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110 The Anti-Aesthctic

Ill:llched: ralhcr, Ihey appcar lo he two Idl hchind, in any case, lik
NicI7, .. d1l' 's umorclla, rr Ihe or wriTer. Sec Derrida. "Rcslilutions ofTrUlh ,:
Si/c," transo 101m 1'. Lcavcy, Jr .. in R" .\'f'/lfC/ illl'/'l1oml'I1IIItIKY X 197M): 32 (a partal
uf " Rcslitutinm, de la vrit(, l'n pnintllTc," in V/;r;/ ,'/1 Plllllff'J .
. 14 . 1. Millcr. "Thc Cr jl: !-los!." Crilic(lllfll/,liry J (19771: 4:19 .
. t:" . Michcl nI!' Pr/raf', trans o Lawrcncc Schchr (1nhns Hopkim: Raltimnrc, 19821
- Schchr 's inlrodllctinl1. p. )(.
.fi . lohn Cagc (in wilh Danil'J Charles), rilr 11/1' IJi,rls (Boyars: Boston, 19R1J,
p. 151.
-17 . Jnhn Cagc. Sill'l/('I' (M.I : r.: C Ullhr idgc. Massachu",clIs. 1961. IY70l, p. 194 .
4K. C;gc, M : W,.ilillg.l' '(7-'71 (Wcslcyan Univcrsity: Middlctown, 1(74). p. i.
o.l9 . Cag.e . bU!,I.\' IVrlrd.\ (Wcsll'yan Middktl)wn. p. 3.
Roland Barthcs, SIl . Ri chard Millcr(Hill & Wang: Ncw York, 1974). pp. 184-85.
Fnr a dist"ussion n1" MYl"ll logy. sec G.c. Ainsworth, /lIImd'lclioll lo r}f' Hislory 01
Myn/ogl" (Cmnhridgc Uniwfsily: Camhr idgc, 11)761.
Jolm Cagc, A.;",,. Fmm MOlida.\" t Wcskyan Middl ctown. 1%9), p. 150.
Postmodernism and Consumer Society
FREDRIC JAMESON
The concept of postmodernism is nol widely accepted or even understood
wday. Sorne of lhe resislance lo it may come fmm the unfamiliarity of the
works it covers . which can be found in all the arts: the poetry of Joho
Ashbery. ror instance. but al so the much simpler tal k poetry that came out
of the reaction against complex, imnic. academic modernist poetry in the
'60s: the reaction against modern architecture and in particular against the
monumental buildings or the International Style. the pop buildings and
decorated sheds celebrated by Robert Venturi in his maniresto, Learning
roln Las Vegas; Andy Warhol and Pop art, but also the more recent Photo-
re.lism; in music. the moment of John Cage but also the later synthesis of
classical and "popular" styles found in composers like Philip OIass and
Terry Riley, and al so punk and new-wave rack with such groups as the
elash, the Talking Heads and the Gang of Four; in film, every!hing that
comes out or Godard-contemporary vanguard film and video-but a1so a
whole new style of commercial or fiction films, which has its equivalent in
contemporary novels as well, where the works of William Burroughs,
Thomas Pynchon and Ishmael Reed on the one hand, and the French new
novel on the other, are also to be numbered among the varieties of what can
be called postmodernism.
This I ist would seem to make two things clear at once: first, most of the
POstmodernisms meotioned aboye emerge as specific reactions against the
established forms of high modernism, against this or that dominant high
modernism which conquered the university, !he museum, the art gallery
network, and the foundations. Those formerly subversive and embattled
Styles_ Abstract Expressionism; the great modernist poetry of Pound, Eliot
ihis essay was originally a lalk, parlions of whicb were presented as a Whitney Museum
LeCture in fall, 1982; il is published bere essentially unrevised.
llI
11 2 The Anli -Aeslhcli c
or Wallacc SIcvens; Ihe Inlernali onal SIyle (Le Corbusier, Frank L10Yd
Wrighl, Mies); Stravinsky; Joyce, Prousl and Mann - felt lO be scandalou
or shocking by OUT grandparents are, for (he generarian which arrives at the
gale in Ihe 1960s, fe lt lo be Ihe eSlabli shmenl and Ihe enemy-dead,
slifling. canonical. (he reified monuments onc has lO destroy lO do anything
new. Thi s Illcans (ha! there will be as many different forms of postmodern.
ism as there wcre high moderni sms in place. since the former are at leasl
initially specifi c and local reaclions againsl (hose model s. That obviously
does nOI make (he job of describing postmoderni sm as a coheTen! thing any
easier. since the unity of thi s new impul se- if il has one - is given nOl in
itself bUl in lhe very moderni sm it seeks to di splace.
The second feature of thi s 1 st of postmoderni sms is the effacement in it of
sorne key boundaries or separations, most notably the eros ion of the older
distinction belween high culture and so-called mass or popular culture. This
is perhaps the most di stressi ng development of all from an academic stand
point , whi ch has tradilionally had a vested interest in preserving a realm of
high or el ile culture agai nst lhe surrounding environment of phi li stini sm, of
schlock and kilsch, of TV series and Reader's Digest culture, and in
transmitting diffi cult and complex ski li s of reading, lislening and seeing lo
its inil iales. But many of lhe newer postmodernisms have been fasci nated
precisely by Ihal whole landseape of advertising and mOlels, of Ihe Las
Vegas strip, of Ihe lale show and Grade-B Hollywood film, of so-called
paraliteralure with its airporl paperback calegories of the gothic and the
romance, Ihe popular biography, Ihe murder myslery and Ihe seience ficlion
or fanlasy novel. They no longer "quole" such "IeXl s" as a Joyee mighl
have done , or a Mahler; Ihey incorporate Ihem, lo Ihe poinl ",here Ihe line
between high art and commercial forms seems increasingly difficult 10 draw.
A ralher differenl indicalion of Ihis effacemenl of Ihe older calegories 01
genre and di scourse can be found in what is sometimes called contemporary
theory. A generation ago there was still a technical discourse of professional
philosophy-Ihe greal syslems of Sartre or Ihe phenomenologisls, Ihe work
of Wittgenslein or analylieal or eommon language philosophy-alongside
which one could sli ll di slinguish Ihal quile differenl discourse of Ihe olher
academic disci plines-of political science, for example, or sociology or
Iiterary criticismo Today, increasingly, we have a kind of writing simply
called "Iheory" which is all or none of those Ihings al once. This new kind
of diseourse, generally associaled wilh France and so-called French Iheory,
is becoming widespread and marks Ihe end of philosophy as sueh. Is Ihe
work of Miehel Foueault, for example, lO be called philosophy, history,
social Iheory or polilical seience? lt's undecidable, as Ihey say nowadays;
and I will suggesl Ihal sueh "Iheorelieal diseourse" is also lo be numbered
among the manifeslations of postmodernism. ' .
Now I musl saya word about Ihe proper use of Ihis con ce pI: it is nol JuSI

Poslmoderni sm and Consumer Sociely 113
another word for the descripti on of a particular style. It is also, at least in my
use, a periodizing concept whose funClion is to correlate the emergence of
new formal features in culture with the emergence of a new type of sociallife
and a new economic order-what is often euphemistically called modern-
ization , post industrial or cansumer society, the society of the meda or the
spectacle, or multinati onal capitali smo Thi s new momenl of capitalism can
be daled from Ihe poslwar boom in Ihe Uniled SIales in Ihe lale 1940s and
early '50s or, in Franee, from Ihe eSlablishmenl of Ihe Fiflh Republie in
1958. The 1960s are in many ways Ihe key transilional period, a period in
which the new internati onal order (neocolonialism, the Green Revolution,
computerization and electronic information) is al one and the same time sel
in place and is swept and shaken by its own internal contradictions and by
external resistance . 1 want here to sketch a few of the ways in which the new
postmodernism expresses the inner truth of that newly emergent social ord.er
of lale capilalism, bul will have lO Iimil Ihe descriplion lo only Iwo of lIS
signifi canl fealures, which I will eall pasliche and sehizophrenia: Ihey will
give us a chance to sense the specificity of the postmodernist experience of
space and time respectivel y.
