Liza
> From: Jeffrey Fisher <jfisher at igc.org>
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 19:03:31 -0600
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: Baudrillard "weighs" in
>
> geez, and here i thought lbo-talk was the last refuge of postmodernism
> . . .
>
> <cough>
>
> seriously, though, and leaving aside baudrillard's status as
> essentially [sic] a wannabe bataille, i actually enjoyed his inversion
> of the "cultural envy" thesis we've heard hacks like friedman bandy
> about:
>
> "The rise of the globalised system has been powered by the furious envy
> of an indifferent, low-definition culture
> faced with the reality of high-definition cultures. Envy is what
> disenchanted systems that have lost their intensity feel in the
> presence of high-intensity cultures. It is the envy of deconsecrated
> societies when confronted with sacrificial cultures and structures."
>
> i don't know that that virtuosic little maneuver was worth the rest of
> the article, or that it was especially enlightening, but it was kind of
> spiffy -- which i suppose is what postmodernism is (supposed to be) all
> about, anyway . . .
>
> j
>
> On Thursday, November 14, 2002, at 06:47 PM, Liza Featherstone wrote:
>
>> At an (admittedly) quick glance, looks to be the stupidest
>> terrorism-related
>> waste of ink I've ever seen. And it's a competitive field. Has this
>> guy ever
>> written anything worth reading?
>>
>>> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>>> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>>> Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 19:34:00 -0500
>>> To: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>>> Subject: Baudrillard "weighs" in
>>>
>>> Le Monde diplomatique - November 2002
>>>
>>> TERRORISM IS SOCIETY'S CONDEMNATION OF ITSELF
>>>
>>> The despair of having everything
>>> _______________________________________________________
>>>
>>> The West's mission is to make the world's wealth of cultures
>>> interchangeable, and to subordinate them within the global
>>> order. Our culture, which is bereft of values, revenges
>>> itself upon the values of other cultures.
>>>
>>> by JEAN BAUDRILLARD *
>>> _______________________________________________________
>>>
>>> IS globalisation inevitable? What fervour propels the
>>> world to embrace such an abstract idea? And what force
>>> drives us to make that idea a reality so unconditionally?
>>>
>>> The universal used to be an idea. Yet when an idea is
>>> actually realised globally, it commits suicide. With
>>> humankind as the sole authority of note, occupying the
>>> empty space left by a dead God, the human species now
>>> rules unchallenged, though it no longer has any
>>> overarching goal. Since humanity's enemies have all fled,
>>> it must generate foes from within its own ranks, while
>>> showing symptoms of inhumanity.
>>>
>>> Hence the violence associated with globalisation, with a
>>> system that wants to eliminate any manifestation of
>>> negativity and singularity (including the ultimate
>>> expression of singularity, death). This is the violence
>>> of a society in which we are almost forbidden to engage
>>> in conflict. This violence, in a way, marks an end to
>>> violence itself, because it yearns for a world free from
>>> any natural order that might govern the human body or
>>> sexuality, life or death. It might be more accurate to
>>> use the word virulence, rather than violence. This
>>> violence has viral force: it spreads by contagion and
>>> chain reactions. It gradually destroys our immunity and
>>> ability to resist.
>>>
>>> Globalisation's triumph is not certain yet, though. Faced
>>> with its homogenising and destabilising effects, hostile
>>> forces are arising everywhere. But anti-globalisation's
>>> ever-sharper manifestations - including social and
>>> political resistance - should be seen as more than just
>>> outmoded forms of rejection. They are part of an
>>> agonising revision that focuses on the achievements of
>>> modernity and "progress", a process that rejects both the
>>> globalised techno-structure and an ideology that wants to
>>> make all cultures interchangeable.
>>>
>>> Anti-globalisation actions may be violent, abnormal or
>>> irrational, at least as judged by our enlightened
>>> philosophy. They may be collective, bringing together
>>> different ethnic, religious and linguistic groups, or
>>> they may be individual, including maladjustment and
>>> neurosis. It would be wrong to denounce
>>> anti-globalisation forces as populist, antiquated or
>>> terrorist. Every current event - including Islamic
>>> hostility to the West - happens in opposition to the
>>> abstraction that is the concept of universality. Islam is
>>> now public enemy number one because it has shown the most
>>> vehement opposition to Western values.
