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(1929-2007)
Originally a teacher of [[German]], [[Baudrillard]] established himself as a [[sociologist]] in the late 1960s and is widely regarded as one of the most significant commentators on [[postmodernity]].
[[Baudrillard]]'s prolific output of books (most of [[them]] short), articles and interviews has brought him enormous [[media]] attention.
[[Baudrillard]]'s early studies of the [[consumer society]] are influenced by a variety of tendencies within [[sociology]] and [[philosophy]], ranging from [[Marx]]'s [[theory]] of [[commodity fetishism]] to [[Barthes]] of ''[[Mythologies]]'' (1957) and ''The Fashion [[System]] (1967) and from [[Debord]]'s denunciations of the '[[society of the spectacle]]' to [[Mcluhan]]'s celebrated proclamation that '[[the medium is the message]]'.''
According to [[Baudrillard]], the [[consumer society]] is dominated by a system of [[object]]-[[signs]] (consumer goods and gadgets) which circulate endlessly and cosntitute an [[order]] of [[signification]] which can be compared to the [[sign]]s of [[Saussure]]'s [[linguistic]] system.
Their [[use-value]] is less important than their ability to [[signify]] the status of their consumer; the posession of a washing amchine machine allows one to wash clothes, but it also signifies membership of a [[social]] group.
In a postindustrial society where the importance of [[economic]] production is in decline, it is consumption that binds society together.
The society described by [[Baudrillard]] in these early studies is remarkably similar to that depited by OULIP-member Georges Pec in his novel ''things'' (1965), in which an affluent couple live through the [[objects]] they purchase and consumer.
==Next==
With ''[[Symbolic]] [[Exchange]] and [[Death]]'' (1976), which provides the most sustained exposition of his later theory, [[Baudrillard]] depart scompletely departs completely from the quasi-[[Marxi]]st framework of his early books.
In the course of a far-ranging [[discussion]] of [[Saussure]], [[Mauss]]'s theory of the [[gift]] [[relationship]] (1923) and [[Freud]], [[Baudrillard]] now argues that, in the era of [[postmodernity]], [[sign]]s are replaced by [[simulacra]], and the [[real]] by [[hyperreality]].
[[Baudrillard]] is a highly literate and [[literary]] stylist whose [[work]] contains some unexpected allusions.
He revives the [[pataphysics]], or [[science]] of [[imaginary]] solutions, of jarry to describe the inexorable build-up of weapon-systems which are designed not to be used, and the [[notorious]] claims [[about]] the Gulf War appear to allude to the title of Jean Giraudoux's play ''The Rojan Trojan War Will Not Take Place'' (1935), which ends with the Greek [[army]] going off to war in a fulfilment of Cassandra's unheeded prophecy.
[[Baudrillard]]'s style -and style of [[thought]]- often resemble sthe resembles the cultivate and glacial dandyism of a [[Baudelaire]], particularly in the fragmentary notations and observatiosn of the [[three]] volumes of ''Cool [[Memories]]'' (1987, 1990, 1995).
At [[other]] [[times]], eh he appears to adopt the pose of a latter-day Flaneur.
Indeed, the [[Baudrillard]] who [[drives]] accross a [[hyperreal]] America in a fast car seems to be the direct descendant fo the [[figure]] celebrated by both Baudelaire and [[Benjamin]].
