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Büyük toplumsal hareketler ve çağdaş üretim saplantısı arasındaki ilişkileri çözümleyen Jean Baudrillard, güçlü bir Pazar ekonomisi tarafından dayatılan nirengi noktalarına karşı çıkmış bir kuşağı etkileyen sorunsalın tam merkezinde yer almaktadır. Dünyanın “sanallaştırılmasına�, her yerde geçerli olan bir gösterge “ticaretine�, saydamlığın (demokrasinin) göz boyamaya dayalı erdemleri ve ticari değer adlı kandırmacalara simgesel simgesel değiş tokuş düzenine ait sınır tanımayan cömertlik, ayartmanın meydan okuyuculuğu, sonsuza dek sürüp gideceğe benzeyen bir rastlantısallık/belirsizlik ve yazgının değiştirilebilirliğiyle karşı çıkmaktadır.
Kışkırtıcı ve paradoksal olduğunu iddia eden bir düşüncenin baştan çıkartan işlemcileri olarak adlandırılabilecek on iki anahtar sözcük, düşünürün metinlerdeki temel fikirleri, estetik ve pedagojik niteliklere sahip aydınlatıcı bir alfabe gibi sunmaktadır.
Son derece özgür bir yaklaşım ve herkesin anlayabileceği bir şekilde ele alınarak gerçekleştirilen bu kitapta Jean Baudrillard’ın belli başlı felsefi kavramları açıklanmaya çalışılmaktadır.
Kışkırtıcı ve paradoksal olduğunu iddia eden bir düşüncenin baştan çıkartan işlemcileri olarak adlandırılabilecek on iki anahtar sözcük, düşünürün metinlerdeki temel fikirleri, estetik ve pedagojik niteliklere sahip aydınlatıcı bir alfabe gibi sunmaktadır.
Son derece özgür bir yaklaşım ve herkesin anlayabileceği bir şekilde ele alınarak gerçekleştirilen bu kitapta Jean Baudrillard’ın belli başlı felsefi kavramları açıklanmaya çalışılmaktadır.
103 pages, Paperback
First published May 24, 2000
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506 people want to read
About the author
Jean Baudrillard
192Ìýbooks1,850ÌýfollowersJean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher and poet, with interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as his formulation of concepts such as hyperreality. Baudrillard wrote about diverse subjects, including consumerism, critique of economy, social history, aesthetics, Western foreign policy, and popular culture. Among his most well-known works are Seduction (1978), Simulacra and Simulation (1981), America (1986), and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991). His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism. Nevertheless, Baudrillard had also opposed post-structuralism, and had distanced himself from postmodernism.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
November 1, 2014
This book feels like the Rosetta Stone for Baudrillard, an essential tool for anyone interested in digging deeper into his thought and philosophy. Easy to read though very layered it presents his key terms and a brief exploration of what the word means when placed in the context of the modern world. An important look at the need for a redefined duality over a singularity that will leave us without choice and as I think he is going for, lifeless.
Recommended for anyone interested in delving into his work or graspable and enjoyable philosophical exploration.
Recommended for anyone interested in delving into his work or graspable and enjoyable philosophical exploration.
March 2, 2015
Me topé con este breve libro en La Ventana, estaba buscando uno de Luis Felipe Fabre, cuando este, que estaba mal acomodado, simplemente captó mi atención.
El nombre no me es nada desconocido, digo, a estas alturas, ¿quién no sabrÃa nada de Baudrillard?
Filósofo, sociólogo, crÃtico... este wey parecÃa ver un mundo que planteaba cuestionamientos constantes al respecto de la posmodernidad, y como en esta obra: la hiperrealidad.
El libro vagó del librero al sillón y del sillón a la mochila sin que avanzara mucho en su lectura, ¿por qué lo compré? Algo que leà hojeándolo en la librerÃa me gustó como para agregarlo a mi tema de tesis que versa sobre la "identidad digital", sobre la "huella digital".
