Baudrillard Pornography of War
-
Upload
estudiosvisuales -
Category
Documents
-
view
224 -
download
0
Transcript of Baudrillard Pornography of War
-
8/6/2019 Baudrillard Pornography of War
1/3
-
8/6/2019 Baudrillard Pornography of War
2/3
CULTURALPOLITICS
24
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
itself, of a power now aimless and purposeless since it has no
plausible enemy and acts with total impunity. All it can do now
is inflict gratuitous humiliation, and, as we know, the violence we
inflict on others is only ever the expression of the violence we do to
ourselves. And it can only humiliate itself in the process, demeanand deny itself in a kind of perverse relentlessness. Ignominy and
sleaze are the last symptoms of a power that no longer knows what
to do with itself.
September 11th was like a global reaction of all those who no
longer know what to do with and can no longer bear this world
power. In the case of the abuse inflicted on the Iraqis, it is worse
still: it is power itself that no longer knows what to do with itself and
can no longer bear itself, other than in inhuman self-parody.
These images are as lethal for America as the pictures of the
World Trade Center in flames. Yet it is not America in itself that
stands accused, and there is no point laying all this at the Americans
door: the infernal machine generates its own impetus, freewheeling
out of control in literally suicidal acts. The Americans power has
in fact become too much for them. They no longer have the means
to exorcize it. And we are party to that power. It is the whole of the
West whose bad conscience crystallizes in these images; it is the
whole of the West that is present in the American soldiers sadistic
outburst of laughter; just as it is the whole of the West that is behind
the building of the Israeli wall.
This is the truth of these images; this is their burden: the excess
of a potency designating itself as abject and pornographic. The truth
of the images, not their veracity, since, in this situation, whether
they are true or false is beside the point. We are henceforth and
forever in a state of uncertainty where images are concerned. Only
their impact counts, precisely insofar as they are embedded in war.
There isnt even a need for embedded journalists any more; its
the military itself that is embedded in the image; thanks to digital
technology, images are definitively integrated into warfare. They no
longer represent; they no longer imply either distance or perception
or judgement. They are no longer of the order of representation, or
of information in the strict sense and, as a result, the question ofwhether they should be produced, reproduced, broadcast or banned,
and even the essential question of whether they are true or false,
is irrelevant.
For images to constitute genuine information they would have to
be different from war. But they have become precisely as virtual as
war today and hence their own specific violence is now superadded
to the specific violence of war. Moreover, by their omnipresence, by
the rule that everything must be made visible, which now applies
the world over, images our present images have become in
substance pornographic; they therefore cleave spontaneously to thepornographic dimension of war.
There is in all this, and particularly in the last Iraqi episode, a
justice immanent in the image: he who stakes his all on the spectacle
CULTURALPOLITICS
24
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
itself, of a power now aimless and purposeless since it has no
plausible enemy and acts with total impunity. All it can do now
is inflict gratuitous humiliation, and, as we know, the violence we
inflict on others is only ever the expression of the violence we do to
ourselves. And it can only humiliate itself in the process, demeanand deny itself in a kind of perverse relentlessness. Ignominy and
sleaze are the last symptoms of a power that no longer knows what
to do with itself.
September 11th was like a global reaction of all those who no
longer know what to do with and can no longer bear this world
power. In the case of the abuse inflicted on the Iraqis, it is worse
still: it is power itself that no longer knows what to do with itself and
can no longer bear itself, other than in inhuman self-parody.
These images are as lethal for America as the pictures of the
World Trade Center in flames. Yet it is not America in itself that
stands accused, and there is no point laying all this at the Americans
door: the infernal machine generates its own impetus, freewheeling
out of control in literally suicidal acts. The Americans power has
in fact become too much for them. They no longer have the means
to exorcize it. And we are party to that power. It is the whole of the
West whose bad conscience crystallizes in these images; it is the
whole of the West that is present in the American soldiers sadistic
outburst of laughter; just as it is the whole of the West that is behind
the building of the Israeli wall.
This is the truth of these images; this is their burden: the excess
of a potency designating itself as abject and pornographic. The truth
of the images, not their veracity, since, in this situation, whether
they are true or false is beside the point. We are henceforth and
forever in a state of uncertainty where images are concerned. Only
their impact counts, precisely insofar as they are embedded in war.
There isnt even a need for embedded journalists any more; its
the military itself that is embedded in the image; thanks to digital
technology, images are definitively integrated into warfare. They no
longer represent; they no longer imply either distance or perception
or judgement. They are no longer of the order of representation, or
of information in the strict sense and, as a result, the question ofwhether they should be produced, reproduced, broadcast or banned,
and even the essential question of whether they are true or false,
is irrelevant.
For images to constitute genuine information they would have to
be different from war. But they have become precisely as virtual as
war today and hence their own specific violence is now superadded
to the specific violence of war. Moreover, by their omnipresence, by
the rule that everything must be made visible, which now applies
the world over, images our present images have become in
substance pornographic; they therefore cleave spontaneously to thepornographic dimension of war.