One of the most significant features or practices in postmodemism today
is pasliehe. I musl firsl explain Ihis lerm, whieh people generally lend lo
confuse wilh or assimilale lo Ihal relaled verbal phenornenon called parody.
Both pastiche and parody involve the imitation or, better the
of olher slyles and parlieularly of Ihe mannerisms and slyhsttc IWllehes of
other styles. It is obvious that modero literalure in general offers a very nch
field for parody, since the greal modern wrilers have all been defined by Ihe
invention or produetion ofralher unique slyles: Ihink oflhe Faulknenan long
sentence or of D.H. Lawrence's characteristic nature thlOk of
Wallace SIevens's peculiar way of using abstraclions; Ihink also of Ihe
mannerisms of Ihe philosophers, of Heidegger for example, or Sartre; Ibtnk
of Ihe musical slyles of Mahler or Prokofiev. AII of Ihese slyles,. however
different from each ather, are comparable in this: each IS qUite unmlstakable;
once one is learned it is oot likely to be confused with something clse.
Now parody capi'talizes on the uniqueness of ando seizes 00
their idiosyncrasies and eccentricities to produce an whlch mocks
the original. 1 won't say that the satiric impulse is conSClOUS 10 all forros of
parody. In any case, a good or greal parodisl has lo have sorne seeret sym-
palhy for Ihe original, jusI as a greal mimie has lo have Ibe eapaclty to put
himself/herself in Ihe place oflhe person imitaled_ Still, the general effeet of
parody is-whelher in sympathy or wilh malice-to casI ndleule on Ibe
private nature of these stylistic mannerisms and their and
eccentricity wilh respeet lo the way people normally speak or wnle. So Ibere
114 The AntiAesthcti c
remains somcwhere bchind all parody (he feeling thal t,here is a Jinguistic
norm in conlrasl 10 which Ihe slyles of lhe great moderni sts can be mocked.
Bul whal would happen ir one no longer believed in Ihe exi stence or
normal language . of ordinar y speech. of the lingui sti c norm (the kind of
claril y and comll1uni cati ve power celebrated by Orwell in hi s famous essay
say)? One could think of it in this way: perhaps the immense fragmentatio;
and privatizatian of modern I iterature- il s explosion into a host of di stinct
private slyles and manneri sms- foreshadows deeper and more general
tendencies in sociallife as a whole. Supposi ng Ihal modern art and modern-
ism- far from being a kind of spec ialized aesthetic curiosily-actualJy
anticipated social developments along these ines; supposing thal in Ihe
decades si nce the emergence of the great modern styles socety has itself
begun to fragment in th s way, each group coming 10 speak a curous prvate
langu3ge of it s own, each profess ion developing it s private code or idiolect ,
and finally each individual coming to be a kind of I ingui sti c island, separated
from everyone else? But then in that case, the very possibility of any
lingui stic norm in terms of which one could ridicule pri vate languages and
idiosyncratic styles would vani sh. and we would have nOlhing bUI styli sti c
diversit y and heterogeneit y.
That is the moment at which pastiche appears and parody has become
impossible . Pastiche s, like parody, the imitaron of a peculiar or unique
style. the wearing of a styli sti c mask. speech in a dead language: but it is,
neutral practice of such mimicry, without parody 's ulterior motive, withaut
the satirical impul se, without laughter, without that stilllatent feeling th,t
there exists something normal compared to which what is being imitated is
rather comic . Pasti che is blank parody, parody that has lost its sense of
humor: pastiche is to parody what that curious thing, the modern practiceof
a kind of blank irony, is to what Wayne Booth calls the stable and comic
ironies of, say, the 18th century.
But now we need to introduce a new piece into thi s puzzle, which may
help explain why classical moderni sm is a thing of the past and why posl
moderni sm should have taken its place. This new component is what is
generally called the "death of the subject" or, to say it in more convention,l
language, the end of individuali sm as such. The great modernisms were, as
we have said , predicated on the invention of a personal, private style, as
unmistakable as your fingerprinl , as incomparable as your own body. But
Ihi s means thal the moderni st aesthetic is in sorne way organically linked 10
the conception of a unique self and private identity, a unique personality and
indi viduality, which can be expected lo generate its own unique vision ofthe
world and to forge its own unique, unmi stakable style.
Yet today, from any number of distinct perspectives , the social theori sts,
the psychoanalysts, even the Iinguists, not to speak of those of us who work
Postmoderni sm and Consumer Society 115
in the area of culture and cultural and formal change , are all exploring the
noti on that that kind of indi viduali sm and personal identity is a thing ofthe
past ; that the old indi vidual or indi viduali st subject is "dead"; and that one
might even describe the concept of the unique individual and the Iheoretieal
basis of indi viduali sm as ideological. There are in faet two positions on all
Ihis, one of which is more radical than the other. The first one is content to
say: yes, once upon a time , in the c1assic age of competitive capitalism. in
the heyday of the nuclear family and the emergence ofthe bourgeoisie as the
hegemoni c social c1ass, there was such a thing as individuali smo as indi vid
ual subjects. But today, in the age of corporate capitalism, of the socalled
arganization man, of bureaucraci es in business as well as in the state, of
demographic explosion-today, that older bourgeoi s individual subject no
Jonger exists.
Then there is a seeond positi on, the more radical of Ihe two, whal one
might call the poststructiJralist position. lt adds: not only is the bourgeoi s
individual subject a thing ofthe past , it is al so a myth; it never reall y existed
in (he first place; there have never been autonomous subjecl s of Ihal type.
Ralher, thi s construet is merel y a phi losophical and cultural mystifieation
which sought to persuade people that they " had" individual subjects and
possessed thi s unique personal identity.
For our purposes, it is not particularly important to decide which of these
positions is correel (or rather, which is more interesting and productive).
What we have to retain from all this is rather an aesthetic dilemma: because
if the experience and the ideology of the unique self, an experience and
ideology which informed the stylistic practice of elassical modernism, is
aver and done with , then it is no longer clear what the artists and writers
of the present period are supposed 10 be doing. What is clear is merely that
the older models - Picasso, Proust, T5. Eliot-do not work any more (or
are positively harmful), since nobody has that kind of unique private world
and style to express any longer. And this is perhaps not merely a "psycho
logical " malter: we also have to take into account the immense weight of
seventy or eighly years of elassical modernism itself. There is another sense
in which the writers and artists of the present day will no longer be able to
invent new styles and worlds-they've already been invented; only a
Iimited number of combinations are possible; the most unique ones have
been thought of already. 50 the weight of the whole modernist aesthetic
tradition- now dead-also "weighs like a nightmare on the brains oflbe
living." as Marx said in another context.
Hence, once again. pastiche: in a world in which stylistic innovation is no
longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak Ibrough Ibe
masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum. But lhis
means that contemporary or postmodernist art is going to be about art itself
116 The Anli -Aeslheli e
in.'l kind of way; even m,orc. jI mcans Ihal one oC ils essential messages
wllllllvolvc Ihe neccssary faJlurc of art and lhe aestheti c. Ihe fai/ure oflhe
new, Ihe imprisol1mcnl in the past.
As Ihi s may secm very abstracl. I wan! lo give a few examples. one of
whi ch is so omnipresent (hal we rarcly link il with Ihe kinds of devclopments
in high arl di scussed here. Thi s particular practice of pasti che is nOI high.
cultural bUI very Illuch wilhin mass culture. and il is generally known as Ihe
"nostal gia film" ( what Ihe French neall y callla mode rtro- ret rospecti ve
styling). We musl concei ve of Ihi s category in Ihe broadest way: narrowly
no jI consists merely of films about Ihe pas! and about
generatlOnal moment s of that past. Thus. one of the inaugural films in thi s
new "" genre" (if that's what ir is) was Lucas's American Grajfiti, which in
1973 sel OUI lo reeaplure all Ihe almosphere and slyl iSlie peeuliarilies of Ihe
1950s Uniled Slales, Ihe Uniled Slales of Ihe Ei senhower era. Polanski's
great film China(OlVlI does something similar for the 1930s, as does
Bertolucci's The Conjormisf for the Italian and European context of the
same period , Ihe fasei sl era in Italy; and so fonh . We eould go on lisling
Ihese films for sorne lIme: why ealllhem pasliehe? Are Ihey nOI ralher work
In rhe more lraditi onal genre known as the hi storical filrn-work which can
more simply be Iheorized by eXlrapolaling Ihal olher well-known form
which is lhe hi stori cal novel?
