I am always attracted to philosophy and culture theory books, but more often than not they are extremely dry and academic, and sadly I require more excitement to hold my squirrel attention.
It is no wonder much more people have read the “Industrial Society and its Future” than anything by Jacques Ellul.
Someone with the same squirrel attention who starts a lot of books a rarely finishes one. I think for a philosophy book, it is quite accessible in the sense that it builds on common knowledge and known cultural phenomenon, not that much on prior theory you must have read. Regarding the language it is not that accessible, Baudrillard (in the culture of french intellectuals of the time) has a very dense, complex language. But it is not a dry philosophy lecture, its more like hackerman punk-rock philosophy.
The book consists of a set of loosely related essays, and the first essay "the precession of simulacra" is just roughly 40 pages. If you read that, squirrel brain is happy and you got most of the books content. The rest is just explaining this concept on modern (slightly outdated now, but culturally still relevant), cultural phenomenon. Once you understand his concepts of "simulacrum" and "image" it is very readable. Later he uses his concepts of "economic and symbolic exchange" which come from his earlier book Symbolic Exchange and Death. The concept is quite easy to grasp, the book is good but you don't have to have read it. The rest of the book builds on these concepts. So the key to making this book accessible is understanding these concepts, which for me took some thinking and time to actually understand deeply.
But, and that's important, once you worked through the book, it is a phenomenal tool to understand modern culture. So is it accessible: theoretically yes, linguistically not, but its worth it.
Not sure I get your point, as I wish we had more punk rock philosophy aimed at the masses and not at academia.
If your philosophy isn't targeting your average person with their average existential crisis, you have failed your mission. Philosophers have completely failed their mission since the Greeks. They had the Christian Church pick up their slack during the Middle Ages, and now that we've shed religion, we're utterly lost and people that seek to cure their existential dread have to navigate through utter drudgery to find a path towards the Good Life. /rant
I meant "punk rock" in a "refusal of rules" or (in combination with "hackerman") "creative use of tools/methods". To elaborate further, when you read him you often feel like he claims his Simulacra Theory is universal, and he further makes quite bold claims like the Gulf war did not happen, reality is not real and is produced by culture/media. Those are not scientifically rigorous claims. But he makes those (at first reading outlandish) claims, not to craft theory, but to invite exchange with his theories, to challenge reality, not to make scientific theories.
A little disclaimer he was a very serious academic. I just think in his later works he kind of "defected" knowingly from the scientific method.
About your second part: > If your philosophy isn't targeting your average person with their average existential crisis, you have failed your mission.
Debord has a long paragraph about this in "society of spectacle", that the way forward is to make the worker a dialectician.
You claiming that "Philosophers have completely failed their mission since the greeks" is understandable, but I think empirically false. Quite often, ideas shape in culture, get picked up in philosophy, get reshaped, refined and influence culture which is targeting the average person. A good example to show that is Existentialism and Nihilism. Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Camus and Sartre worked out the kinks, then it returned back in modern culture e.g. as Rick and Morty which is translation of academic ideas to the average person. I do agree though that the transmission rate of this process could be better. This very discussion is a hint on that, most non-academia people know Baudrillard through the Matrix-Franchise, which, ironically, Baudrillard hated and in my opinion did not translate his ideas at all.
It's hard but if you read it once for the vibes and then pay closer attention the next time you go through it's not too hard. Baudrillard is a Zizek-level philosopher in the sense that his own celebrity is kind of at the centre of most of his work (this doesn't mean it's simple, dumb or low-quality, it's pretty interesting, it's just also kinda sci-fi/fanciful as opposed to hardcore logic-chopping or idk complex historiography like some of his contemporaries)
Depends on your proficiency. As a former philosophy student I find it one of the more readable books. It still is probably hard to wrap your head around as a layperson not used to this kind of theoretical thinking.
But what it is not: Some authors use word plays, complexity and semantics to make their ideas appear more sophisticated than they are. This is not that.
A bit of both. If so inclined, it's difficult to read Kaczynski and not go "hell yeah." It's just more accessible, even if the arguments are a bit egregious.
I've read both, but Baudrillard is more lucid and insightful in his writing. I would suggest reading Symbollic Exchange and Death (his magnum opus) instead of Simulacra and Simulation first though.
As with most works of cultural theory you need to read it few times, and also check other works of his. Otherwise you may end up reducing concepts from this book to social media or AI slop.
Moreover, books like this usually are just phrases in a long dialectical process. For example, it is useful to read Debord first, and then move to Baudrillard.
Comments
How readable and accessible is this book?
I am always attracted to philosophy and culture theory books, but more often than not they are extremely dry and academic, and sadly I require more excitement to hold my squirrel attention.
