Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard (born July 29, 1929) is a cultural theorist and philosopher. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism.

Critiques of Baudrillard

Baudrillard has been criticized by many scholars. Douglas Kellner offers a critique of Baudrillard in 'Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond' (ISBN 0804717575) that attempts to defend traditional Marxism from Baudrillard's critique. And Christopher Norris attacked what he saw as Baudrillard's lack of meaningful political engagement in 'Uncritical Theory : Postmodernism, Intellectuals and the Gulf War' (ISBN 0870238175).

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Some counter that these critiques of Baudrillard are based on a limited understanding of his work. While Baudrillard is deeply critical of Marxism for its failure to engage in a deconstruction of capitalism beyond the 'use-value-exchange-value' dichotomy (and thus failing to account for the unproductive expenditure of luxury goods, expendable purchases, etc., which have defined late-capitalism since the mid-twentieth century), he himself has rarely used the term 'postmodern'. When he does, it is to describe in disparaging terms the decadence of Western culture, or more specifically, "the exalting of residues, rehabilitation by bricolage, eclectic sentimentality ... high dilution, low intensities" (The Illusion of the End, 1994: 35).

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