1 have rny reasons for thinking that we need new categories for such films.
BUllel me firsl add sorne anomaJies: supposi ng I suggesled Ihal Srar Wars is
also a nOSlalgiafilm. Whal eould Ihal mean? I presume we can agree Ihallhis
IS not a hl s.toncal film about our own intergalacti c past. Lel me pUl il
dlfferently: one of the most important cultural experiences of Ihe
generallOns Ihal grew up from Ihe ' 30s lo Ihe ' 50s was Ihe Salurday after-
noon senal of the Buck Rogers type - alien villians, true American heroes,
heraines in dislress, Ihe dealh ray or Ihe doomsday box, and Ihe eliffhanger
al the end whose miraculous resolution was to be wilnessed next Saturday
Star Wars reinvents this experience in the form of a pastiche: that
IS, Ihere IS no longer any poinllo a parody of sueh serials sinee Ihey are long
extmc!. Star Wars, far from being a pointless satire of such now dead forms .
salisfies a deep (mighl leven say repressed?) longing lO experienee Ihem
agatn: 1I IS a eomplex objeel in whieh on sorne firsl level ehildren and
adoleseents can lake the advenlures slraighl, while Ihe adull publie is able 10
gralJfy a deeper and more praperly noslalgie desire lo relurn lo Ihal older
period and lo live ils slrange old aesthetie anifaels Ihraugh once again. This
film IS thus metonymlcally a hlstoflcal or nostalgia film: unlike American
Graffiri, il does nOI reinvenl a pieture of Ihe pasl in ils Iived 101alily; ralher,
by retnvenltng Ihe feel and shape of eharaelerislie art objeels of an older
pertod (Ihe sertals), 1I seeks 10 reawaken a sense of Ihe pasl assoeialed wilh
Ihose objeels. Raiders oflhe LOSI Ark, meanwhile, oeeupies an intermediary

Postmoderni sm and Consumer Society 117
posili on here: on. sorne level it. is about the '30s and '40s, bUl in reality it too
conveys that penod metonyml cally through its own characteristic adventure
stori es (which are no longer ours).
Now let me di scuss another interesting anomaly whi ch may take us
further towards understanding nostalgia film in parti cular and pastiche
generall y. Thi s one involves a reeenl film ealJed Body Hear, whieh, as has
,bundanlly been poi nled oul by Ihe erities, is a kind of dl slanl remake ofThe
post11la" Always Rings Twi ce or Double Indemnit y. (The allusive and
elusive plagiarism of older plOls is, of eourse, al so a fealure of pastiche.)
Now Body Heal is leehni eall y nol a noslalgia film, si nee illakes place in a
contemporary setting, in a liule Florida vi llage near Mi ami . On the olher
hand, thi s techni cal contemporaneity is most ambiguous indeed: the credits
- always our firsl eue-are lellered and seripled in a '305 Art-Deeo slyle
which cannot bUI Iri gger nostalgic reactions (first lo Chinatown, no doubt,
and Ihen beyond it lO sorne more hislorieal referenl). Then Ihe very slyle of
Ihe hero hi mself is ambiguous: Will iam Hurl is a new slar bUI has nOlhing of
Ihe di sli nelive slyle of Ihe preceding generalion of male superslars like Sleve
McQueen or even Jaek Niehol son, or ralher, his persona here is a kind of
mix of their eharaeterislies wilh an older role of Ihe Iype generalJy associaled
wilh Clark Gable. So here too Ihere is a fainliy arehaie feel to alJ Ihis. The
speelalor begins to wonder why this slory, whieh eould have been silualed
anywhere, is set in a small Florida town, in spite of its contemporary refer-
enee. One begins to realize after a while Ihallhe smalJ town sening has a
crucial stralegie funetion: il allows Ihe film lo do wilhoul mosl of Ihe signals
and referenees whieh we might assoeiale with Ihe eonlemporary world, wilh
consumer soeiely- Ihe applianees and artifaets, Ihe high rises , Ihe objeet
world of late eapitalism. TeehniealJy, Ihen, ils objeels (ils ears , for inslance)
are 1980s praduels, bul everylhing in Ihe film conspires 10 blur Ihat irnme-
di ate contemporary reference and to make it possible 10 receive this too as
nostalgia work-as a narrative set in sorne indefinable nostaJgic past, an
elernal '30s, say, beyond hislory. lt seems 10 me exeeedingly symplomatie
lO find Ihe very slyle of nostalgia films invading and eolonizing even Ihose
movies loday whieh- have eonlemporary seuings: as Ihough, for sorne
reason, we were unable toclay 10 focus our own present, as though we have
become ncapable of achieving aesthetic representations of our own Current
experienee. But if that is so, Ihen it is a lerrible indielmenl of eonsumer
capilalism itself - or al the very leasl, an and palhologieal symp-
10m of a soeiety Ihat has beeome ineapable of dealing with time and history.
So now we come baek to the question of why nostalgia film or pastiche is
lo be eonsidered different from the older hislorieal novelar film (1 should
.Iso inelude in Ihis diseussion Ihe major lilerary example of all this, to my
mrnd Ihe novels of E-L. Doelorow-Raglime, wilh ils lurn-of-the-eentury
almosphere, and Loan Lake, for Ihe most par! about our 1930s. Bu! these
118 The Anti-Aesthetic
are, to rny mind, historical novels in appearance ooly. Doctorow is a serious
artist and one of the few genuinely Left or radical novelists at work today.
It is no disservice to him, however, to suggest that his narratives do not
represent our historical past so much as they represent our ideas or cultural
stereotypes about that past.) Cultural production has been driven back inside
the mind, within the monadic subjec!: it can no longer look directly out ofits
eyes at the real world for the Teferent but must, as in Plato's cave, trace its
mental images of the world on its confining walls. If there is any realism left
here, it is a "realism" which springs from the shock of grasping that
confinement and of realizing that, for whatever peculiar reasons, we seem
condemned to seek the historical past through our own pop images and
stereotypes about that past, which itself remains forever out of reach.
1 now want to turn to what I see as the second basic feature of postmodern-
ism, namely its peculiar way with time- which one could call "textuality"
or "criture" but which 1 have found it useful to discuss in terms of current
theories of schizophrenia. I hasten to forestall any number of possible
misconceptions about rny use of this word: it is meant to be descriptive and
not diagnostic o I am very far indeed from believing that any of the I1)ost
significant postmodernist artists-John Cage, John Ashbery, Philippe
Sollers, Robert Wilson, Andy Warhol, Ishmael Reed, Michael Snow, even
Samuel Beckeu himself-are in any sen se schizophrenics. Nor is the point
sorne culture-and-personality diagnosis of OUT saciety and its art: there are,
one would think, far more damaging things to be said about our social
system than are available by the use of pop psychology. I'm not even sure
that the view of schizophrenia I'm about to outline-a view largely
developed in the work ofthe French psychoanalystJacques Lacan-is clini-
cally accurate; but that doesn't malter either, for my purposes.
The originality of Lacan's thought in this area is to have considered
schizophrenia essentialIy as a language disorder and to have Iinked schizo-
phrenic experience to a whole view of language acquisition as the f u n d a ~
mental missing link in the Freudian conception of the formation of the
mature psyche. He does this by giving us a I inguistic version of the Oedipus
complex in which the Oedipal rivalry is described in terms not of the bio-
.Iogical individual who is the rival for the mother's auention, but rather of
what he calls the Name-of-the-Father, paternal authority now considered as
linguistic function. What we need to retain from this is the idea that
psychosis, and more particularly schizophrenia, emerges from the failure of
the infant to accede fully into the realm of speech and language.