It is no wonder much more people have read the “Industrial Society and its Future” than anything by Jacques Ellul.
Someone with the same squirrel attention who starts a lot of books a rarely finishes one. I think for a philosophy book, it is quite accessible in the sense that it builds on common knowledge and known cultural phenomenon, not that much on prior theory you must have read. Regarding the language it is not that accessible, Baudrillard (in the culture of french intellectuals of the time) has a very dense, complex language. But it is not a dry philosophy lecture, its more like hackerman punk-rock philosophy.
The book consists of a set of loosely related essays, and the first essay "the precession of simulacra" is just roughly 40 pages. If you read that, squirrel brain is happy and you got most of the books content. The rest is just explaining this concept on modern (slightly outdated now, but culturally still relevant), cultural phenomenon. Once you understand his concepts of "simulacrum" and "image" it is very readable. Later he uses his concepts of "economic and symbolic exchange" which come from his earlier book Symbolic Exchange and Death. The concept is quite easy to grasp, the book is good but you don't have to have read it. The rest of the book builds on these concepts. So the key to making this book accessible is understanding these concepts, which for me took some thinking and time to actually understand deeply.
But, and that's important, once you worked through the book, it is a phenomenal tool to understand modern culture. So is it accessible: theoretically yes, linguistically not, but its worth it.
Not sure I get your point, as I wish we had more punk rock philosophy aimed at the masses and not at academia.
If your philosophy isn't targeting your average person with their average existential crisis, you have failed your mission. Philosophers have completely failed their mission since the Greeks. They had the Christian Church pick up their slack during the Middle Ages, and now that we've shed religion, we're utterly lost and people that seek to cure their existential dread have to navigate through utter drudgery to find a path towards the Good Life. /rant
I meant "punk rock" in a "refusal of rules" or (in combination with "hackerman") "creative use of tools/methods". To elaborate further, when you read him you often feel like he claims his Simulacra Theory is universal, and he further makes quite bold claims like the Gulf war did not happen, reality is not real and is produced by culture/media. Those are not scientifically rigorous claims. But he makes those (at first reading outlandish) claims, not to craft theory, but to invite exchange with his theories, to challenge reality, not to make scientific theories.
A little disclaimer he was a very serious academic. I just think in his later works he kind of "defected" knowingly from the scientific method.
About your second part: > If your philosophy isn't targeting your average person with their average existential crisis, you have failed your mission.
Debord has a long paragraph about this in "society of spectacle", that the way forward is to make the worker a dialectician.
You claiming that "Philosophers have completely failed their mission since the greeks" is understandable, but I think empirically false. Quite often, ideas shape in culture, get picked up in philosophy, get reshaped, refined and influence culture which is targeting the average person. A good example to show that is Existentialism and Nihilism. Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Camus and Sartre worked out the kinks, then it returned back in modern culture e.g. as Rick and Morty which is translation of academic ideas to the average person. I do agree though that the transmission rate of this process could be better. This very discussion is a hint on that, most non-academia people know Baudrillard through the Matrix-Franchise, which, ironically, Baudrillard hated and in my opinion did not translate his ideas at all.
It's hard but if you read it once for the vibes and then pay closer attention the next time you go through it's not too hard. Baudrillard is a Zizek-level philosopher in the sense that his own celebrity is kind of at the centre of most of his work (this doesn't mean it's simple, dumb or low-quality, it's pretty interesting, it's just also kinda sci-fi/fanciful as opposed to hardcore logic-chopping or idk complex historiography like some of his contemporaries)
"readable and accessible" are some of the last words I would use to describe the book.
Depends on your proficiency. As a former philosophy student I find it one of the more readable books. It still is probably hard to wrap your head around as a layperson not used to this kind of theoretical thinking.
But what it is not: Some authors use word plays, complexity and semantics to make their ideas appear more sophisticated than they are. This is not that.
Tried to read it, gave up.
Do you think it is because Ellul is hard to read or because Kaczynski is just more well-known for obvious reasons?
A bit of both. If so inclined, it's difficult to read Kaczynski and not go "hell yeah." It's just more accessible, even if the arguments are a bit egregious.
It took me about 20-30 re-reads of the first page to understand it.
The rest of the chapter was then a bit easier. I gave up after that.
But it really is a great idea in the first few pages.
Its not great. I suggest reading Villem Flusser instead.
I've read both, but Baudrillard is more lucid and insightful in his writing. I would suggest reading Symbollic Exchange and Death (his magnum opus) instead of Simulacra and Simulation first though.
As with most works of cultural theory you need to read it few times, and also check other works of his. Otherwise you may end up reducing concepts from this book to social media or AI slop.
Moreover, books like this usually are just phrases in a long dialectical process. For example, it is useful to read Debord first, and then move to Baudrillard.