Al leer más a profundidad, terminé descubriendo, que todo el libro en sÃ, como el de Solé, me permiten abarcar un poco más mi tema de investigación, dotarlo de una perspectiva filosófica que estaba dejando fuera, o que mejor dicho, no habÃa vislumbrado.
En apenas unas viñetas, y acomodando todo como en una especie de diccionario mÃnimo Baudrillard desarrolla temas que van desde definir el objeto, la seducción, el valor, la imposibilidad del intercambio, lo obseceno, lo virtual, el intercambio simbólico, la transparencia del mal, el crimen perfecto, el destino, la dualidad; sin embargo, esto solo son eso, cnceptos, que le permiten desarrollar su idea de que en la actualidad, las contraseñas, las palabras de acceso, significan o pueden significar todo.
Son pequeños puntos de entrada a explorar nuestra realidad actual a los ojos de una visión crÃtica.
El nombre no me es nada desconocido, digo, a estas alturas, ¿quién no sabrÃa nada de Baudrillard?
Filósofo, sociólogo, crÃtico... este wey parecÃa ver un mundo que planteaba cuestionamientos constantes al respecto de la posmodernidad, y como en esta obra: la hiperrealidad.
El libro vagó del librero al sillón y del sillón a la mochila sin que avanzara mucho en su lectura, ¿por qué lo compré? Algo que leà hojeándolo en la librerÃa me gustó como para agregarlo a mi tema de tesis que versa sobre la "identidad digital", sobre la "huella digital".
Al leer más a profundidad, terminé descubriendo, que todo el libro en sÃ, como el de Solé, me permiten abarcar un poco más mi tema de investigación, dotarlo de una perspectiva filosófica que estaba dejando fuera, o que mejor dicho, no habÃa vislumbrado.
En apenas unas viñetas, y acomodando todo como en una especie de diccionario mÃnimo Baudrillard desarrolla temas que van desde definir el objeto, la seducción, el valor, la imposibilidad del intercambio, lo obseceno, lo virtual, el intercambio simbólico, la transparencia del mal, el crimen perfecto, el destino, la dualidad; sin embargo, esto solo son eso, cnceptos, que le permiten desarrollar su idea de que en la actualidad, las contraseñas, las palabras de acceso, significan o pueden significar todo.
Son pequeños puntos de entrada a explorar nuestra realidad actual a los ojos de una visión crÃtica.
May 12, 2024
6.Libro introductorio para entender a baudrillard si lo hubiera leido antes tal vez hubiera tenido una nota distinta. Pero ya tuve el enfrentamiento de su terminologia antes asi que solo es interesante como repaso
Want to read
February 21, 2008oooo, passwords? what a fabulous idea for a book, for a theory, for a topic to write about. I love language. I love different ways of thinking about and understanding the world. Honestly, I love Baudrillard. I can't wait to read this book.
May 12, 2024
I hadn't thought this book would be as useful as it turned out to be for me. As such it is just a thin volume made up of 16-something short 4-5 page pieces on different concepts and ideas that Baudrillard has dealt with throughout his career, such as, Object, Value, Seduction, Obscene, The Virtual, The Perfect Crime, etc. It was published in 2000 so it gives us a Baudrillard that has done most of his theoretically important writings already, has gone from his Marxist-structuralist phase to a properly 'postmodern' one, and is looking back at his oeuvre.
But then, is it an introduction?
No, do not make the mistake of thinking this book an introduction to Baudrillard, you'll be totally lost if you get into this without having a good solid idea of what all Baudrillard has written already. System of Objects, Symbolic Exchange and Death, Simulacra & Simulation, The Perfect Crime, etc., are texts you need to already have a rough idea of.
Then how is this text useful?
Well, it is useful in how it allows one to cull out a consistent, or rather, a full picture of Baudrillard's thought, which is impossible to get from reading any one or two of his texts, and still extremely difficult from having read most of his important works.
