Baudrillardiana

So thinking further about terrorism, see previous here, I went back, as you do, to old Jean B and his work The Spirit of Terrorism which discusses terrorism specifically in the light of the events of September 11.

He has two things worthy of note:

1.is this sentence

The spectacle of terrorism forces the terrorism of spectacle upon us.

for full text see here


Baudrillard is always the one for the pithy sentence, but surely here he has it the wrong way round, does not the terrorism of the spectacle force the spectacle of terrorism upon us. The spectacle, that distorting intermediary which hinders all forms of communication and destabilises every form of relationship, is surely more pervasive and constant a terrorism than that of singular acts of spectacular destabilisation. The spectacle also surely forces the spectacle of terrorism upon us in 2 ways. 1, by creating a vacuum of hyperreality within which death cults thrive, and 2, by media - would 9/11 exist if it had not been constantly spectacularly replayed.



2. this sentence (fragment) also leads back to discussion of the state or in fact the discussion of the reification of the state.

… but terrorism is tautalogical, and its conclusion is a paradoxical syllogism: if the State really existed, it would give a political meaning to terrorism. Since terrorism manifestly has none (though it has other meanings), this is proof that the state does not exist, and that its power is derisory.