What is Symbolic Exchange? | Jean Baudrillard | Keyword
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- In this episode, I provide an introduction to Jean Baudrillard's notion of "Symbolic Exchange."
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Just to say, I think what you're doing is incredibly valuable and I'd like to thank you for making this content and sharing your knowledge! While I know some of the theorists and texts you discuss, I find your insight really useful in contextualizing my own ideas and your videos on concepts I haven't really explored yet are a great way to start to get to grips with some very tricky concepts. I'm very interested in Baudrillard and I'd love to see his work come back into focus, especially given some of his takes on things (e.g., advertising and virtual reality) that hadn't come into their own in his lifetime, and content like yours makes ideas like this accessible to people that don't have a deep background knowledge
I love your "Keyword" videos. Thank you so much for your explanations!
I wish your account had existed ten years ago when I was studying philosophy - you are really good at explaining, calm and it is very easy to follow difficult theories and this seems a lot like a book club I never knew I missed. 😅
I have mentioned Pawlett before to you, but I will also say his Violence, Society, and Radical Theory in which he combines analysis of both Baudrillard’s Symbolic Exchange and the work of Bataille to great effect is worth a gander
So great. Super happy I found your channel 🌞
Great explanation. I'm reading a book on Ernst Cassier right now and all his talk about the Symbolic reminds me there have been so many other ideas for human nature that our present one is merely the result of markets and false desire.
I think your explanation of bartering may have missed a step, and David Graeber's book on the history of Debt helps bridge some of it concerning how relations are solidified into fiat currency.
To me debt is simple man lacks creative so he is buying that which he lacks or cannot do the question becomes how do we prevent debt slavery is it through financial literacy and applied finance
Great video David and very important. Im glad you brought up Mauss, 'the gift' it's a really important text during that period.
I didn't realise there was a recorded debate between the two. But would love to see a video on it! Enjoy your weekend 🙂
Thanks v.v. much. I love your no drama style of exposition.
Ha! Love the preface! Thanks for this; very helpful and always grateful to have the books to point to (which I’m glad I already have on hand)!
Shots fired! Very Lucid explanation of this highly counter-intuitive concept. I'd like to see you do one on Impossible Exchange, where I believe he clarifies that symbolic exchange is a thing of the past
It seems like so many French theorists get ideas from Bataille (Baudrillard, Lacan, Deleuze, etc..)
Thank you for a very helpful discussion!
Thank you David! Always the best!
The images of the dead now live on perfectly, frozen in suspension on Facebook pages.. Almost as if they are the sacrifice to the virtual. Their ultimate point of existence to serve the collection of information in perfect limbo.
But maybe that was always the case, with paintings, photographs, film etc, but the difference with digital images is they never age, they don't fade as we fade, rather they stay in real time. A development that has upset the juxtaposition between history and death.
The charm and mystery of the past no more, as the images from 40 years ago now look identical to images made yesterday. Whereas by comparison, images taken 1940 present a vast chasm of time, speaking to a bygone age. The images like the bodies of the people they depict, ossified and ghostly. Receding into history.
Forty years no longer feels like a vast chunk of history, no longer signifies the end of eras, ages, epochs - but now seems like part of the same endless digital fin de siecle that stretches out to infinity.
The perfection and the infinite preservation of the image, rather than better preserving our memories for posterity, rather annihilates the concept of posterity. The more the image is frozen in real-time, the more death is robbed of its symbolic power.
The times don't die with us, rather we are devoured by the virtual in real time.
I enjoyed this video. I thank you for making it.
That Manuel DeLanda book really stands out on a bookshelf, I have that one too. Edit: haha I also have the edition of a Thousand Plateaus next to it too. samesies...
I do not work with D/G's concept of becoming-animal too much, but it sure sounded like it right after you said you don't mean it like that :D
Love the channel. Although, I personally never understood why ppl regulate themselves in just the continental or just the analytic traditions. Although, from my experience, analytic philosophers are usually more open-minded than continent types, as they are not only willing to engage in the literature, but also take some of it seriously. Whereas, with continental types, there’s a pompous arrogance to them. Anyway, you should explore the other side too. It will help
Your speaking about the command and control over death reminds me of part of Freud's 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle'. In it he speculates that part of every biological organism's driving force is to chose the way in which it dies. On what terms it dies. It is Freud at his most existential and experimental. Out of this comes his 'Death Drive', famously explored further in 'Civilization and Its Discontents'.
Anyway, I haven't read any Baudrillard, but this makes me wonder if he converses with Freud's work in this regard. To any of you who have read Baudrillard: is there a connection here?
As it happens there's several pages on Freud's DD in Symbolic Exchange, basically Baudrillard seeks to push matters further than Freud
@@janllh24
Awesome! Makes me want to read the work for that connection alone. It is my humble opinion that Freud's 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle" contains the grounds for a whole new niche sub-field in philosophy.