By way of looking back at these important concepts, Baudrillard reveals a consistent line that can be traced from 1968 to 1981 and 1995, and in allowing one to do that, this text is useful, as it was to me when I was writing a paper using Baudrillard.
Contrary to the description on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, I contend that rather than giving us many entry points into Baudrillard, this book allows us the opportunity to excavate a full Baudrillard from under the many different essays presented in the book.
But then, is it an introduction?
No, do not make the mistake of thinking this book an introduction to Baudrillard, you'll be totally lost if you get into this without having a good solid idea of what all Baudrillard has written already. System of Objects, Symbolic Exchange and Death, Simulacra & Simulation, The Perfect Crime, etc., are texts you need to already have a rough idea of.
Then how is this text useful?
Well, it is useful in how it allows one to cull out a consistent, or rather, a full picture of Baudrillard's thought, which is impossible to get from reading any one or two of his texts, and still extremely difficult from having read most of his important works.
By way of looking back at these important concepts, Baudrillard reveals a consistent line that can be traced from 1968 to 1981 and 1995, and in allowing one to do that, this text is useful, as it was to me when I was writing a paper using Baudrillard.
Contrary to the description on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, I contend that rather than giving us many entry points into Baudrillard, this book allows us the opportunity to excavate a full Baudrillard from under the many different essays presented in the book.
June 21, 2018
I have to call bullshit on this silly book. Like a lot of people I read Baudrillard with interest and glee back in the '80s. I picked this up in a thrift store for two bucks and thought it'd be fun to refresh what I had so enjoyed way back in the day. Upon closer examination, however, this book is a total scam. If you've read Baudrillard's actual books there's nothing new, if you haven't--as many other reviewers here have pointed out--this is at best a tease and at worst incomprehensible. It's B.'s "15 notes toward explaining my oeuvre to a group of undergrads." It should have been a xerox (oh, how dated am I!?!?!) distributed on the first day of class. Instead, Verso, a division of New Left Books, the erstwhile British Marxist press, have given it a beautiful glossy cover of a fog-shrouded highway (I hear Michael Palin's voice shouting "Oh, what a giveaway!"), oversized it, and slapped a $20 price tag on it. Isn't it nice that I can critique Verso's capitalist strategies with the concept of conspicuous consumption--which I first read about in Verso Books back in the '80s. This, like most of the things one reads in the news today, invokes the cliche of not knowing whether to laugh or to cry. Actually we all know we will only shrug because we no longer care enough to either laugh or cry and that again makes me wish I could still laugh or cry about all of the bullshit piling up around me.
February 16, 2020
"I attempt to free myself from a referential, teleological thinking precisely in order to pursue the play of a thinking which is aware that something else thinks it."
This is a very interesting read...I've not heard any other contemporary thinker convey such deep, complicated thoughts with this level of brevity and clarity. Through a discussion of "the virtual," Baudrillard analyzes life under what Heidegger called Technicity, advancing the discussion in light of modern hyper-competitive, finance-driven capitalism and the advent of previously unimaginable technologies. As I understand it, Baudrillard's thesis is that human life has always featured some medium of exchange, but in the modern world exchange has become increasingly symbolized and virtual, which makes it harder to grasp both what is real and what signifies the real. For Baudrillard, this propels us towards a profound uncertainty. Written in 2003, it is hard to ignore the prescience of his analysis.
This is a very interesting read...I've not heard any other contemporary thinker convey such deep, complicated thoughts with this level of brevity and clarity. Through a discussion of "the virtual," Baudrillard analyzes life under what Heidegger called Technicity, advancing the discussion in light of modern hyper-competitive, finance-driven capitalism and the advent of previously unimaginable technologies. As I understand it, Baudrillard's thesis is that human life has always featured some medium of exchange, but in the modern world exchange has become increasingly symbolized and virtual, which makes it harder to grasp both what is real and what signifies the real. For Baudrillard, this propels us towards a profound uncertainty. Written in 2003, it is hard to ignore the prescience of his analysis.