As for language, Lacan's model is the now orthodox structuralist on.,
whieh is based on a conception of a Iinguistic sign as having two (or perhaps
three) components. A sign, a word, a text, is here modelled as a relationship
Postmodernism and Consumer Society 119
between a signifier-a material objoct, the sound of a word, the script of a
text - and a signified, the meaning of that material word or material texto
The third component would be the so-called "referent," the "real" objeet in
the "real" world to which the sign refers- the real cat as opposed to the
concept of a cat or the sound "cal." But for structuralism in general there has
been a tendency to feel that reference is a kind of myth, that one can no
longer talk about the "real" in that external or objective way. So we are left
with the sign itself and its two components. Meanwhile, the other thrust of
structuralism has been to try to dispel the old conception of language as
naming (e.g., God gave Adam language in order to name the beasts and
plants in the Garden), which involves a one-to-one correspondence between
a signifier and a signified. Taking a structural view, one comes quite rightly
10 feel that sentences don't work that way: we don't translate the individual
signifiers OI words that make up a sentence back into their signifieds 00 a
Ofie-to-one basis . Rather, we read the whole sentence, and it is from the
interrelationship of its words or signifiers that a more global meaning-now
called a "meaning-effect" -is derived. The signified-maybe even the
illusion or the mirage of the signified and of meaning in general-is an
effect produced by the interrelationship of material signifiers.
AII of this puts us in the position of grasping schizophrenia as the break-
down of the relationship between signifiers. For Lacan, the experience of
temporality, human time, past, present, memory, the persistence of per-
sonal identity over months and years-this existential or experiential
feeling of time itself - is also an effect of language. It is because language
has a past and a future, because the sentence moves in time, that we can have
what seems to us a concrete or lived experience of time. But since the
schizophrenic does not know language articulation in that way, he or she
does not have our experience of temporal continuity either, but is con-
demned to live a perpetual present with which the various moments ofhis or
her past have Iiule connection and for which there is no conceivable future
00 the horizon. In other words, schizophrenic experience is an experience of
isolated, disconnected, discontinuous material signitiers which fail to link
up into a coherent sequence. The schizophrenic thus does not know personal
identity in oursense, since our feeling ofidentity depends on oursense ofthe
persistence of the "1" and the "me" over time.
On the other hand, the schizophrenic wiII cIearly have a far more ntense
experience of any given present of the world than we do, sinee our own
present is always part of sorne larger set of projects which force us selec-
tively to focus our perceptions. We do nol, in other words, simply globally
receive the outside world as an undifferentiated vision: we are always
engaged in using it, in threading certain paths through il, in attending lo Ihis
Or that object or person within il. The schizophrenic, however, is nol only
"no one" in the sense of having no personal identity; he or she also does
120 The Anti-Aesthetie
nothing. since to have a project means lo be able to cornmit oneself to a
certain continuity Qver time. The schizophrenic is thus given over to an
undifferentiated vision of the world in the presento a by no mean s pleasant

expenence:
1 remember very well (he day it happencd. We wcrc staying in (he country and
I had gone for a walk alone as I did now and lhen. Suddenly. as 1 was passi ng
(he school.1 heard a German seng; (he children were having a singing lesson. 1
stopped 10 listen. and al Ihal instan! a strange feeling ca me over me , a feeling
hard lO analyze but akin to somclhing 1 was lo know too welllater-a disturb-
ing sense of unrealit y. TI seemed to me thal 1 no longer recognized the school,
it had become as large as a bar rack s; Ihe singing children were prisoners,
compelled 10 sing. lt was as though Ihe school and (he children's song were
aparl from Ihe resl of Ihe world. At the same lime my eye encountered a field
of wheat whose limils 1 could nOI see. The yellow vastness, dazzling in the
sun. bound up wilh the song of lhe children impri soned in the smoolh stone
school-barracks. filled me with such anxiely Ihal 1 broke inlo sobs. 1 ran home
lO our garden and began 10 play "lo make lhings seem as lhey usually were,"
Ihal is. lo return lo realit y. It was the first appearance of lhose elemenls which
were always presenl in later sensations of unrealily: illimitable vaSlness,
brilliant Iight. and the gloss and smoothness 01' materiallhings. (Marguerite
Schehaye. Autobiography of a Schizophrcllic Cirl.)
Note that as temporal continuities break down, the experience of the presen!
becomes powerfully, overwhelmingly vivid and "material": the world
comes before the sehizophrenie with heightened intensity, bearing a mys-
terious and oppressive eharge of affect, glowing with hallucinatory energy.
But what migh! for us seem a desirable experience- an ncrease in our
perceptions, a libidinal or hallucinogenic intensification of our normally
humdrum and familiar surroundings-is here felt as loss, as "unreality."
What 1 want to underscore, however, is precisely the way in which the
signifier in isolation becomes ever more material-or, better still, literal-
ever more vivid in sensory ways, whether the new experience is attractive or
terrifying. We can show the same thing in the realm of language: what the
schizophrenie breakdown of language does to the individual words that
remain behind is to reorient the subject or the speaker to a more literalizing
attention towards those words. Again, in normal speech, we try to see
through the materiality of words (their strange sounds and printed appear-
ance, my voiee timbre and peculiar accent, and so forth) towards their
meaning. As meaning is lost, the materiality ofwords becomes obsessive, as
is the case when children repeat a word over and over again until its sense is
lost and it becomes an incomprehensible incantation. To begin to link up
with our earlier description, a signifier lhat has lost its signified has thereby
beeo transformed iota ao i mage.
This long digression on schizophrenia has allowed us to add a feature that
Postmodernism and Consumer Society 121
we eould not quite handle in our earlier description-namely time itself. We
must therefore now shift our discussion of postmodernism from the visual
arts to the temporal ones-to music, poetry and certain kinds of narrative
texts Iike those of Beekett. Anyone who has listened to J o ~ n Cage's music
may well have had an experience similar to those just evoked: frustration and
desperation-the hearing of a single chord or note followed by a silenee
sO long that memory eannot hold on to what went before, a silence then
banished into oblivion by a new straoge sonorous present which itself
disappears . This experience eould be illustrated by many forms of cultural
production today. 1 have chosen a text by a younger poet, partly because his
"group" or "school"-known as the Language Poets-has in many ways
made the experience of temporal discontinuity-the experience described
here in terms of schizophrenic anguage-central to their language
experiments and to what they like to call the "New Sentence." This is a
poem eaHed "China" by Bob Perelman (it can be found in his recent
collection Primer, published by This Press in Berkeley, California):
We ive on the third world from the sun. Number three. Nobody
te lis us what lo do.
The people who taught us to caunt were being very kind.
It's always time to eave.
If il rains, you either have yOllr umhrella or you don'!.
The wind blows your hat off.
The sun rises also.
l'd rather the stars didn' l describe us to each other; l'd
rather we do il for ourselves .
Run Lo fronl of your shadow.
A sister who points to the sky al leasl once a decade is a
good sister.
The landscape is motorized.
The train takes you where it goes.
Bridges among water.
Folks straggling along vast stretches of concrete, heading
ioto the planeo
Don'{ forget what yOllr hat and shoes willlook Iike when you
are nowhere to he found .
Even the words Hoating in air make blue shadows.
lf il lastes good we eal ir.
The leaves are falling. Poinl things out.
Pick up the right things.

122 The Anl i-Aeslhel ir
He\" ~ I H ' S S wlWI ? Whal '? 1' 1'(' /{'(l n/('d hOIl ' 10 lalk. Grcal.
. ,
The person whase head \Vas inl"ompl clc burs ( nlO tears.
As il fel l. whal could Ihe doll do'! NOlhi ng.
Go 10 slcep.
You look greal i n short s. And Ihe flag look ... grcat too.
Everyone enjoyed Ihe explosions.
Time 10 wake up.
Bu! belter gel uscd lo dreams.
Now one may object that this is nOl exact ly schi zophrenic writing in the
clnical sense; it does nol seem qu it e ri ght 10 say that these sentences are free-
ftoating material signifiers whose signifieds have evaporated . There does
seem lO be sorne global meaning heTeo Indeed . nsa far as thi s is in sorne
curious and secret way a poltical poem, il does seem lo capture sorne of the
excitement of the immense and unfi ni shed social experiment of the new
China. unparalleled in world hi story: the unexpected emergence. between
[he [Wo superpowers. of "number three:" the freshness of a whole new
object-world produced by human beings in sorne new control over lhei r Qwn
collecti ve destiny: the signal event o aboye all , of a coll ecti vity which has
become a new "subject of hi story" and which, after the long subjecti on of
feudali sm and imperi ali sm, speaks in its own voice, for it self, for the firsl
lime ("Hey guess whal? .. rve learned how to lalk."). Yel sueh meaning
fl oats over the text or behind it. One cannot, 1 think. read this text according
to any of the older New-Critical categories and find [he complex inner rela-
tionships and texture which characterized the older "concrete universal" of
cla:><;ical moderni sms such as Wallace Stevens's.
