“Thus, for example, the idea of progress has disappeared, yet progress continues. The idea of wealth that production once connoted has disappeared, yet production itself continues more vigorously than ever. Indeed, it picks up speed precisely in proportion to its increasing indifference to its original aims. Of the political sphere one can say that the idea of politics has disappeared but that the game of politics continues in secret indifference to its own stakes. Of television, that it operates in total indifference to its own images (it would not be affected, in other words, even were mankind to disappear). Could it be that all systems, all individuals, harbour a secret urge to be rid of their ideas, of their own essences, so as to be able to proliferate everywhere, to transport themselves simultaneously to every point of the compass? In any event, the consequences of a dissociation of this kind can only be fatal. A thing which has lost its idea is like the man who has lost his shadow, and it must either fall under the sway of madness or perish.”
Quote by Jean Baudrillard
Work
The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena
Browse quotes and source details for this work. more
Author
You May Also Like
Source: The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact
Source: Theology of Digital Physics: Phenomenal Consciousness, The Cosmic Self & The Pantheistic Interpretation of Our Holographic Reality
“This meeting could have been an email. This email could have been a cage fight.”
Source: Susan, You're The Chosen One
“The slightest pressure can be highly damaging to originality.”
Source: Pnin
Source: Pnin