>>>
>>> Who or what can thwart the global system? Surely not
>>> anti-globalisation forces, whose only aim is to slow the
>>> pace of deregulation; their political influence may be
>>> considerable but their symbolic impact is nil. The
>>> protestors' violence is merely another event within the
>>> system that the system will absorb - while remaining in
>>> control of the game.
>>>
>>> Singularities [unique or unusual identities or
>>> approaches] could be used to baffle the system. Being
>>> neither positive nor negative, they do not represent
>>> alternatives; they are wild cards outside the system.
>>> They cannot be evaluated by value judgments or through
>>> principles of political reality; they can correspond to
>>> either the best or the worst. They are obstacles to
>>> one-track thinking and dominant modes of thought,
>>> although they are not the only kind of contrary approach.
>>> They make up their own games and play by their own rules.
>>>
>>> Singularities are not inherently violent. Some can be
>>> subtle, unique characteristics of language, art, culture
>>> or the human body. But violent singularities do exist,
>>> and terrorism is one of them. Violence revenges all the
>>> varied cultures that disappeared to prepare for the
>>> investiture of a single global power. This is not really
>>> a clash of civilisations. Instead, this anthropological
>>> conflict pits a monolithic universal culture against all
>>> manifestations of otherness, wherever they may be found.
>>>
>>> Global power - as fundamentalist as any religious
>>> orthodoxy - sees anything different or unorthodox as
>>> heretical, and the heretics must be made to assume their
>>> position within the global order or disappear completely.
>>> The West's mission (we could call it the "former West"
>>> since it lost its defining values long ago) is to reduce
>>> a wealth of separate cultures into being interchangeable,
>>> of equal weight, by any brutal means possible. A culture
>>> that is bereft of values revenges itself on the values of
>>> other cultures. Beyond politics and economics, the
>>> primary aim of warfare (including the conflict in
>>> Afghanistan) is to normalise savagery and beat
>>> territories into alignment. Another objective is to
>>> diminish any zone of resistance, to colonise and tame any
>>> terrain, geographical or mental
>>>
>>> Furious envy
>>>
>>> The rise of the globalised system has been powered by the
>>> furious envy of an indifferent, low-definition culture
>>> faced with the reality of high-definition cultures. Envy
>>> is what disenchanted systems that have lost their
>>> intensity feel in the presence of high-intensity
>>> cultures. It is the envy of deconsecrated societies when
>>> confronted with sacrificial cultures and structures.
>>>
>>> The global system assesses any resistance as potentially
>>> terrorist, as in Afghanistan (1). When a territory bans
>>> democratic liberties such as music, television or women's
>>> faces, when nations take courses opposed to what we call
>>> civilisation, the "free" world sees these events as
>>> indefensible, regardless of what religious principles may
>>> be at stake.
>>>
>>> So to disavow modernity and its pretensions of
>>> universality is not allowed. Some resistors reject the
>>> belief that modernity is a force for good or represents
>>> the natural ideal of our species; others question the
>>> universality of our mores and values. Even when the
>>> resistors are described as "fanatics", their contrariness
>>> remains criminal, according to the received wisdom of the
>>> West.
>>>
>>> This confrontation can only be understood by considering
>>> symbolic obligations. To understand the hatred the rest
>>> of the world feels towards the West, we must reverse our
>>> perspectives. This is not the hatred felt by people from
>>> whom we have taken everything and to whom we have given
>>> nothing back. Rather, it is the hatred felt by those to
>>> whom we have given everything and who can give nothing in
>>> return. Their hatred stems from humiliation, not from
>>> dispossession or exploitation. The attacks of 11
>>> September were a response to this animus, with one kind
>>> of humiliation begetting another.
>>>
>>> The worst thing that can happen to global power is not
>>> for it to be attacked or destroyed but for it to be
>>> humiliated. Global power was humiliated on 11 September
>>> because the terrorists inflicted an injury that could not
>>> be inflicted on them in return. Reprisals are only
>>> physical retaliations, whereas global power had suffered
>>> a symbolic defeat. War can only respond to the
>>> terrorists' physical aggression, not to the challenge
>>> they represent. Their defiance can only be addressed by
>>> vengefully humiliating the "others" (but surely not by
>>> crushing them with bombs or by locking them up like dogs
>>> in detention cells in Guantánamo Bay).
