- Paperback: 160 pages
- Publisher: Verso Press USA (Oct 25 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1859843492
- ISBN-13: 978-1859843499
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 19.5 x 1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 376 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #501,259 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"Everything starts out from impossible exchange. The uncertainty of the world lies in the fact that it has no equivalent anywhere; it cannot be exchanged for anything. The uncertainty of thought lies in the fact that it cannot be exchanged either for truth or for reality. Is it the thought which tips the world over into uncertainty, or the other way around? This in itself is part of the uncertainty."
Book Description
Everything starts out from impossible exchange. The uncertainty of the world lies in the fact that it has no equivalent anywhere; it cannot be exchanged for anything. The uncertainty of thought lies in the fact that it cannot be exchanged either for truth or for reality. Jean Baudrillard's now familiar investigations into reality and hyper-reality shift here into a more metaphysical frame. Working his way through the various spheres and systems of everyday life—the political, the juridical, the economical, the aesthetic, the biological, among others—he finds that they are all characterized by the same non-equivalence, and hence the same eccentricity. Literally, they have no meaning outside themselves and cannot be exchanged for anything. Politics is laden with signs and meanings, but seen from the outside it has no meaning. Schemes for genetic experimentation and investigation are becoming infinitely ramified, and the more ramified they become the more the crucial question is left unanswered: who rules over life, who rules over death? Baudrillard's conclusion is that the true formula of contemporary nihilism lies here: the nihilism of value itself. This is our fate, and from this stem both the happiest and the most baleful consequences. This book might be said to be the exploration, first, of the 'fateful' consequences, and subsequently—by a poetic transference of situation—of the fortunate, happy consequences of impossible exchange.
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A Baudrillard Classic
Jan 19 2012
Format:Paperback
At the time of his death, Baudrillard was accused of being "a comedian of ideas." Such nonsense is easily believed by those who never bother to actually read him, and "Impossible Exchange," one of his best books, easily dispels such media-microwaved packaging.
In "Impossible Exchange," Baudrillard discusses the 'revenge of the immortals,' and points out that the earliest lifeforms on earth, such as viruses and bacteria, and presently today with cancer cells which are really cells that forget to die, life began with immortal beings that did not die pre-programmed biological death (bacteria are theoretically immortal). Likewise, he says that with modern technology the immortals are having their revenge upon us, the beings who displaced them with the invention of sex and death, two things that allowed us to triumph over them. However, in technology, with the pill, sex is liberated from reproduction; but with artificial insemination and biological cloning, reproduction becomes liberated from the sex act, which now becomes useless. Hence, through genetic cloning we are returning to the asexual reproduction of the bacterial immortals and are thus regressing, losing defining traits that make us human.
In the next chapter on "Useless Functions," he points out that once something is virtualized, it becomes useless. Thus, when language is digitized, it becomes useless. When computers are all that is needed for production, work becomes useless. When communication is virtualized, the Other becomes useless. When the only thing needed to reproduce the species is cloning, sex becomes useless. The Real did not die a natural death, but simply disappeared and now we have only the vestiges of it.
Whatever is displaced by virtuality, however, returns in destructive form. Time, replaced by Real Time, takes revenge in the form of Y2K millenarianism. Nature reduced to an energy source takes revenge as natural catastrophes. The displaced Other returns in the destructive form of ethnic cleansing and racial genocide.
And so on. Pages and pages of sheer brilliance. If you want to read one of Baudrillard's best books, then by all means, this one's not a bad place to start.
--John David Ebert, author of "The New Media Invasion" (McFarland Books, 2011) and "Dead Celebrities, Living Icons" (Praeger, 2010)
In "Impossible Exchange," Baudrillard discusses the 'revenge of the immortals,' and points out that the earliest lifeforms on earth, such as viruses and bacteria, and presently today with cancer cells which are really cells that forget to die, life began with immortal beings that did not die pre-programmed biological death (bacteria are theoretically immortal). Likewise, he says that with modern technology the immortals are having their revenge upon us, the beings who displaced them with the invention of sex and death, two things that allowed us to triumph over them. However, in technology, with the pill, sex is liberated from reproduction; but with artificial insemination and biological cloning, reproduction becomes liberated from the sex act, which now becomes useless. Hence, through genetic cloning we are returning to the asexual reproduction of the bacterial immortals and are thus regressing, losing defining traits that make us human.
In the next chapter on "Useless Functions," he points out that once something is virtualized, it becomes useless. Thus, when language is digitized, it becomes useless. When computers are all that is needed for production, work becomes useless. When communication is virtualized, the Other becomes useless. When the only thing needed to reproduce the species is cloning, sex becomes useless. The Real did not die a natural death, but simply disappeared and now we have only the vestiges of it.
Whatever is displaced by virtuality, however, returns in destructive form. Time, replaced by Real Time, takes revenge in the form of Y2K millenarianism. Nature reduced to an energy source takes revenge as natural catastrophes. The displaced Other returns in the destructive form of ethnic cleansing and racial genocide.
And so on. Pages and pages of sheer brilliance. If you want to read one of Baudrillard's best books, then by all means, this one's not a bad place to start.
--John David Ebert, author of "The New Media Invasion" (McFarland Books, 2011) and "Dead Celebrities, Living Icons" (Praeger, 2010)
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