(no subject)

[beccaelizabeth]

Baudrillard's theories are gloomy

is one of the few names I ever remember, for simulacra & simulation = Matrix

I'm wondering if Joss read up on Baudrillard after the Matrix (known to be a favourite film of his)

I can stick bunches of bits of this theory to Angel season 5

though mostly it seems to be saying how Baudrillard was (stupidly and very) wrong

dude thought change had become impossible for we are stuck exchanging meaningless symbols and there is no reality. thought LA was a theme park.

There is a dream of LA that colors all experience of it. But there are also a ton of people living there, and a lot of realities like 'starvation' and 'crime' going on. he really needs to get out of the house more.



a lot of postmodern theories, it looks like they have a point, but then they take it at least a dozen steps further than I want to go, or head off in weird directions. I mean I'm quite happy to say that human experience is made sense of using texts and therefore idea-of-England is all we ever see/comprehend, but I'm not going to say that such is all there *is*. Also, changing ideas is easy. So change should be easy. Like, understanding the Matrix, can play with the code. Hack reality.



... the *other* problem with postmodernism is it keeps inventing words and wandering off along a long train of reasoning, so talking about it kind of only works when talking to people who already know about it. otherwise one ends up sounding like slightly insane.




I like all these isms. I've had much fun figuring out which bits of theory to use in building characters. Ethan is fun with added neo-Marxism, and Andrew is your classic postmodern horror story. Giles is just sort of Giles-y though, and so is Oz. Maybe because I think of them as, you know, sane. Hmmm...



ETA: The textbook, in the 'critique' section, turned into snark central. Says it is 'Baudrillard who has lost his grasp on reality'.
Which begs the question, why is he in the textbook?

Comments

[makd.livejournal.com]

Baudrillard is more important in European sociology than American sociology. If you delve further into his writings, he's completely off=target on the subject of women and minorities. At the same time, he's completely on-target about the importance of image rather than reality in American society.

He's had a lot of influence on contemporary European sociological theory.

He doesn't appear in most American sociology texts, unless it's specifically about pop culture, media, or postmodernism.

Indeed, almost every time I read one of your postings about sociology, I wish you were a student here in the States; you'd like sociology more and would struggle with it less. (We emphasize pragmatism and positivism.)

[beccaelizabeth]

We're doing a unit on media at the moment, hence the Baudrillard relevance, but teach seems to have given up on postmodernism so I'm hunting through the book for more data. So it isn't that the theory is especially important in class, just that it was what I was reading today.

And I think the big blue book (Haralambos & Holborn) tries to include every theory in the whole history of everything ever. Even if it doesn't like them.



Sometimes I think my brain is on the wrong side of the atlantic from all its ideas.

:-)

[makd.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think my brain is on the wrong side of the atlantic from all its ideas.

Well, we Yanks are far more interested in the concrete than the abstract, that's fershure. ::hugs you::