October 23, 2024
Daha önce dediğim gibi Baudrillard okumayı seviyorum. Kuramını da ilginç ve ilgi çekici buluyorum. Bu sene buna yönelik bir miktar okuma yaptım. Bu eser de yazarın kuramına dair anahtar sözcükleri daha detaylı anlatıyor. Bu da kuramı anlamak veya kurama dair ayrıntılı okuma yapmak isteyen okurlar için çok değerli. Terimler gayet anlaşılır bir dille anlatılmış. Daha sonra tekrar tekrar dönüp bakılabilir.
Son sözden.
"Ölümü, olumsuzluğu kesinlikle ortadan kaldırıp, onlardan kurtulmak isteyen bir dünyada düşünce, bir felaket habercisi rolü oynamak, felaket oyununun bir kahramanı olmak ve kışkırtmak zorundadır. Ancak bu düşünce aynı zamanda insanca olmak, insan konusunda kaygılanmak ve bunun için de iyi ve kötü, insanca olan ve olmayanın nasıl ters yüz edilebileceğini bulmak durumundadır."
Son sözden.
"Ölümü, olumsuzluğu kesinlikle ortadan kaldırıp, onlardan kurtulmak isteyen bir dünyada düşünce, bir felaket habercisi rolü oynamak, felaket oyununun bir kahramanı olmak ve kışkırtmak zorundadır. Ancak bu düşünce aynı zamanda insanca olmak, insan konusunda kaygılanmak ve bunun için de iyi ve kötü, insanca olan ve olmayanın nasıl ters yüz edilebileceğini bulmak durumundadır."
March 23, 2025
As clear as Baudrillard gets, but by no means an introduction to his thought. It should be rather viewed as clarification of some terms than full philosophy book, so having grasp of philosophical inquires and observations he had been building since late sixties is definitely must - Simulacra, Symbolic Exchange, La seduction - at least one of them is required I'd say.
Other amazing thing is that it is full Baudrillard's thought in nutshell - from the late sixties to early zeroes. Starting from Value, through Symbolic Exchange and so on, wequite simple summary of all Baudrillard's bibliography.
Will be probably great if you'll ever get lost reading other stuff of this sad, nihilistic post-Plato guy.
Other amazing thing is that it is full Baudrillard's thought in nutshell - from the late sixties to early zeroes. Starting from Value, through Symbolic Exchange and so on, wequite simple summary of all Baudrillard's bibliography.
Will be probably great if you'll ever get lost reading other stuff of this sad, nihilistic post-Plato guy.
April 13, 2025
Baudrillard grew on me so quickly � he seamlessly connects one idea into the next, and even when he introduces seemingly left field analogies they usually end up making sense later. I don’t even think I agree with his point that the digital world wrongfully reconfigures reality, but I got on board with a few parts of his argument (the value of seduction and obscurity, the illusion of conquering the object, and progress as something we lack control over). I’ve also never written so many question marks on a book ever, but this essay won me over.
September 10, 2019
Like a lot of other reviews have said, this one tends towards abstraction on account of it's sparseness. Many of the terms he uses eventually get their own chapters, so once you get to the end, you understand the whole more. But for the most part this is an overview of concepts with very little direct analysis and few examples of the thought being put into practice.
August 12, 2023
Sorte d’abécédaire de Baudrillard dans lequel il revient sur quelques grands concepts de sa pensée (valeur, échange symbolique, séduction etc.) et articule ces concepts précieux entre-eux.
Le livre ne se suffit pas à lui-même mais à le mérite d’offrir un panorama accessible et bref aux concepts fomentés par l’un des plus grands penseurs contemporains.
Le livre ne se suffit pas à lui-même mais à le mérite d’offrir un panorama accessible et bref aux concepts fomentés par l’un des plus grands penseurs contemporains.
