The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena

Product Description In this, his most important collection of essays since Le systeme des objets, Jean Baudrillard contemplates Western culture “after the orgy”—the orgy, that is, of the revolutions of the 1960s. The sexual revolution has led, he argues, not to sexual liberation but to a reign of transvestism, to a confusion of the categories of man and woman—to the “androgenous and Frankenstein appeal of a Michael Jackson.” The revolution in art has led to a “transaesthetic realm of indifference.” The cybernetic revolution has blurred the distinction between man and machine, while the political revolution has led to a ‘transpolitics’ that merely simulates old political forms. Such are the points of Baudrillard’s compass as he steers his way through the mental landscape of this febrile fin de siecle. Review “Such quality and accuracy of insight indicate both the power of Baudrillard’s initial position and the value of the French tradition of the grand philosophical analyst moving freely through the culture.”—Brian Appleyard, The Spectator “We may not like Baudrillard’s merciless honesty about the modern age, but we need his voice: the crow on the shoulder.”—Pat Kane, The Scotsman About the Author Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) began teaching sociology at the Université de Paris-X in 1966. He retired from academia in 1987 to write books and travel until his death in 2007. His many works include Simulations and Simulacra, America, The Perfect Crime, The System of Objects, Passwords, The Transparency of Evil, The Spirit of Terrorism, and Fragments, among others.