and pity. And he is
not insensible who pays them the undemonstrative tribute of a
sigh which is not a sob, and of a smile that is not a grin.” Joseph Conrad
17:16 - heyyy! That Baudrillard & the bachelor video is very good. As is the follow-up bachelor in paradise video.
You simply keep slaying, even if it's your own work and theoretical framework on the cutting end of the axe. Mad respect. Excellent production as always. Much to think about.
Maybe I missed this point, but a key feature for me when it comes to “new philosophy” is the question of what is it supposedly asking us to do. And maybe it is just me, but Beaudrillard seems to be suggesting that we shouldn’t be fighting against what has us miserable and distorts our thoughts and actions. Why fight against something for what is deep down, when there is nothing deep down. When the suggested action is give up and stay the course I don’t find it to be a good philosophy. Everything else seems like a performance of word games.
Idk, this conception is very interesting and somewhat persuasive, but is it useful in any way? Even if the possibility of change by mass action is an illusion, does abandoning that illusion help us accomplish anything?
Ive had to watch this like a dozen times just to remind myself that the people I get into arguments with about why they should be against capitalism/imperialism are pointless since most people just want to come home from work and play video games. What a relief.
Just watched the beginning:
Yes, we just have too much self-referential communication about leftism. The channels that do talk about leftism should tie that communication with movements that directly improve people's material conditions: From vegan consumer boycotts to establishing local food cooperatives.
The ecstasy of Communication is one of his best short essays.
there is a small booklet from 1977 by baudrillard titeled "the agony of the real"...in it there is a very interesting passage where he refers to the events of may 1968 in france...what he says there (10 yrs after these events) is that basically his generation was the last(!) generation that lived in the double of history aka lived in the euphoric and catastrophic perspective of a revolution...i think these events of mai 68 in paris...these events shaped what the "real" meant for him...and everything that came after that was mere agony of the real..a copy of an original that no longer exists..in one word: he was a nostalgic
chill, surf bro
0:23 I feel the categories aren't air tight. There is a lot of overlap.
I can't express how much I enjoyed this
ditto
The people never have the power, only the illusion of it. And here is the real secret: they don't want it. The responsibility is too great to bear. It's why they are so quick to fall in line as soon as someone else takes charge. They WANT to be told what to do. They YEARN for it
Magic is the ability to agree to agree.
@Plasticpills You say "don't worry, there will still be other games to play" what would be an example?
What's the video of the guy talking about Mewtu?
Just discovered your channel and its amazing keep up the good work 👍
I would like to know what are the soundtracks he uses? Pls ..🥺
I am enjoying Baudrillard. I am surprised by another J. Peterson contradiction, though. JP seems to insist that Post Modernism wants to crush and annihilate the individual. Whereas Baudrillard seems to have said (in 1978), the masses have already accomplished that? Am I getting that right? I am also liking some consistencies with Chomsky and Manufacturing Consent. Am I way off base here?
Excellent pick up... reactionaries shooting the doctor for their diagnosis and then fantasizing about a non-existent past where the sickness never existed...
@@PlasticPills Thank you for your time. I fear being overly tangential. If I can ask again, Is it unreasonable to extend the idea of Mcluhan's Tribalism as exemplified by Peterson, not only as the medium but also that manifestation of the dynamic towards tribalism and absence of individuality? For Mcluhan it seems that tribalism occurs. It would not require "the left" in Peterson's case. It seems that Peterson's assertion of an existential attack on the individual seems simultaneously an invitation to a hegemonic tribalism. Effectively projection? I ask because he appears fairly vulnerable when critically reviewed. The medium being the message buried in obscene spectacle?
@@PlasticPills There's a character in the town where I live who has an office on the main street (sporting a Trump(Spalding) Support Our Police sign) who likes to post rude or corny jokes in his window. A recent sample "The doctor gave me 1 year to live. I shot him and got 15 years. Problem solved"
(OTOH, I happen to know he wrote a letter of support for a couple of artists in town who are fighting a zoning battle with their in-need-of-psychiatric-help neighbors. But I won't tell anyone because I don't want to spoil his image)
i love how at 8:26 the piss lens filter happens.
That was great man, loved it.
Thank you for the channel! Love the content!
Can’t get enough of the forlorn Bladerunner synth music 😩
Great argument. I do think it’s a chicken or the egg situation. I think what people want is freedom. Freedom to create and engage with life how they see fit. The problem is that the “mass” has chosen to move in a direction that there is no time or energy for that level of freedom, so we delude ourselves into believing that we have freedom, within a certain boundary.
As an anarcho-futurist, I think that if there wasn’t a leader and the mass was guided by free association, we would find that we can lean on each other (and technology) thereby utilizing our laziness, (meaning producing as little as necessary to survive and to share with others knowing that they will share their bounty with us) and freeing ourselves up to then engage with life as we see fit.
I argue that we’re not just lazy, we’re burnt out. I know some people that lay around and veg out on theirs days off but I know many more that go out and create and engage and socialize.