January 12, 2025
Passwords, as an/the entry point(s) into the dialectics of semantics - does away with the duality of the subject and its object. Refocuses on the subjectivity of the object and the objectivity of the subject. 
Rightly describes, ‘weavers of spell and magic� or ‘passers� or ‘vehicles of ideas� - words are beares and generators of ideas.
February 13, 2025
Espectacular escrito corto, recopilación de pensamientos del francés al comienzo del siglo. Es una especie de discusión de conceptos metafÃsicos y sus puntos de fuga para aplicar a diferentes cosas, es una herramienta más que un libro sobre algo concreto. Me gusta mucho este estilo y es una lectura amena y profundamente poderosa para pensar procesos comunicacionales. Recomiendo.
April 9, 2020
Insightful but very very short and its hard to get a grip on his ideas. I love jean baudrillad writings but definitely this is very brief with alot of unexplored ideas. To understand this book you have to read his other books.
December 8, 2021
This is the most approachable Baudrillard book. A great one to start with. Much more coherent and humble than simulacra and simulation. Even though it came out so much later, this is probably the best place to embark.
Read
October 3, 2019Read for a class. Very French.
February 18, 2020
There was much in this book that I felt I couldn’t understand with my current knowledge. Nonetheless, several parts were interesting, and it still seems like it was worth the read.
August 16, 2020
Delirante è dire poco.
December 6, 2020
Baudrillard writes about too many words using too few words. A few good nuggets in-between, but also too much nonsense, IMHO.
September 26, 2022
A glossary of sorts to a number of words/ideas key to Baudrillard's philosophy, each accompanied by a short essay so inscrutable as to be nearly poetic.
December 12, 2022
intriguing, will dive deeper
December 4, 2023
I read this instead of doing Spanish homework. Haven't read enough Marx or Bataille to truly grasp 20% of it, not worth it.
November 5, 2024
3.5 stars
Read
January 16, 2025die welt denkt uns und das objekt rächt sich
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March 30, 2025
Eloquent.
Poignant.
Insightful.
Poignant.
Insightful.
September 25, 2015
66 pages in and Baudrillard sounds a bit like an old blowhard in this book. (Makes sense - he was 84 when it was published). So far I'm half intrigued and half suspicious of the passages I've read. There's some good stuff here - the sections on Value, Symbolic Exchange and The Obscene have really interesting ideas for sure - but others continue in an outdated vein of fearmongering about technology, the image-saturation of society leading to an eventual implosion of meaning, etc. I think this vein of thought is tired.
For instance:
"But in the perfect crime, it is the perfection that is criminal. To perfect the world is to finish it, to fulfil it - and hence to find a final solution for it." [Note: the reference to the Holocaust with 'final solution' is intentional here] "...I have in mind the parable of the Tibetan monks who, for centuries, have been deciphering all the names of God, the nine billion names of God. One day they call in the people from IBM, who turn up with their computers, and within a month they have finished the whole job. Now the monks' prophecy said that once this listing of the names of God was finished, the world would come to an end. Obviously the IBM people do not believe this but, as they are coming back down the mountain, with their inventory completed, they see the stars in the sky extinguished one by one. This is a very fine parable of the extermination of the world by its ultimate verification, which perfects in with calculations, with truth." (p 65-66).
So, here's a basic Baudrillard parable of simulacra 'exterminating' the original. In other places in the book, he problematizes notions of 'original', 'end' etc., but still speaks about some mythical, previous state of society with nostalgia: "...If there is no longer any end or finitude, if the subject is immortal, then he no longer knows who he is. And it is this immortality that is the ultimate phantasm of our technologies." (p 62).
