Strategy, the nth power, the mystery

Target: Think of the accident as a sign
Contrast: Find a popular narrative to compare with disaster -- follow the object in its narrative

Theory:???

First, some select quotes, then something like synthesis:
"Against the true of the true, against the truer than true (which immediately becomes pornographic), against the obscenity of obviousness, against this unclean promiscuity with itself that we call resemblance, we must remake illusion, rediscover illusion, this power, at once immoral and maleficent, to tear away from the same, called seduction. Seduction against terror: these are the stakes. There are no others" (75)
"The only revolution in things today is no longer in their dialectical transcendence, but in their potentialization, in their elevation to
the second power, in their elevation to the nth power, whether that of terrorism, irony, or simulation. It is no longer dialectics, but
ecstasy that is in process" (63)
"the irony of the object lies in wait for us" (98)
"If our perversion lies in this, that we never desire the real event, but its spectacle, never things but their sign, and the secret derision of their sign, it means we don’t want things to change; the change must seduce us" (102)
"To find again a kind of distinction, a hierarchy for these figures – seduction, love, passion, desire, sex – is absurd wager, but it’s the only one we have left" (132)

The difficulty of the book lies in how much is actually there. Preparing a presentation on this material has required a laser-like focus on fundamental areas related to our own projects.

So, Baudrillard starts by laying out the (post?)modern condition: we're in a state of obscenity, of information, of sex (as opposed to seduction or love), etc. Illusion has been lost. If anything, the rationality and our obsession with rooting out the cause of all things has made illusion and seduction something to be distrusted, something lost on the wayside.

This situation puts us in a position where the traits of objects and concepts cannot be drawn back. They spin and spin together until in a state of ecstasy (the formula would be roughly "more ___ than ___"). Baudrillard's clear that we can't go back. It's too far gone.

So, what action to take? B. spends a great deal of time pointing out that our traditional thinking through of revolution or social change may have been misguided, filtered through what he sees as the misguided lenses of psychoanalysis, feminism, and direct social action. B. doesn't want that. If anything, he puts these things in the same boat as the other failed methods of utilitarian thinking.

He also sees terrorism as arising out of this system of rationale, based on an ecstatic sense of mutual responsibility that everyone owns but no one wants.

So, to attempt to reverse the tide, B. wants to do seemingly two things:
1) We need to restore illusion and mystery to the world
and
2) We need to find a way of dealing with the object, a process that will likely require taking it further than it's already gone.

So, the 2nd one almost seems clear. B. says that things are in an irreversible state of ecstasy but also that their revolution is in "their elevation to the nth power." So, take things and push them in their own direction.

As he spends the latter half of the book noting, we need to allow to the object is own sovereignty, a sovereignty it takes regardless of whether we want it to or not.

So, yielding to the logic of the object, and pressing it toward its own limits, perhaps we can push it into the mysterious state of reversibility, something that would then yield to the restoration of illusion.

Or, at least, maybe we'll get toward that in the presentation tomorrow.