Baudrillard

The first thing I did was print out Ken Rufo's post, because one of the many things I hate most about the internet is not being able to actually have the text in my hands - and because the post was really long and I like underlining stuff.

Baudrillard's incorporation of the sign-value into structural Marxism is interesting. Marxism emphasized the material aspect of production; but the sign-value brings into view that what something represents is more important than the cost or quality of construction. The focus is on consumption and not production. A product may not be consumed because of it's quality but rather it's brand; they're bought for their sign-value not their use-value. Consumption drives an economy, not production; and sign-value is important in a consumer society. You can produce as many material objects as you want, but if no one is buying them, then they don't have value and the economy (in terms of capitalism) will not function properly. A consumer culture is controlled by the objects that are produced rather than the production of those objects, or maybe, they're really controlled by the meaning that the object creates.

The idea of impossible exchange kind of bugs me. I'm not exactly sure why, maybe I'm trying to think about it too much. But, if I understand it correctly, it means that there is nothing outside of meaning, because the impossible exchange barrier is when meaning cannot be exchanged because there is nothing out there to exchange it with? I feel like he means that meaning is meaningful, but only up to a certain limit.

He does say that he wants to "rescue illusion", or at least, allow for the possibility of illusion. So, if he wants for there to be a possibility of non-meaning and illusion, then why is meaning limited by the impossible exchange barrier? In a world of illusion impossible wouldn't exist.