There is in all this, and particularly in the last Iraqi episode, a
justice immanent in the image: he who stakes his all on the spectacle
-
8/6/2019 Baudrillard Pornography of War
3/3
CULTURALPOLITICS
25
PORNOGRAPHY OF WAR
will die by the spectacle. If you want power through the image, be
prepared to die by the image playback.
The Americans are learning this, and will continue to learn it, by
bitter experience. And this despite all the democratic subterfuge
and despite a despairing simulacrum of transparency commensuratewith the despairing simulacrum of military power. Who committed
these acts and who is really responsible for them? The military
higher-ups? Or human nature, which is, as we know, brutish even
in a democracy? The real scandal lies not in the torture but in the
perfidy of those who knew and remained silent (or of those who
revealed it?). At any rate, the whole of the real violence is diverted
on to the question of openness, democracy finding a way to restore
its virtue by publicizing its vices.
Leaving all that aside, what is the secret of these abject tableaux?
Once again, they are a response, beyond all the vicissitudes of strategy
and politics, to the humiliation of 9/11 and an attempt to respond to
it by a humiliation that is worse, much worse, than death. Not even
counting the hoods, which are in themselves a form of beheading
(to which the beheading of the Americans obscurely corresponds),
and not counting the piled-up bodies and the dogs, enforced nudity
is in itself a violation. We have, for example, seen GIs walking naked
Iraqis through the streets in chains, and in Patrick Dekaerkes short
story Allah Akhbar we see Franck, the CIAs man on the ground,
make the Arab strip naked, force him to put on a basque and fishnet
stockings and finally have him buggered by a pig, all the while taking
photographs that he will send to the village and to the mans family
and friends. In this way the other will be exterminated symbolically.
It is here we see that the aim of war is not to kill or to win but to
abolish the enemy, to black out (the expression is, I think, Canettis)
the light from his sky.
And what is it, in fact, that we want to make these men confess?
What secret are we trying to force out of them? We quite simply
want them to tell us how it is and in the name of what that
they are unafraid of death. This explains the zero-death soldiers
deep jealousy of and the revenge he takes on those who are
not afraid of death. For which reason they will have visited on themsomething worse than death . . . In the radical shaming, the dishonor
of nudity, the ravaging of all veils, we are back at the same problem of
openness and transparency: tearing off the womens veils or hooding
the men to make them seem more naked, more obscene . . . This
whole masquerade that tops off the ignominy of war, going so far as
the literal travestying in what is the most ferocious image (the most
ferocious for America), because it stirs up most phantoms and is
the most reversible of the prisoner threatened with electrocution
who has been turned completely into a hood, into a Ku Klux Klan
member, crucified by his own kind. This really is America havingelectrocuted itself.
Translated by Chris Turner
CULTURALPOLITICS
25
PORNOGRAPHY OF WAR
will die by the spectacle. If you want power through the image, be
prepared to die by the image playback.
The Americans are learning this, and will continue to learn it, by
bitter experience. And this despite all the democratic subterfuge
and despite a despairing simulacrum of transparency commensuratewith the despairing simulacrum of military power. Who committed
these acts and who is really responsible for them? The military
higher-ups? Or human nature, which is, as we know, brutish even
in a democracy? The real scandal lies not in the torture but in the
perfidy of those who knew and remained silent (or of those who
revealed it?). At any rate, the whole of the real violence is diverted
on to the question of openness, democracy finding a way to restore
its virtue by publicizing its vices.
Leaving all that aside, what is the secret of these abject tableaux?
Once again, they are a response, beyond all the vicissitudes of strategy
and politics, to the humiliation of 9/11 and an attempt to respond to
it by a humiliation that is worse, much worse, than death. Not even
counting the hoods, which are in themselves a form of beheading
(to which the beheading of the Americans obscurely corresponds),
and not counting the piled-up bodies and the dogs, enforced nudity
is in itself a violation. We have, for example, seen GIs walking naked
Iraqis through the streets in chains, and in Patrick Dekaerkes short
story Allah Akhbar we see Franck, the CIAs man on the ground,
make the Arab strip naked, force him to put on a basque and fishnet
stockings and finally have him buggered by a pig, all the while taking
photographs that he will send to the village and to the mans family
and friends. In this way the other will be exterminated symbolically.
It is here we see that the aim of war is not to kill or to win but to
abolish the enemy, to black out (the expression is, I think, Canettis)
the light from his sky.
And what is it, in fact, that we want to make these men confess?
What secret are we trying to force out of them? We quite simply
want them to tell us how it is and in the name of what that
they are unafraid of death. This explains the zero-death soldiers
deep jealousy of and the revenge he takes on those who are
not afraid of death. For which reason they will have visited on themsomething worse than death . . . In the radical shaming, the dishonor
of nudity, the ravaging of all veils, we are back at the same problem of
openness and transparency: tearing off the womens veils or hooding
the men to make them seem more naked, more obscene . . . This
whole masquerade that tops off the ignominy of war, going so far as
the literal travestying in what is the most ferocious image (the most
ferocious for America), because it stirs up most phantoms and is
the most reversible of the prisoner threatened with electrocution
who has been turned completely into a hood, into a Ku Klux Klan
member, crucified by his own kind. This really is America havingelectrocuted itself.
Translated by Chris Turner