An Introduction to Baudrillard

In this introduction to Baudrillard, I look at his thought as it developed from a Marxist framework in Symbolic Exchange and death through to his hyperreal postmodern period exemplified in Simulacra and Simulation. I take an in-depth look at a number of his concepts.

First I look at sign-value, which he argued must supplement Marx’s framework of use-value and exchange-value. He then takes this central concept forward arguing that copies of the real – simulacra – became increasingly detached from reality, referencing themselves more than the real and so developing a hyperreality. Postmodernity directs social life through code and simulation.

Finally, I look at the concept of Symbolic Exchange; a basis for revolutionary thought that is meant to emphasize social life, ritual, gift-giving, energy expenditure, and neo-aristocratic values. In doing this, Baudrillard hopes to escape from the ‘law of value’, utilitarian logic, and dialectic history typical in much modern thought.

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Sources (in recommended reading order):

Stanford Encyclopaedia, Baudrillard,

Douglas Kellner, Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond

Richard J. Lane, Jean Baudrillard (Routledge Critical Thinkers)

Cuck Philosophy, American Psycho, Baudrillard and the Postmodern Condition,

Jean Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange and Death

Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

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