The subject of the simulacrum
pp. 34-53
in: , The singular politics of Derrida and Baudrillard, Berlin, Springer, 2014Abstract
In Chapter 2, the shifts in Baudrillard's work as it develops into its mature positions are charted. Baudrillard's objection in Forget Foucault to the way in which everything is reduced to power in the first volume of The History of Sexuality is followed by his theorization of seduction as a challenge to power that is the possibility of its reversal. Fatal Strategies' development of reversibility as a metastatic form is traced through concepts such as the obese and the obscene. The way in which these latter forms are both the code and its excess is something impossible and is seen to be achieved on the basis of an untheorized reconsideration of language close to that put forward by Derrida in his deconstruction of Bataille. This dual strategy sees Baudrillard project devolution rather than revolution in the transpolitical. Similarities between Baudrillard and Derrida's usage of the term simulacra are observed as well as their differing challenges to the philosophy of the subject and, particularly, any account of the decision.