Jean Baudrillard: Nothing

Jean Baudrillard was French sociologist and philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on nothing.
Jean Baudrillard: 128   quotes 8   likes

“It is the saddest sight in the world. Sadder than destitution, sadder than the beggar is the man who eats alone in public. Nothing more contradicts the laws of man or beast, for animals always do each other the honour of sharing or disputing each other’s food. He who eats alone is dead”

Jean Baudrillard

New York (p. 15)
1980s, America (1986)
Context: Yet there is a certain solitude like no other - that of the man preparing his meal in public on a wall, or on the hood of his car, or along a fence, alone. You see that all the time here. It is the saddest sight in the world. Sadder than destitution, sadder than the beggar is the man who eats alone in public. Nothing more contradicts the laws of man or beast, for animals always do each other the honour of sharing or disputing each other’s food. He who eats alone is dead (but not he who drinks alone. Why is this?).

World , Law , Food , Animals

“the neighborhood is nothing but a protective zone- remodeling, disinfection, a snobbish and hygenic design- but above all in a figurative sense: it is a machine for making emptiness.”

Jean Baudrillard book Simulacra and Simulation

Source: Simulacra and Simulation

Sense

“Watergate was thus nothing but a lure held out by the system to catch its adversaries - a simulation of scandal for regenerative ends.”

Jean Baudrillard

"The Precession of Simulcra,MÖBIUS - SPIRALING NEGATIVETY
1980s, Simulacra and Simulation (1981)

“Nothing is wholly obvious without becoming enigmatic. Reality itself is too obvious to be true.”

Jean Baudrillard

1990s, The Perfect Crime (1993)

Reality

“There is nothing more mysterious than a TV set left on in an empty room. It is even stranger than a man talking to himself or a woman standing dreaming at her stove. It is as if another planet is communicating with you.”

Jean Baudrillard

Source: America

Dreams , Communication

“One has never said better how much "humanism", "normality", "quality of life" were nothing but the vicissitudes of profitability.”

Jean Baudrillard

1980s, Simulacra and Simulation (1981)

Life

“The need to speak, even if one has nothing to say, becomes more pressing when one has nothing to say, just as the will to live becomes more urgent when life has lost its meaning.”

Jean Baudrillard

Source: 1980s, The Ecstasy of Communication (1987), p. 30

Life

“Take provocation, for instance, which is the opposite and the caricature of seduction. It says: "I know that you want to be seduced, and I will seduce you." Nothing could be worse than betraying this secret rule. Nothing could be less seductive than a provocative smile or inciteful behaviour, since both presuppose that one cannot be seduced naturally and that one needs to be blackmailed into it, or through a declaration of intent: "Let me seduce you"”

Jean Baudrillard

Source: 1980s, The Ecstasy of Communication (1987), p. 67

Secret , Smile , Nature

“For nothing can be greater than seduction itself, not even the order that destroys it.”

Jean Baudrillard

Seduction (1990)
1990s

“Dying is nothing. You have to know how to disappear. Dying comes down to a biological chance and that is of no consequence. Disappearing is of a far higher order of necessity. You must not leave it to biology to decide when you will disappear. To disappear is to pass into an enigmatic state which is neither life nor death. Some animals know how to do this, as do savages, who withdraw while still alive, from the sight of their own people.”

Jean Baudrillard

1980s, Cool Memories (1987, trans. 1990)

Life , Death , People , Chance