Perelman's work, and Language Poetry generalIy, owes something to
Gertrude Stein and, beyond her, to certain aspects of Flaubert. So it is nol
inappropriate at this point to insert ao old account of Flaubert's sentences by
Sartre, which conveys a vivid feeling of the movement of such sentences:
Hi s seOlence clases in on the object, seizes it, immobilizes t , and breaks its
back. wraps itself around it , changes into stone and petrifies its object along
wil h itself. It is blind and deaf, bJoodJess , not a breath of life; a deep si lence
separates il from the sentence which folJows; it fall s iOlO the void, eternally,
and drags its prey down into that infinite fall. Any reality, once described, is
struck off the inventory. (Jean-Paul Sartre, Wharls Lirerarure? )
The deseription is a hostile one, and the I iveliness of Perelman is hi storieally
rather differenl from lhis homieidal F1aubertian praetiee. (For Mallarm,
Barthes once observed in a similar vein, the sentence, the word, is a way of
murdering the outside world.) Yet it eonveys sorne of the mystery of sen-
tences that fal! iOlo a void of silence so great that for a time one wonders

Postmoderni sm and Consumer Society 123
whet her any new sen ten ce could possibly emerge to take their place.
But now lhe seeret of lhi s poem must be di selosed. It is a Iittle like Photo-
realism, which looked like a returo to representation after the anti-repre-
sentational abstractions of Abstraet Expressioni sm, uOlil people began to
realize that these paintings are not exactly realistic either, since what they
,epresenl is nol the outside world but rather only a pholograph of the oUlSide
world or, in other words, the latters image. False realisms. they are really
art about other art, images of other images. In the present case, the repre-
senled obj eet is not reall y China after all: what happened was lhat Perelman
carne across a book of photographs in a stationery slore in Chinatown, a
book whose capti ons and characters obviously remained dead letters (or
should one say material signifiers?) lO him. The sentences of the poem are
his captions to those pictures. Their referents are other images . another text ,
and the " unit y" oft he poem is not in the text at all but outside it in the bound
unity of an absent book .
Now I must try ver y rapidly in conclusion 10 characterize the relationship of
cultural produetion of lhi s kind to sociallife in lhis eoun!ry today. This will
. Iso be lhe momen! to address the prineipal objeetion to eoneepls of post-
modernism of the type I have sketehed here: namely that all the features we
have enumerated are not new at all but abundantly characterized modernism
proper or what I eall high-modernism. Was nol Thomas Mann, after all,
interested in the idea of pasti che, and are not certain chapters of Ulysses its
most obvious realization? Oid we nOl mention Flaubert, Mallarm and
Gertrude Stein in our accouOl of postmodernist temporality? What is so new
. bout all of thi s? Do we really need the eoneept of a postmodernism?
One kind of answer to this question would raise the whole issue of peri-
odization and of how a historian (Iilerary or other) posits a radieal break
between Iwo heneeforth distinet periods. I must Iimit myself to the sugges-
tion that radie al breaks between periods do not generally involve eomplete
changes of content but rather the restructuration of a certain number of
elements already given: features that ~ n an earlier period or system .were
subordinate now become dominant , and fealures that had been domlOant
again beeome seeondary. In this sense, everything we have deseribed here
can be found in earlier periods and most notably within modernism proper:
my point is that until the present day lhose things hav been seeondary
or minor fealures of modernist art, marginal rather than central, and that
We have something new when they beeome the eentral features of eultural
production.
But l ean argue lhis more eoneretely by turning to lhe relationshipbe-
lween eultural produetion and soeial life generally. The older or c1assleaJ
modernism was an oppositional art; it emerged within the business soclety of
124 The AntiAesthetic
Ihe gilded age as sCi.mdalous and offcnsive 10 Ihe middle. cla.ss public_
uel y. di ssonant. bohemian , sexuall y shocking. It was somelhlll g to make
of (when the police were nol call cd in lo seize Ihe books or c10se the
exhibitions); an offensc to good laste and lO common sense. or, as Freud and
Marcuse would have pUl il, a provocative challenge 10 lhe reigning reality.
and performance-principi es of early 20lh-eenlury middl e-cl ass sociely.
Moderni sm in general did nOI go well wi th overstuffed Vlctorl an furn uurc,
wilh Victorian moral taboos. or wi lh the convenlions of polite society. Thi s
is lo say thal whatever Ihe explici t political content of the great high
modernisms. Ihe lalter were always in sorne mostl y impl id l ways dangerous
and explosivc. subversive wi lhin the establ ished order.
f then we suddenl y return to Ihe present day. we can measure the immen-
sil y of Ihe cultural ehanges Ihal have laken place. NOI only are Joyce and
Picasso no longer weird and repulsive, Ihey have become class ics and now
look rather realisti c 10 us o Meanwhil e. Ihere is very linle in ei ther the form or
the content of contemporary art lhal cont emporary society fi nds intolerable
and scandalous. The mosl offensive forms of th is art - punk rock, say, or
whal is eall ed sexuall y expl ieil malerial -are alllaken in Slride by sociely,
and Ihey are eommereiall y suecessful. unlike Ihe producli ons of Ihe older
high moderni smo BUI Ihi s means Ihal even if conl emporary art has all Ihe
same formal features as the older moderni smo it has still shifted its position
fundamenl all y wi lhin our cullure. For one Ihi ng, eommodil y produelion and
in parti cular our c1ol hing. furniture, buildings and other artifacts are now
intimatel y tied in wi lh styling changes which derive from artistic experi-
mentation; our advertising. for example, is fed by poslmodernism in all the
arts and inconceivable wi thout il. For another, Ihe classics of high modern-
ism are now part of Ihe so-eall ed canon and are laughl in sehools and uni-
versities-whi ch at once empti es them of any of thei r older subversive
power. Indeed, one way of marking Ihe break belween Ihe periods and of
daling Ihe emergence of pOSl modernism is preeisely lO be found lhere: in lhe
momenl (lhe early 1960s, one would lhink) in whieh lhe posilion of high
moderni sm and its dominant aesthetics become established in the academy
aod are heneeforlh felt lo be aeademi e by a whole new geoeralioo of poels,
pai nters and musicians.
But one can also come at Ihe break from the other si de. and describe it in
lerms of periods of reeeol sociallife. As I have suggesled , noo-Marxisls and
Marxi sts alike have come around 10 lhe general feeling that at sorne point
following World War 11 a oew kind of sociely begao lO emerge (vari ously
described as postindustrial sociely, multinational capitali sm, consumer
soeielY, media soeiely aod so forlh) . New Iypes of eonsumplion; planned
obsolescenee; an ever more rapid rhylhm of fashioo and slyl ing chaoges; lhe
penetration of adverti sing, television and the media generally lO a hithe.rto
unparalleled degree lhroughoul sociely; lhe replacemenl of lhe old leoSlO
n

Poslmodernism and Consumer Soeiely 125


betwcen ci ty and country, cenler and provi nce, by the suburb ando by uni
versal slandardi zalion: lhe growlh of lhe greal nelworks of superhlghways
and the arri val of aulomobile culture - Ihese are sorne ofthe fealures whi ch
would seem lO mark a radical break with that older prewar society in which
high moderni sm was still an underground .
I believe lhallhe emergenee of poslmoderlll sm IS elosely relaled lo lhe
emergence of thi s new moment of late , consumer or mult inational capital-
ism. I believe al so Ihat its formal fealures in many ways express the deeper
logie of lhal particular social syslem. I wi ll onl y be able, however, lO show
Ihis fo r one major Iheme: namely lhe dlSappearanee of a sense of hlSlory, lhe
way in whi eh our enlire conlemporary social sySlem has liul e by liul e begun
to lose its capacil y to retain ilS own past o has begun lO "ve m a perpetual
presenl and in a perpelual ehange Ihal obl ilerales lradil ions of lhe kind whieh
311 earli er social formations have had in one way or another to preserve .