@@thanatos_0. well there's quite a literature on the subject, for my part I've found Derrida's treatment of it in The Post Card (drawn from the 1975 seminar series now available as Life-Death), Deleuze 's comments in Difference and Repetition, and Anti-Oedipus, and more recently Brassier in Nihil Unbound, and Negrastani , thought provoking on its philosophical ramifications
@@janllh24
Thank you!
Those titles are going straight into me Notes document of books to read. I have read a total of maybe 3 books of *postmodern* philosophy, so I am sure I will struggle immensely with those... :/
Can you please explain Lacan's stain theory
Catalogue living, nice one.
Helpful, thanks
Thanks
how is seduction affected by the fact that there is no symbolic exchange anymore?
semiotic exchange is what the content creators are on about
Oh boy. Been trying my utmost best to avoid Deleuze and Guattari but everywhere I go, I am directed to their maze. Anyone who can recommend a short text to gently introduce me to their ideas especially becoming?
Foucault wrote (I think after reading Difference and Repetition), "Perhaps one day, this century will be known as Deleuzian". Well if it wasn't the 20th century then it'll certainly be the 21st!
@@JackyRowe Wasn't that a joke between Foucault and Deleuze?
@@adriaanbuys7028 Not 100% sure on the context there you know, it could have been a joke, but I understood it to be serious at the time (can't remember where I read that!). But whether meant as a joke or not, things certainly appear to be leaning that way, don't they
Most people learn language through music or dramaturgy. So, in terms of Nihilism, and aphorisms versus fallacies, how people related and social representation. I am curious to hear the rest of the video and your thoughts :) To me Echoic Memory is all symbolism.
Anticipation:) Hobbes
The only word on the bookshelf which is vertically symmetrical and thus unchanged when pivoted and reversed is "DIE". Now you all gotta see it too.
Great video. Thanks :). I'd be interested in further discussion of the Derrida debate.
Where can I find this debate between Baudrillard and Derrida?
In english
IDK, I don't think I'd need to burn my computer... I'd probably just put on a video from a different source but, you know, consumer market has to market... so destroy and buy more...consume.
So close to Adorno, totalitarianism that cannot abide dissonance.
this was good
GABEY LIKEY
There was never such a thing as "the age of barter".
Could you please expand on that? Even I've had similar thoughts and would be happy to educate myself
@@23secondsofsauce65 Basically, barter only shows up in societies that used to have money but don't anymore due to instability. The anthropological research shows that societies without money as we understand it used a few different methods. A big one is what David discusses here, where people give each other gifts. Another one is a type of commodity money, where very wealthy people will own something like livestock that represents their wealth and allows them to make deals with other high ranking people. Within hunter gatherer bands, you have communal ownership and people basically just use what they need. I've written an article that goes into the idea of money in more detail if you're interested.
Fat Raccoons Sounds iteresting. Could i get the link ?
@@acrb_3275 You can check out David Graebers Book "Debt - The First 5000 Years". He talks about the Myth of Barter in the First Chapter I think. It is a really great book that tackles many big topics from the perspective of a very creative thinking anarchist/activist/scholar.
Pourquoi le titre est-il en français ? et la vidéo in english ?
lettura di peso nella stessa bibliografia di Baudrillard, lettura necessaria e "bella storia i sottotitoli"... anche la logica del controdono mi sembra notevole...
Yes that is correct, symbolic exchange is gone. Who would get that wrong? So called 'primitive' societies had this symbolic exchange, not as many would say religion. With the development of religion symbolisms narrowed under the colonial power starting with Rome that installed its made up religion. With the development of capitalism they became signs. With Marx it is production but with Baudelard it is consumption. I consider that Marlon Brando would have been one of the last actors to have worked symbolically.
Your bartering example is helpful but very ahistorical and backed by little anthropological evidence. It’s not essential to the video, but a dangerous idea to toss around as if it’s “obviously true” when it was a narrative made up by Adam Smith and often used to legitimize the inevitably of capitalism.
Disagree. Consider it a thought experiment and not an affirmation of Adam Smith. I don't think it's got Graeber rolling over in his grave.
Thank you for translating J. Baudrillard. I find that his borrowing concepts and creating metaphors quite confusing, leading my mind off on tangents. Maybe a linear way of thinking is not the appropriate approach to understanding Baudrillard.
David looks like Boudlliard guy...
Aaa what a nice coincidence! Also I, yesterday, introduced Baudrillard's book-Consumer Society
th-cam.com/video/BdRmUZCeFZs/w-d-xo.html
I have fallen love with you darling!!!!
Bro start with content. End with ads.