 |
| |
|
|
|
| 
|
|
The Cool Provocateur
 |
Browse |
 |
|
|
by Jean Baudrillard
Verso
Due/Published
November 1998, 160 pages,
paper
ISBN
1859842410
Baudrillard, love him or hate him, is one of the the most controversial and stimulating figures in contemporary philosophy and cultural criticism. This book offers the reader a new way to approach Baudrillard's ideas through the use of the interview format. Closely questioned by French journalist Philippe Petit, Baudrillard covers a vast range of topics, spanning politics, philosophy, and culture. His answers serve both as an accessible introduction to his ideas for the newcomer and as a clarification of recent positions for the connoisseur. (But remember, if they can get you to ask the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers--cool, huh.) |
|
| |
Review
Baudrillard's often controversial, never dull, and sometimes obscure critiques of contemporary Western society find an excellent format in this consistently stimulating series of interviews with French journalist, Philippe Petit. There are a lot of familiar Baudrillard ideas in Paroxysm -- "hyperreality," and the simulacra -- but the interviews offer new and often more concrete applications. Baudrillard is certainly a thinker confident of his ideas and his style is one that at times can be a bit inscrutable is also, at other times, direct and witty. Thus, in many ways Paroxysm is an excellent introduction to Baudrillard as well as an interesting clarification of his thought. The wide range of subjects discussed include 1989 and the collapse of Communism (Baudrillard argues that a Western "victory" can hardly be enjoyed given the falsity and hollowness of contemporary western industrial societies); Rwanda and the New World Order; globalization and universalization (globalization has, Baudrillard argues, subsumed universalization by making human values another commodity in the international marketplace); revisionism and the Holocaust denial; Deleuze, Foucault, Bataille and Virilio; the practice of writing; the culture of victimhood; illusion of the media; destabilization of all aspects of life, including sexuality; and more. As you can see very few stones are unturned in this engaging version of Baudrillard.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