I much prefer when his attitude leans towards the Utopian: "Perhaps we are always in a dual morality... There might be said to be a moral sphere, that of commodity exchange, and an immoral sphere, that of play or gaming, where all that counts is the event of the game itself and the advent of shared rules.... Exchange must never have an end, it must always increase in intensity, possibly continuing until death. Gaming might also be said to be of the order of this form of exchange, in so far as money no longer has any fixed value within that sphere, since it is always put back into circulation according to the symbolic rule - which is clearly not the moral law. In this symbolic rule, money won must in no circumstances become commodity value again; it must be put back into play within the game itself." (p 11-16). I think he's still imposing a value judgment here, but the concept of game over commodity exchange I think is full of Utopian potential.
* * *
Update: no update. The 2nd half didn't redeem any of the stuff I didn't like here. I think the strongest passages were nearer to the beginning of the book.
For instance:
"But in the perfect crime, it is the perfection that is criminal. To perfect the world is to finish it, to fulfil it - and hence to find a final solution for it." [Note: the reference to the Holocaust with 'final solution' is intentional here] "...I have in mind the parable of the Tibetan monks who, for centuries, have been deciphering all the names of God, the nine billion names of God. One day they call in the people from IBM, who turn up with their computers, and within a month they have finished the whole job. Now the monks' prophecy said that once this listing of the names of God was finished, the world would come to an end. Obviously the IBM people do not believe this but, as they are coming back down the mountain, with their inventory completed, they see the stars in the sky extinguished one by one. This is a very fine parable of the extermination of the world by its ultimate verification, which perfects in with calculations, with truth." (p 65-66).
So, here's a basic Baudrillard parable of simulacra 'exterminating' the original. In other places in the book, he problematizes notions of 'original', 'end' etc., but still speaks about some mythical, previous state of society with nostalgia: "...If there is no longer any end or finitude, if the subject is immortal, then he no longer knows who he is. And it is this immortality that is the ultimate phantasm of our technologies." (p 62).
I much prefer when his attitude leans towards the Utopian: "Perhaps we are always in a dual morality... There might be said to be a moral sphere, that of commodity exchange, and an immoral sphere, that of play or gaming, where all that counts is the event of the game itself and the advent of shared rules.... Exchange must never have an end, it must always increase in intensity, possibly continuing until death. Gaming might also be said to be of the order of this form of exchange, in so far as money no longer has any fixed value within that sphere, since it is always put back into circulation according to the symbolic rule - which is clearly not the moral law. In this symbolic rule, money won must in no circumstances become commodity value again; it must be put back into play within the game itself." (p 11-16). I think he's still imposing a value judgment here, but the concept of game over commodity exchange I think is full of Utopian potential.
* * *
Update: no update. The 2nd half didn't redeem any of the stuff I didn't like here. I think the strongest passages were nearer to the beginning of the book.
September 9, 2013
Reading Passwords as I did, for an introduction to Baudrillard, doesn't quite work. The book is too short: he throws introductory remarks about many interesting topics and concepts at you without giving himself room to explain. The end product is vague, short on examples and long on speculation. But his thoughts on "The Obscene" and "The Transparency of Evil" are worth a read in our social media-engorged times.
October 25, 2014
Second short Baudrillard book in a row. "Passwords" is comprised of 12 brief chapters each one devoted to discussion of the "keywords" in Baudrillard's philosophical oeuvre. I don't recommend starting here to gain worthwhile exposure to his work. I did not take much away from this except to wonder if "Passwords" is a tributary reference to Raymond Williams's classic "Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society."(1975). I think I will have a look at Williams in near term.
May 1, 2018
Baudrillard a luat cuvinte si le-a slefuit pana aceastea au devenit transparente pentru ca noi sa putem privi prin ele, ca printr-o lupa sau, cateodata ca printr-o prisma anamorfica, facandu-le, in acest fel sa capate substantialitate si incepand sa traiasca in subconstientul nostru, anuland autoreclusiunea impusa de traducerea, uneori prea simplista, saraca in argumente, a sensului vulgar dat de limbajul cotidian
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