[dawg-]

Baudrillard's insistence on reading everything as a symbol gets him in trouble. There are a lot of intellectual fireworks in his writing, but I think he lacks depth and appreciation for the vibrancy and diversity of life. It's another example of cultural criticism failing because it overly textualizes things. Did he ever ask the owners of the bodies he so eloquently critiques, the "bodybuilder", or the "skateboarder", or the "Bronx breakdancer", what they think about all this business? Those aren't real people, they are just archetypes who serve to add color to his writing. Who wants to listen to a humanist who seems to hate actual humans?

[pradn]

It's best to read his work - and the work of many philosophers - metaphorically, and with a grain of salt. His statements are vectors that point in certain directions, not destinations in themselves.

I think his work is deeply humanist. He's afraid the society we've created for ourselves prevents us from enjoying our own humanity. And this shouldn't be particularly controversial. We can agree that most workplaces can be quite constricting; Baudrillard speaks of our leisure lives instead.

[darkerside]

Baudrillard: Please change as a society, you're doing it wrong and losing your humanity!

Rest of humanity: Please leave us alone, we're trying to have fun and/or survive

[engineeringwoke]

Well, everything is a symbol. Everything that you will ever do or say means something, whether you knew it at the time or not.

[dawg-]

I don't think I agree. Things only become symbols when read as symbols