Comment by aiono
5 days ago
I find the ideas of Baudrillard really accurate in describing some parts of modern life, but to be honest I feel like he just saying random stuff when I tried to read one of his book. It's so metaphorical and abstract it's very difficult to understand what exactly he is saying.
My best experience reading Baudrillard was out loud with a group. Some passages spoke to some but not others, but most generated discussion. Some are also obvious to us now in the TikTok age - uncannily so.
Definitely when I read his works even though I didn't understand some of his writings it made me think about it.
He's not "just saying random stuff", he was a very serious thinker. Unlike Derrida he wasn't much of a joker.
Perhaps language is fundamentally metaphorical, and perhaps reality is actually abstract.
That's just what I feel I didn't claim that it actually is just random stuff. But I value clarity and Baudrillard doesn't seem to try to be. However, as I said I do find his general points very valuable just his style is not my cup of tea.
He wrote in many different styles, depending on the subject and likely audience. Simulacra and Simulation, Silent Majorities and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place are very different texts.
Part of it may be translation, too. English translations of French academic writing always seem to come out especially convoluted.