Think onl y of Ihe media exhauslion of news: of how Nixon and, eveo.more
so, Keooedy are figures from a oow di slanl pas!. One is lempled 10 say lhal
the ver y function of the news media is to relegate such recen! hi stori.cal
experienees as rapidly as possible inlo lhe pas!. The informalional funellOn
ofl he media would lhus be 10 help us forgel, 10 serve as lhe very agents aod
mechanisms for our histori cal amnesia.
BUl in lhal case Ihe lwo fealures of posl modernism on which I have dwelt
here- lhe lransformali on of real ily inlo i mages, lhe fragmenlalion of lime
inlO a series of perpetual presents-are both extraordi naril y with
lhis process. My owo eonelusioo here musllake lhe form of a quesllOn aboul
Ihe cri tical value of Ihe newer art. There is sorne agreement that the older
modernism functioned against jts society in ways which are variously
described as critical. negali ve, contestatory, subversive. opposi tional and
Ihe like. Can aoylhiog of lhe sorl be affirmed aboul poslmoderni sm and ilS
social moment? We have secn that there is a way in which postrnodermsm
replicates or reproduces-reinforces-the logic of consumer capitalisrn;
the more significant question is whelher there is also a way in which it resists
lhal logie. BUllhal is a queslioo we muSl leave open.
The Ecstasy of Cornrnunication
lEAN BAUDRILLARD
There is no tonger any system olobjects. My jirsf book comains a critique 01
Ihe ohjee, as obviolis Jact, subtaflce. reality, use va/ue.
1
There rhe ohjeel
was token as sign, bul as sign still heavy willl meaning. In this critique two
principal logics inlerfered >vil/ each olher: a phantasmatic logic Ihal
J:.eferred principally 10 psychoanalysis-its identifica/ion$, projections,
and rj'e entire imaginary rea/m oftranscendence, power and sexuality oper-
ating Qf ,he level olohjeels and Ihe environment, \Vilh a privilege accorded
ro he hOllse/auromohile axis (immanenceftranscendence); and a differen-
tial social logic Ihal made disli/l clions by referring 10 a sociology, ilself
derivedfrom anihropology (consumplion as Ihe produclion of signs, differ
entiation, status and prestige ).'Behind these logles, in sorne way descriptive
and analylic, Ihere >vas already Ihe dream of symbolic exc/ange, a dream of
Ihe sla/ilS oflhe objecl and consumplion beyond excha/lge and use, beyond
value and equivalence. In otller words, a sacrificallogic o/ consumption.
gift, expendilure (dpense), pOllalch, and Ihe accursed porlion'
In a certain way all this still exists, and yet in other respects it is all dis
appearing. The description of thi s whole intimate universe-projective,
imaginary and symbolic-still corresponded 10 the object's status as mirror
of the subject, and that in tum to the imaginary depths of the mirror and
"scene": there is a domestic scene, a scene of interiority, a private space-
time (correlative, moreover, to a public space). The oppositions subject!
object and public!private were still meaningful. This was the era of the
discovery and exploration of daily life, this other scene emerging in the
shadow of the historie scene, with the former receiving more and more
symbolic investment as the latier was politically disinvested.
But today the scerte and mirror no Jonger exist; instead, there is a screen
and network . In place of the reHexive transcendence of mirror and scene,

126
The Ecstasy of Communication 127
(here is a nonreHecting surface, an irnrnanent surface where operations
unfold-the smooth operational surface of cornmunication.
Something has changed , and the Faustian, Promethean (perhaps Oedipal)
period of production and consumption gives way to the "proteinic" era of
networks, to the narci ssistic and protean era of connections, contact,
contiguity, feedback and generalized interface that goes with the universe of
cornmunication. With the televi sion image-the television being the
ultimate and perfect object for thi s new era-our own body and the whole
surrounding universe become a control screen.
If one thinks about it, people no longer project themselves into their
objects, with their affects and their representations, their fantasies of
possession, loss, mouming, jealousy: the psychological dimension has in,a
sense vanished, and even if it can always be marked out in detail, one feels
that it is not really there that things are being played out. Roland Barthes
already indicated this sorne time ago in regard to the automobile: Iittle by
Iittle a logic of "driving" has replaced a very subjective logic ofpossession
and projection.' No more fantasies of power, speed and appropriation Iinked
to the object itself, but instead a tactic of potentialities Iinked to usage:
mastery, control and command, an optimalization of the play of possibilities
offered by the car as vector and vehicle, and no longer as object of psycho-
logical sanctuary. The subject himself, suddenly transformed, becomes a
computer at the wheel, not a drunken demiurge of power. The vehicle now
becomes a kind of capsule, its dashboard the brain, the surrounding land-
scape unfolding like a televised screen (instead of a Iivein projectile as it
was before).
(But we can conceive of a stage beyond this one, where the car is stll a
vehicle of performance, a stage where it becomes an information network.
The famous Japanese car that talks to you, that "spontaneously" informs
you of its general state and even of your general state, possibly refusing to
function if you are not functoning well, the car as deliberatng consultant
and partner in the general negotiation of a Iifestyle, something-or sorne-
one: at this point there is no longer any difference- witb which you are
connected. The fundamental issue becomes the communicaton witb the car
itself, a perpetual test of the subjec!'s presence witb his own objects, an
uninterrupted interface.
It is easy to see that from this point speed and displacement no longer
matter. Neither does unconscious projection, nor an individual or social type
of competition, nor prestige. Besides, tbe car began to be de-sacralized io
Ihis sense sorne time ago: it's all over with speed-I drive more and
consume less. Now, however, it is 'an ecological ideal tbat iostalls itself at
every leve!. No more expenditure, consumption. performance, but instead
regulation, well-tempered functionality, solidarity among all tbe elemenls
of the same system, control and global management of an eosemble. Each
128 The Anti-Aesthetic
system, including no doubt the domestic universe, forms a 80ft of ecological
niche where the essential thing is to maintain a relationaJ decor, where all the
terms must continually cornmunicate among themselves and stay in COntact
,
informed of the respective condition of the others and of the system as a
whole . where opacity, resistance or the secrecy of a single term can lead
to catastrophe.)'
Private "telematics": each person sees himself at the control s of a hypo-
thetical rnachine, isolated in a position of perfeet and remote sovereignty, at
an infinite distance from his universe of origino Which is to' say, in the exact
position of an astronaut in his capsule, in a state of weightlessness that
necessitates a perpetual orbital flight and a speed sufficient to keep him from
crashing back to his planet of origino
This realizatian of a living satellite, in vivo in a quotidian space, corre-
sponds to the satellitization of the real, or what I caU the "hyperrealism of
simulation" 5: the elevatan of the domestic universe to a spatial power, to a
spatial metaphor, with the sateUitization of the two-room-kitchen-and-bath
put into orbit in the last lunar module. The very quotidian nature of the
terrestrial habitat hypostasized in space means the end of metaphysics. The
era of hyperreality now begins. What I mean is this: what was projected
psychologically and mentally, what used to be lived out on earth as
metaphor, as mental or metaphorical scene, is henceforth projected into
reality, without any metaphor at all, into an absolute space which is also that
of simulation.
This is only an example, but it signifies as a whole the passage into orbit,
as orbital and environmental model, of our private sphere itself. It is no
longer a scene where the dramatic interiority of the subject, engaged with
its objects as with its image, is played out. We are here at the control s of a
micro-satellite, in orbit, living no longer as an actor or dramaturge but as a
terminal of multiple networks. Television is stiU the most direct prefigura-
tion of this . But today it is the very space of habitation that is coneeived as
both receiver and distributor, as the space of both reception and operations,
the control screen and terminal whieh as such may be endowed with tele-
matic power-that is, with the capability of regulating everything from a
distance, including work in the home and, of course, consumption, play,
social relations and leisure. Simulators of leisure or of vacations in the
home-like flight simulators for airplane pilots-beeome eonceivable.