The problem really is the mass. And if the mass were divided into multiple smaller masses, free to make their own way, you would see less laziness.
I feel the need to correct a lot of what this video is saying.
One of the most basic ideas that Marxists often reference is that of "praxis"-- the idea that theory must be applied in struggle and continuously modified, applied, modified, etc, etc. The practice of praxis (and the "Mass Line", in MLM) is why Marxism is different from the practice of other passive, alienated modernist philosophies, in my view.
In the video, the UA-camr also seems to misunderstand "class consciousness" as though it is some kind of magical thinking modernist notion-- that by simply telling people the truth of capitalism and their condition that they will rise up against it. That's now what class consciousness is really about, in my view. In my view, class consciousness is about workers understanding that, due to their relationship to the capitalist system, they are able to translate collective will power into material change (though withholding of labor, consumption, blocking distribution of goods, etc, etc).
Under capitalism, it seems quite obvious to me that the capitalist class is a "subject", and individuals members of the capitalist class are also subjects-- not merely objects. That is what capitalism does. Economic power "is" political power "is" material power to be exacted on the world around us. If we admit this is true, then we can say that, by collectively withholding labor, consumption, distribution, etc, etc, the working class can collectively become a "subject" which can challenge the hegemony of a capitalist "subject". That's why any of this matters.
He's right in saying that we're not "human beings" under capitalism. And therefore are not individual "subjects" with true individual autonomy on our human systems. And it's true that this notion is externally placed on us by liberal modernist theory. What's not true, is that therefore there are no subjects and no one has any autonomy under capitalism or in the world period. Obviously that is a step too far, entirely unhelpful, lazily fatalist, and downright self-indulgent.
Funny this video comes up as I was just instructed to read a paper written by this guy as part of my University courses. In it, he's talking about this idea of how that consumption operates in terms of experiencing, using, or destroying something only to then recreate or echo it at a later time in some bastardized, festivalized, or parodic form; with one example given being of how that dead-serious historical events are reenacted for fun and entertainment a century later. That, of course, strikes me as a very useful theory for thinking about how "cultural appropriation" racism operates in the USA and elsewhere (even more egregiously - China's Han-dominated "state capitalist" government's commodification-genocide of the Uyghur), which is something that a Marxist dogmatist would probably have a harder time explaining. Would be interested to see more of what he's written.
I don't even have the heart to try and explain this to my little neoliberal friend.
There's something to be said for 'stress'. Increase the output (work etc.), or decrease the input (food etc.) without the other being balanced out and the outcome tends towards 'survivalism' effects like 'nationalistic isolationism' (I was going to use a censored 'f-word').
And it makes sense. People's 'ability' to consider others is lower-down the hierarchy. When push comes to shove; self-preservation usually wins out.
Turn up the stress, turn down the empathy. Want to cause division, a la Bre-xit - enact aust-erity first to make the populace easy to direct. This works on an amplified level too. Want a war? Enact fam-ine.
(Edited to get around AdTube's intentionally ambiguous censorship rules enacted to train us into self-censorship).
This one really hit. 👏
Not everyone will engage with politics to the same degree, and we can't expect most people to care that much today. So, if we want to affect positive change then those changes have to be incremental and easy to assimilate. Revolutions caused by starvation are not the only way to change, nor the better way. Those of us radical enough to question the foundations of society must boil our strategies down into small and specific proposals that can be snuck in through the system and change the rules of the game.
Entrepreneurial Capitalism needs people to accept 'individualism' unquestioningly.
Because it is the theoretical axe that divides any populace,
makes the population fragmented, alone and manageable.
Turning the 'endless possibilities' of the post-war West into a pure Capitalist dystopia.
There can be 'no mandates' for change with a completely divided population.
With politics in the West made redundant, the population are made impotent.
Identity politics is Capitalism personified. It divides and obliterates collective meaning.
It helps destroy the single plateau theory. That we all have exactly the same basic needs.
Which we can all work together to achieve.
Individualism - It subversively divides and weakens the population.
That's why it is the Capitalist West's lynchpin idea.
By embracing it, you can never escape the Capitalist dystopia.
By embracing it, you wholeheartedly embrace your own individual greed.
And you live in a playground full of possibilities to enjoy your personal avarice.
Capitalists understand the fact... that the secret to human potential,
is having a series of collective objectives. Objectives people can understand and believe in.
Humans can achieve anything if bound together as one. Every collective dream is achievable.
Individualism means the few can control the many... for their own, petty individual aims.
Capitalism is the story of how personal or individual greed became normalised,
and defeated the innate power of 'modern' humanity.
so collectivism where a few control many but for "THE GREATER GOOD" is the solution?
yeah no thanks
capitalism is already on its way out anyway grandpa... maybe read less dusty books or for starter at least your late marx
I like your videos... Nobody understands Deleuze but you got me to take a second look at Baudrillard...
This man has had too much to think… we all have.