Impossible Exchange

Impossible Exchange
ISBN-10
1844677915
ISBN-13
9781844677917
Category
Philosophy
Pages
209
Language
English
Published
2012-01-16
Publisher
Verso Books
Author
Jean Baudrillard

Description

Working his way through the various spheres and systems of everyday life—the political, the juridical, the economical, the aesthetic, the biological, among others—he finds that they are all characterized by the same non-equivalence, and hence the same eccentricity. Literally, they have no meaning outside themselves and cannot be exchanged for anything. Politics is laden with signs and meanings, but seen from the outside it has no meaning. Schemes for genetic experimentation and investigation are becoming infinitely ramified, and the more ramified they become the more the crucial question is left unanswered: who rules over life? Who rules over death? Baudrillard’s conclusion is that the true formula of contemporary nihilism lies here: the nihilism of value itself. This is our fate, and from this stem both the happiest and the most baleful consequences. This book might be said to be the exploration, first, of the ‘fateful’ consequences, and subsequently—by a poetic transference of situation—of the fortunate, happy consequences of impossible exchange.

Other editions

Similar books

  • Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on what it is and why it Matters
    By Karen Warren

    Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 27 . 32. Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 49 . 33. Seager , New State of the Earth Atlas , 121 .

  • Each Day a Renewed Beginning: Meditations for a Peaceful Journey
    By Karen Casey

    7. Sometimes the things that frighten you the most can be the biggest sources of strength. —Iris Timberlake or Most of us learn as we mature that strength.

  • Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy
    By Todd May

    28 It is therefore not difficult to reconcile Badiou«s references to historical ... On the one hand, Badiou«s major essays on Rancière all deal with the ...

  • Pierre Bayle's Cartesian Metaphysics: Rediscovering Early Modern Philosophy
    By Todd Ryan

    Bayle offers a similar assessment in a letter to Minutoli: There has just been ... touchant la tran[s]substantiation, et leur conformité avec le calvinisme.

  • Negotiating a Settlement in Northern Ireland, 1969-2019
    By John Coakley, Jennifer Todd

    However, acceptance of the deal was driven in part by threats of worse to come should agreement ... see Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006, s.

  • The Philosopher's Way
    By Pearson Education, Pearson Education Staff, Inc.

    Several versions of Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products exist for each title, including customized versions for individual schools, and registrations are not transferable.

  • Swimmer in a Dark Sea
    By Pierce Timberlake

    Take a tour through the mind of America's undiscovered philosopher: Pierce Timberlake. Swimmer in a Dark Sea is a dizzying ride through a dazzling array of profound concepts.

  • Bringing Peace Home: Feminism, Violence, and Nature
    By Karen Warren, Duane L. Cady

    "This collection of works is ambitious, well documented, thoroughly—though not turgidly—referenced, and comprehensively indexed.

  • Ecological Feminism
    By Karen Warren, Barbara Wells-Howe

    The essays in this volume deal with a wide variety of subjects - the essential distinction between the "ecofeminist" and the "ecofeminine," the link between violence and environmental exploitation, feminism's relationship to animal rights ...

  • Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment
    By Karen Green

    6 Davies, Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren, 228; Franklin Bowditch Dexter (ed.), The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, ...