Goddamn, I love Baudrillard
Mainly because he says things like this:
"Capital in fact has never been linked by a contract to the society it dominates. It is a sorcery of the social relation, and it is a challenge to society and should be responded to as such."
Or this:
"By an unforeseen twist of events and an irony which no longer belongs to history, it is through the death of the social that socialism will emerge - as it is through the death of God that religions emerge."
And this:
"And in the end the game of power comes down to nothing more than the critical obsession with power: an obsession with its death; an obsession with its survival which becomes greater the more it disappears...Melancholy for societies without power: this has already given rise to fascism, that overdose of a powerful referential in a society which cannot terminate its mourning."
And finally:
"Parody makes obedience and transgression equivalent, and that is the most serious crime, since it cancels out the difference upon which the law is based."
Oh, and Derrida isn't too shabby either:
"...consciousness is the effect of forces whose essence, ways, and modalities are not peculiar to it."
These quotes aren't necessarily the crux of either of their arguments, but they were points that I found to be quite interesting nonetheless. I think that since I was reading this stuff for the first time as a junior during my undergraduate career, I've either been exposed to the ideas that these texts were based upon or I've just become a much better reader because I actually understood a great deal of it this time around. I'm very much looking forward to our 3 hour discussion of them tomorrow.
But I am not, however, looking forward to putting anymore work in this Aristotle/Sophocles paper. Spent 5-6 hours and I'm not barely trudging past the 3 1/2 page mark. I suppose that after Tuesday's classes, I'll just need to get into a hyperzone and focus until I can get the first draft out. Then I can play with structure. I think that's the main problem...my ideas don't flow until I find a good structure for them. My first 2 pages introducing Aristotle's reasons for promoting the art tragic drama are great, but once I get down into trying to introduce Sophocles, things get slow.
I feel like I wasted this weekend. I should have written more on it. Still have 8 days, but another, bigger paper due in 14 that I have to work on as well.
"Capital in fact has never been linked by a contract to the society it dominates. It is a sorcery of the social relation, and it is a challenge to society and should be responded to as such."
Or this:
"By an unforeseen twist of events and an irony which no longer belongs to history, it is through the death of the social that socialism will emerge - as it is through the death of God that religions emerge."
And this:
"And in the end the game of power comes down to nothing more than the critical obsession with power: an obsession with its death; an obsession with its survival which becomes greater the more it disappears...Melancholy for societies without power: this has already given rise to fascism, that overdose of a powerful referential in a society which cannot terminate its mourning."
And finally:
"Parody makes obedience and transgression equivalent, and that is the most serious crime, since it cancels out the difference upon which the law is based."
Oh, and Derrida isn't too shabby either:
"...consciousness is the effect of forces whose essence, ways, and modalities are not peculiar to it."
These quotes aren't necessarily the crux of either of their arguments, but they were points that I found to be quite interesting nonetheless. I think that since I was reading this stuff for the first time as a junior during my undergraduate career, I've either been exposed to the ideas that these texts were based upon or I've just become a much better reader because I actually understood a great deal of it this time around. I'm very much looking forward to our 3 hour discussion of them tomorrow.
But I am not, however, looking forward to putting anymore work in this Aristotle/Sophocles paper. Spent 5-6 hours and I'm not barely trudging past the 3 1/2 page mark. I suppose that after Tuesday's classes, I'll just need to get into a hyperzone and focus until I can get the first draft out. Then I can play with structure. I think that's the main problem...my ideas don't flow until I find a good structure for them. My first 2 pages introducing Aristotle's reasons for promoting the art tragic drama are great, but once I get down into trying to introduce Sophocles, things get slow.
I feel like I wasted this weekend. I should have written more on it. Still have 8 days, but another, bigger paper due in 14 that I have to work on as well.