Here we are far from the living-room and close to science fiction. But
once more it must be seen that all these changes-the decisive mutations of
objects and of the environment in the modern era-have come from an
irreversible tendency towards three things: an ever greater formal and oper-
ational abstraetion of elements and funetions and their homogenization in a
single virtual proeess of funetionalization; the displacement of bodily
movements and efforts into eleetrie or electronie eommands, and the min-
The Ecstasy of Communication 129
iaturization, in time and space, of processes whose real scene (though it is no
longer a scene) is that of infinitesimal memory and the sereen with which
they are equipped.
There is a problem here, however, to the extent that this electronic "en-
cephalization" and miniaturization of circuits and energy, this transistoriza-
lion of the environment, relegates to total uselessness, desuetude and almost
obscenity all that used to fill the scene of our lives. It is well known how the
simple presence of the television changes the rest ofthe habitat into a kind of
archaic envelope, a vestige of human relations whose very survival remains
perplexing. As soon as this scene is no longer haunted by its actors and their
fantasies, as soon as behavior is crystallized on certain screens and oper-
ational terminals, what's left appears only as a large useless body, deserted
and condemned. The real itself appears as a large useless body.
This is the time ofminiaturization, telecommand and the microprocession
of time, bodies, pleasures. There is no longer any ideal principie for these
things at a higher level , on a human scale. What remains are only concen-
trated effects, miniaturized and immediately available. This change from
human scale to a system of nuclear matrices is visible everywhere: this body,
our body, often appears simply superfluous, basically useless in its exten-
sion, in the multiplicity and complexity of its organs, its tissues and func-
lions, since today everything is concentrated in the brain and in genetic
codes, which alone sum up the operational definition ofbeing. Tbe country-
side, the immense geographic countryside, seems to be a deserted body
whose expanse and dimensions appear arbitrary (and whieh is boring to
cross even if one leaves the main highways), as soon as all events are
epitomized in the towns, themselves undergoing reduction to a few minia-
turized highlights. And time: what can be said about this immense free time
we are left with, a dimension henceforth useless in its unfolding, as soon as
Ihe instantaneity of communication has miniaturized our exchanges into a
succession of instants?
Thus the body, landscape, time all progressively disappear as scenes. And
the same for public space: the theater of the social and theater of politics are
both reduced more and more to a large soft body with many heads. Adver-
lising in its new version-which is no longer a more or less baroque,
utopian or ecstatic seenario of objects and consumption, but!he effeel of an
omnipresent visibility of enterprises, brands, social interlocuters and !he
social virtues of communication-advertising in its new dimension invades
everything, as public spaee (the street, monument, market, scene) dis-
appears. It realizes, or, if one prefers, it materializes in a1l its obseenity; il
monopolizes public life in its exhibition. No longer limited to its traditionaI
language, advertising organizes the arehitecture and realization of super-
130 The Anli-Aesthelic
objecls l i k ~ Beaubourg and Ihe Forum des Halles, and of fUlure projeels
(e.g .. Pare de la Villette) which are monuments (or anti-monuments) to
advertising, nOI because they will be geared lo consumption but because
they are immediately proposed as an anti cipated demonstration of the
operation of culture, cOJnmodities, mass movement and social flux. It is OUT
only architecture today: great screens on whi ch are reftected atoms,
particJes, molecules in motian . Not a public scene or tfue public space but
gigantic spaces of circulatan, ventilatian and ephemeral connections.
lt is Ihe same for privale space. In a sublle way, Ihi s los s of public spaee
occurs contemporaneously with the 1055 of prvate space. The ane is no
onger a spectacle, the other no longer a secreto Their disti nctive opposition,
the clcar difference of an exterior and an interior exactly described the
domestie scelle of objeels, with its rules of play and limits, and Ihe
sovereignty of a symbolic space which was also that of the subject. Now this
opposition is effaced in a sort of obscenity where the most intimate
processes of our life become Ihe virtual feeding ground of the media (Ihe
Loud family in Ihe Uniled States, the innumerable si ices of peasanl or
patriarchallife on French television). lnversely, the entire universe comes to
unfold arbitrarily on your domeslic sereen (all the useless information Ihal
comes to you from the enlire world, like a microseopie pornography of Ihe
universe , useless, excessive, just like ttle sexual c1ose-up in a pomo film):
a11 this explodes the seene formerly preserved by the mini mal separation of
public and private, the scene that was played out in a restricted space,
according to a secret ritual known only by the actors.
Certainly, this private universe was alienating to the extent that it sepa-
rated you from others-or from the world, where it was invested as a
protective enclosure, an imaginary protector, a defense system. But it also
reaped the symbolic benefits of alienation, which is that the Other exisls,
and that otherness can fool you for the better or the worse. Thus consumer
soeiety lived also under the sign of alienation, as a soeiety of the spectacle'
Butjust so: as long as there is alienation, there is spectacle, action, scene. It
is not obscenity-the spectacle is never obscene. Obscenity begins
precisely when there is no more spectacle, no more scene, when a1l becomes
transparence and irnmediate visibility, when everything is exposed to the
harsh and inexorable light of information and communication.
We are no longer a part ofthe drama of alienation; we live in the ecstasy of
communication. And this ecstasy is obscene. The obscene is what does
away with every mirror, every look, every image. The obscene puts an end
to every representation. But it is not only the sexual that becomes obscene In
pornography; today there is a whole pornography of information and com-
munication, that is to say, of circuits and networks, a pornography of aIl
The Ecstasy of Communication 131
funetions and objects in their readability, their ftuidity, their availability,
their regulation , in their forced signification, in their performativity, in their
branching, in their polyvalence, in their free express ion ....
lt is no longer then the traditional obscenity of what is hidden, repressed,
forbidden or obscure; on the contrary, it is the obseenity of the visible, of the
all-too-visible, of the more-vi sible-than-the-visible. lt is the obscenity of
what no looger has any secret , of what di ssolves completely in inforrnation
and cornmunication.
Marx set forth and denounced Ihe obscenily of the eommodity, and this
obscenity was linked to its equivalence, to the abject principie of free circu-
lation , beyond all use value of Ihe object. The obscenity of the commodity
slems from the fact that it is abstraet, formal and light in opposition to the
weight , opaeity and substance of Ihe object. The eommodity is readable: in
opposition to the object, which never completely gives up its secret, the
comrnodity always manifests its visible essence, which is its price. It is the
formal place of transeription of all possible objects; through it, objects
eommunicate. Hence, the eommodity form is the first great medium of the
modern world. But the message that the objects deliver through it is already
extremely simplified, and it is always the same: their exchange value. Thus
al bottom the message already no longer exists; it is the medium that imposes
itself in its pure cireulation. This is what 1 eall (potentia11y) ecstasy.
One has only to prolong this Marxist analysis, or push it to the second or
Ihird power, to grasp the transparence and obscenity of the universe of
eommunication, which lea ves far behind it those relative analyses of the
universe of the commodity. AlI functions abolished in a single dimension,
that of communication. That's the ecst,asy of comrnunication. AH secrets,
spaces and scenes abolished in a single dimension of information. That's
obscenity.
The hot, sexual obseenity of former times is sueceeded by the cold and
cornmunicational, contactual and rnotivational obscenity of today. The
former clearly implied a type of promiscuity, but it was organic, like the
body's viseera, or again like objects piled up and accumulated in a private
universe, or like all that is not spoken, teeming in the silence of repression.
Unlike this organic, visceral, carnal promiscuity, the promiscuity that reigns
Over the communication networks is one of superficial saturation, of an
incessant solicitation, of an extermination of interstitial and protective
spaces_ 1 pick up my telephone receiver and it's all there; the whole marginal
network catches and harasses me with the insupportable good faith of very-
thing that wants and clairns to cornmunicate. Free radio: it speaks, it sirigs. it
expresses itself. Very well, it is the sympathetic obscenity of its content. In
lerms a little different for each medium, this is the resulto a space, that ofthe
FM band, is found to be saturated, the stations overlap and mix together (to
Ihe point that sometimes it no longer communicates at all)_ Something that
132 The Anli-Aeslhelie
was free by virlue of spaee is no longer. Speeeh is free perhaps, but I am less
free (han befare: I no longer succeed in knowing what I want, (he space iss
o
saturated, lhe pressure so great from all who want to make Ihemselves heard.
