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‘Speculation to the

CHAPTER NINE Death’
••••••••

Jean Baudrillard’s

theoretical violence

William Merrin

I have dreamt of a force five conceptual storm blowing over the devastated real.

(1997: 42)

The Jean Genie

Jean Baudrillard is increasingly being recognized as one of the most important
cultural theorists, with his original and perceptive analyses becoming standard reference
points for any understanding of contemporary cultural processes and experience. He is
also, however, one of the most controversial theorists, his work arousing surprisingly pas-
sionate responses, ranging from the hostility of academics, many of whom retain a deep
suspicion towards the ‘postmodern’ excesses of his work and thought, to his elevation for
a wider public and media to übercool icon: a media and pop-cult sign name-dropped by
journalists taking the temperature of the cultural Zeitgeist to signal their own clued-up
cachet; required reading for the aspirant avant-garde and intellectual cognoscenti who
liberally misquote and misinterpret his work; essential sign of good taste for the Ikea pine-
effect coffee tables of the culturally literate; ready-made quotation or reference point for
any knowing cultural production, article or argument and, in the metaphorical epitome
of semiotic commodification, with ‘Philosophy Football’’s 1990s range of intellectually
inspired football shirts – Baudrillard as T-Shirt. His public lectures sell out, his photo-
graphic exhibitions attract widespread attention; his visits to this country are reported in
the broadsheet press, accompanied by interviews and articles – one even labelling him
‘the David Bowie of philosophy’ (The Guardian, G2, 14.3.2000: 14–15), while conferences,
personal appearances and book-signings draw minor crowds. And when Neo opened up
his copy of Simulacra and Simulation in The Matrix (1999), Baudrillard became probably

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