Forget Foucault

Rating:
Summary: Forget Baudrillard!
Review: In this book, Baudrillard considers Foucaultfs discourse as ga mirror of the power it describesh and deconstructs it (as shown in the title). According to him, sex disappears as a referent in the hyperreality of liberated sexuality. It is interesting for me that he quotes Barthesf comment on Japan: gThere, sexuality is in sex and nowhere else. In the United States, sexuality is everywhere except in sex.h Baudrillard considers Japanese sexuality as to be different from American or Western one as Barthes did. His insistence is interesting because his analysis on Japanese sexuality is very different from ours. It is more interesting to read Japanese sexuality in his gSeductionh in which he mentions to Japanese striptease.

Moreover, Baudrillard develops his theory in the discussions on power, Marxism, and psychoanalysis. Particularly, it is very exciting to read his comments on Deleuze and Lyotard. He points out the coincidence gbetween new version of power proposed by Foucault and the new version of desire proposed by Deleuze and Lyotard.h Probably, to connect easily the two different notions in this way is the cause to be mistaken that Baudrillard did not understand Foucault, Deleuze, and Lyotard. But what he wants is not content but dynamism of thought and acceleration of rhetoric. This results in his work to destroy his own discourse, which accelerate simulation he describes. The latter half of this book consists of Baudrillardfs interviews, titled gForget Baudrillardh. Here, he succeeds in producing a polyphonic text by talking about his own discourse and strategies. Foucaultfs discourse should be forgotten and also should be Baudrillardfs. Their discourses never produce meanings unless they are forgotten.

This bookfs constitution is very exciting and fascinating. You will get something more than the size and volume, even if they are small.