I fal! ioto lhe negative ecstasy of lhe radio.
There is in effecl a state of fa scination and verligo linked to thi s obscene
delirium of communication . A si ngular form of pleasure perhaps, but alea-
lory and di zzying. If we follow Roger Cai Ilois 7 in his c1assifieation of games
(ies as good as any other) -games of express ion (mimicry), games of
eompelilion (agoll), games of ehanee (alea) , games of verligo (ilyllx )-Ihe
whole tendency of OUT cont emporary "culture" would Icad us from a
relative disappearance of forms of expression and competitian (as we have
remarked al the level of objeels) lo Ihe advanlages of forms of risk and
vertigo. The atter no ooger involve games of scene, mirror, challenge and
duality; they are, rather. ecstati c, sol itary and narci ssistic. The pleasure is no
longer one of manifestat ion . scenic and aesthetic, but rather one of pure
fascinarion, aleatory and psychotropic. Thi s is nol necessarily a negative
value judgment: here surely there is an original and profound mutation of the
very forms of perception and pleasure. We are still measuring the conse-
quenees poorly. Wanling 10 apply our old eriteria and the reftexes of a
"scenic" sensibility, we no doubt misapprehend what may be the occur-
rence, in thi s sensory sphere, of something new, ecstatic and obscene.
One thing is sure: the scene excites us, the obscene fascinates uso With
fascination and ecstasy, passion disappears. Investment, desire, passion,
seduction or again. according to Caillois, express ion and competition-the
hot universe. Ecstasy, obscenity, fascination, communication or again,
aceording 10 Caillois, hazard, ehanee and vertigo- the eold universe (even
vertigo is eold, Ihe psyehedelie one of drugs in particular).
In any case, we will have to suffer this new stale of things, Ihis forced
extroversion of all interiority, thi s forced injection of all exteriority that the
categorical imperative of communication literally signifies. There also, one
can perhaps make use of the old melaphors of pathology. If hysteria was Ihe
palhology of the exaeerbaled staging of the subjeet, a pathology of expres-
sion, of the body's theatrieal and operatie eonversion; and if paranoia was
Ihe pathology of organization, of Ihe strueturation of a rigid and jealous
world; then with communication and information, with the immanent prom-
iscuity of all these networks, with their continual connections, we are noW in
a new form of schizophrenia. No more hysteria, no more projective para-
noia, properly speaking, but this state of terror proper to the sehizophrenic:
loo great a proximity of everything, the unclean promiseuity of everything
which touches, invests and penetrates without resistance, with no halo of
private proteetion, nol even his own body, to proteet him anymore.
I
The Eeslasy of Communieation 133
The sehizo is berefl of every seene, open to everything in spite of himself,
li ving in the greatest confusion. He is himself obscene, the obscene prey of
Ihe world's obseenity. What eharaeterizes him is less Ihe loss of the real , the
light years of estrangement from the real, Ihe palhos of distanee and radical
separalion , as is eommonly said: but, very mueh lo the eontrary, the absolute
proximily, the tOlal instantaneily of Ihings, the feeling of no defense, no
relreat. It is the end of interiority and intimacy, the overexposure and
transparence of the world which traverses him without obstacle. He can no
longer produce the Iimils of his own being, can no longer play nor stage
himself, can no longer produce himself as mirror. He is now only apure
screen, a swi tching center for all the networks of influence.
Translated by John Johnston
References
l . Le Systeme des objets (Paris: Gallimard. 1968). [Tr. J
2. Baudrillard is alluding here lo Marcel Mauss's theory of gift exchange and Georges
Bataille's notion of dpense. The "accursed portion" in the latter's theory refers 10 what-
ever remains oulside of society's rational ized economy of exchanges. See Bataille, La Part
Maudile (Paris: Editions de Minuit , 1949). BaudriUard's own conceplion of symbolic
exchange, as a form of inleraclion Ihal hes outside of modero Western society and thal
therefore "haunts illike ils own death," is developed in his L' change symbolique tI la morl
(Paris: Gallimard, 1976) . {Tr.J
3. See Roland Barthes, "The New Citroen," Mylhologies , transo Annette Lavers (New York:
Hill and Wang, 1972), pp. 88-90. [Tr.J
4. Two observations. Firsl, Ihis is nOI due alone lO Ihe passage, as one wants lo call it. from a
sociely of abundance and surplus to a society of crisi s and penury (economic reasons have
never been worlh very much) . JusI as Ihe effecl of consumption was not Iinked to me use
value of Ihings nor to their abundance. but precisely lo the passage from use value to sign
value. so here there is somelhing new mat is not linked to the end ofabundance.
Secondly, all this does nOI mean mat the domestic universe-the home. its objects,
elc. - is nOI sl illlived largely in a Iradilional way-social, psychological, differential, etc.
It means rather Ihat Ihe stakes are no longer there, Ihal ano!her arrangement or life-style is
virlually in place, even if il is indicaled only through a technologistical discourse which is
often simply a political gadgel . But it is crucial 10 see that!he analysis that one could malee of
objects and their system in the '60s and '70s essentially began with the language of adver-
lising and the pseudo-conceptual discourse of the experto "Consumption," the "strategy of
desire ," etc. were first only a meladiscourse. the analysis of a projective myth wbose actual
effect was never really known. How people actually live with tbeirobjects-at bottom. one
knows no more about this than abouI the truth of primitive societies. That's wby it is ofien
problematic and useless to want lo verify (statistically. objectively) these bypotheses. as one
ought to be able to do as a good sociologisl. As we know, the language of advertising is first
for the use of Ihe advertisers themselves. Nothing says lbat contemparary discourse on
computer science and communication is nO{ for the use alone of professionals in these fields.
(As for Ihe discourse of inlellectuals and sociologists themselves ... )

134 The Anti-Aesthetic


5. For an expanded explanation of this idea, see Baudrillard's essay "La prcession des
simulacres ," SimufaCTes et Simulafion (Paris: Galile, 1981). An English translation
appears in Simulalions (New York: Foreign Agent Series, Semiolexl(e) PUblications
,
1983). [T<.l
6. A reference 10 Guy Debord's La socit du specrac/e (Paris: Buchet-Chaslel, 1968), [Tr.]
7. Roger CaiJlois. Les jelLr el les hommes (Paris: Gallimard, 1958). [Tr.J
Opponents, Audiences,
Constituencies and Community
EDWARD W. SAID
Who writes? For whom is the writing being done? In what circumstances?
These, it seems to me, are the questions whose answers provide us with the
ingredients making foc a politics of interpretation. But if one does not wish
te ask and answer the questions in a dishonest and abstraet way, sorne
attempt must be made to show why they are questions of sorne relevanee to
the present time. What needs to be said at the beginning is that the single
most impressive aspect of the present time-at least for the "humanist," a
description for which 1 have contradictory feelings of affection and revul-
sion- is that it is manifestly the Age ofRonald Reagan. And it is in this age
as a context and setting that the politics of interpretation and lbe politics of
culture are enacted.
1 do not want to be misunderstood as saying that the cultural situation 1
describe here caused Reagan, or that it typities Reaganism, or that every-
thing about it can be ascribed or referred back to the personality of Ronald
Reagan. What 1 argue is that a particular situation within the tield we call
"criticism" is not merely related to but is an integral part of the currents of
thought and practice that playa role within the Reagan era. Moreover, 1
think, "criticism" and the traditional aeaaernic humanities have gane
through a series of developments over time whose beneticiary and culmina-
tion is Reaganism. Those are the gross elaims that 1 make for my argumento
A number of miscellaneous points need to be made here. 1 am fully aware
that any effort to characterize the present cultural moment is very likely to
seem quixotic at best, unprofessional at worst. But that, 1 submit, is an
aspect of the present cultural moment, in which lbe social and historical
setting of critical activity is a totality felt to be benign (free, apolitical,
This essay was originally published in Criticallnquiry 9 (Seplember. 1982) and is reprinted
here by permission of Ihe aulhor and Universily of Chicago Press.
135

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