Jean Baudrillard

From Geography

Jean Baudrillard (27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is often described as post-modern or post-structural. His major books in English are Simulations, Fatal Strategies, Impossible Exchange and The Intelligence of Evil. Baudrillard is relevant to the actiontheoretical framework because of his famous publication about the Simulacrumtheorie and because of his critique on Michel Foucault.

Simulacrumtheorie

This theorie questions the reality of images on the public media. Baudrillard argues that people lose contact with the real world because we base most of our ideas on images we see in de media. We don’t see these images ourselves but we base the on film and media, and these are created by people so they aren’t real according Baudrillard argumentation. This theory can be seen as critique on today’s modern world, where society is been hugely influenced by the media that spread the news as if it is the only truth. That’s in contrast of postmodern thinkers who believe that each story or news fact has a backside, and there always different sides on an event.

Critique on Foucault

Baudrillard has upset all existing theories of contemporary society with scathing humor and clinical precision. EH also criticized Michel Foucault by replying on the book History of Sexuality. In History of Sexuality the terms desire and power are central in explaining human behaviour in a certain way. However Baudrillard claims that the power and desire are interchangeable, so desire had no place in Foucault’s work. And he said that no intellectual can describe an vague concept as ‘power’ as precise as Foucault tries to do.