In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Ricardo Duchesne
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>> Mediated is not the same as unreal. 180 000 Iraqis were killed in the
>> initial raids. Tens of thousands more have died since as a result of the
>> embargo on Iraqi oil, and the shortages of medicine and foodstuffs.
>
>
>But that's not how we experienced the war; the images had no
>relation to the war whatever, yet debated as if they were
>authentic by the experts in TV.
You might have exprienced the war through the medium of TV, or you could
have experienced the war through the medium of the many solidarity
campaigns. In any event, immediate experience is not the test of what is
real, unless of course, rality is limited to 'what is real for you'. But
there were events taking place that were wider than the average couch
potato's range of experience.
>
>
>> >...Callinicos is not to be
>> >trusted on Baudrillard, or any postmodernist; he has yet to outgrow
>> >the infantilism of international revolution.
>>
>> Does postmodernism aim at maturity? I don't think so. Is it maturity to
>> make peace with the United Nations continuing war against the Iraqi
>> people, or to pretend that it is all spectacle?
>
>This does not follow. My point was that Callinicos book on
>postmodernism - in which he completely dismisses Baudrillard - should
>be seen for what it is: a childish response to new reflections about
>the world.
Sorry for not being clear: My first point is that in introducing the
differentiation mature/childish you are participating in the value
schema shared between enlightenment and Marxist thinking, ie
developmental or progressive. A post-modernist would surely embrace the
badge of the enfant terrible with pride. IE from Baudrillard's point of
view, Callinicos is too mature and not childish enough.
In my old-fashioned view that maturity is indeed a better thing than
childishness, I take Baudrillard's temper tantrum as evidence of
childishness.
--
James Heartfield