>>>
>>> There is a fundamental rule that the basis for all
>>> domination is a total lack of any counterflow to the
>>> prevailing power. Bestowing a unilateral gift is a
>>> powerful act. The "good" empire gives without any
>>> possibility of a return of gifts. This is almost to
>>> assume God's place or to take on the role of the master
>>> who ensures his slaves' safety in exchange for their
>>> labours. (Since work is not a symbolic compensation, the
>>> only remaining options for the slaves are revolution and
>>> death.)
>>>
>>> But even God allowed humanity to give him the gift of
>>> sacrifice. Within the traditional order it was always
>>> possible to repay God, or nature, or another higher
>>> authority, by sacrifice. This safeguarded the symbolic
>>> equilibrium between human beings and everything else.
>>> Today there is no one left to compensate, to whom we
>>> might repay our symbolic debt. This is the curse of our
>>> culture: although giving is not impossible, giving back
>>> is impossible, because sacrifice has had its importance
>>> and power taken away, and what remains is a caricature of
>>> sacrifice (like contemporary ideas of victimisation).
>>>
>>> So we find ourselves stuck with always being on the
>>> receiving end, not from God or nature, but from technical
>>> mechanisms that provide general exchange and
>>> gratification. Almost everything is given to us. And we
>>> are entitled to it all. We are like slaves, bondservants
>>> whose lives have been spared but who are still bound by
>>> an intractable debt. At some point, though, that
>>> fundamental rule always applies and any positive transfer
>>> will be met with a negative reaction.
>>>
>>> This is a violent expression of repressed feeling about
>>> lives in captivity, about sheltered existences, about, in
>>> fact, having far too much existence. The return to a more
>>> primitive condition may take the form of violence
>>> (including terrorism) or the form of denials
>>> characterised by powerlessness, self-hatred and remorse,
>>> negative passions, which are a debased form of the
>>> payback that it is impossible to make.
>>> The thing we hate within ourselves, the obscure focus of
>>> our resentment, is our surfeit of reality: our excessive
>>> power and comfort, our sense of accomplishment. This is
>>> the fate that Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor had prepared
>>> for the tamed masses in The Brothers Karamazov ["to
>>> vanquish freedom and to do so to make men happy"]. It is
>>> exactly what the terrorists condemn in our culture. Hence
>>> the endless coverage of - and fascination with -
>>> terrorism.
>>>
>>> Terrorism depends not only on the obvious despair of the
>>> humiliated, but on the invisible despair of
>>> globalisation's beneficiaries. It depends on our
>>> subjugation to the technology integral to our lives, and
>>> to the crushing effects of virtual reality. We are in
>>> thrall to networks and programmes, and this dependence
>>> defines our species, homo sapiens gone global. This
>>> feeling of invisible despair - our own despair - is
>>> irreversible because it is the result of the total
>>> fulfilment of our desires.
>>>
>>> If terrorism is really the result of a state of profusion
>>> without any hope of payback or obligation to sacrifice,
>>> of the forced resolution of conflicts, then eradicating
>>> it as if it were an affliction imposed from the outside
>>> could only be illusory. Terrorism, in its absurdity and
>>> meaninglessness, is society's verdict on - and
>>> condemnation of - itself.
>>> ____________________________________________________
>>>
>>> * Philosopher and author of The Spirit of Terrorism and
>>> Requiem for the Twin Towers (Verso, New York, 2002); The
>>> Perfect Crime (Verso, 1996) and The Gulf War Did Not Take
>>> Place (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1995). This
>>> article also appears in Power Inferno, Galilée, Paris ©
>>> Éditions Galilée
>>>
>>> (1) You could say serious natural disasters are a form of
>>> terrorism since, although they are technically classified
>>> as accidents (such as Chernobyl), they may resemble
>>> terrorism. In India, the Bhopal poison gas tragedy
>>> (technically an accident) could have been terrorism. Any
>>> terrorist group could claim responsibility for an
>>> aviation accident. Irrational events can be attributed to
>>> anyone or anything, so that, at the limit, we could see
>>> anything as criminal, even cold weather or an earthquake.
>>> There is nothing new about this: in the aftermath of the
>>> 1923 Tokyo earthquake, thousands of Koreans were blamed
>>> and killed. In a system as integrated as our own,
>>> everything destabilises; everything seeks to undermine a
>>> system that lays claim to infallibility. Given what we
>>> are already undergoing because of the system's rational
>>> grip, we may wonder if the worst catastrophe is the
>>> infallibility of the system.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Translated by Luke Sandford
>>
>