Baudrillard first published “The Spirit of Terrorism” in Le Monde on November 11, 2001; if anyone is interested, the full translated text is available here: http://humanities.psydeshow.org/political/baudrillard-eng.htm . The book form of Zizek’s Welcome to the Desert of the Real was published in 2002 and is an expanded version of an essay first published on September 15, 2001; the full text of that essay is available here: http://web.mit.edu/cms/reconstructions/interpretations/desertreal.html .
These are obviously two rich texts (even in their present photocopied fragmentary form) that could sustain a number of discussions in many different directions. I want to offer a few places to begin thinking about how we might discuss them in class Tuesday.
Both Zizek and Baudrillard cite the widely experienced phenomenon of connecting the image of the WTC collapse with Hollywood disaster movies. The popularity of these films can be interpreted as what Zizek calls a libidinal investment in seeing the towers fall. We fantasized about the event for decades before it happened, yet we were shocked to find our fantasy fulfilled in such a horrific way (or we were horrified to find our fantasy present at its “unthinkable” fulfillment). This obscene wish fulfillment creates the experience of emotional complicity with the hijackers. As Baudrillard says, “In a pinch, we can say that they did it, but we wished for it” (5). We must, however, distinguish between the desire *to see* the catastrophic collapse of the Twin Towers (or the destruction of any Western city) and the desire for the event *to happen*. American taste has been crafted to consume and enjoy the spectacle of massive destruction in our major cities. We have been trained as connoisseurs of violent destruction, and we automatically evaluate the camera angles, the lighting, the timing of the action and the placement of the extras running from the wall of smoke or fire as it pours down the metropolitan street; we have learned how to appreciate both the sublimity of the spectacle and the pure excess of its gratuitous destruction. These faculties, trained for the evaluation of cultural production, were present and operative at the very moment we did not want them anymore– on that clear, terrible September morning. The emotional guilt associated with this experience must be seen as distinct from wanting the WTC to collapse. Can we paraphrase Baudrillard and say that, in a pinch, we wanted *to see* it, and that is precisely what made seeing the images from lower Manhattan (what still makes seeing them) so excessively traumatic?
It would also be worthwhile to examine the visual chimes between the pictures from New York on September 11 and the cultural stock of images from Mogadishu, Sarajevo and other Other-ed cities that the media presented as the violence that happens “over there.” How does the relationship between these two sets of images affect our perceived notion of here vs there, us vs them (Zizek, of course, starts us off on this query)?
On page 27, Baudrillard says: “Among the other weapons of the system which they turned round against it, the terrorists exploited the ‘real time’ of images, their instantaneous worldwide transmission.” On the most basic level, the box-cutters, the airplanes, the flight training were all Western technologies; so were the television cameras, the news networks and the websites that instantaneously projected the violence and terror of the attacks into Chicago, London, Paris and the ends of the earth. In this sense, “hijackers” is the most appropriate description of the September 11 terrorists. Baudrillard follows with the claim that “We would pardon them for any violence if it were not given media exposure (‘terrorism would be nothing without the media’). But this is all illusion. There is no ‘good’ use of the media; the media are part of the event, they are part of the terror, and they work in both directions” (31). Do we agree with him? Is there no good use of the media? Are the media (how much are the media) implicated in the attack itself? News networks, just like airplanes, were used by the hijackers as weapons; unlike airplanes, news networks contain a human element, thus an ethical dimension. Was there a right way to cover the attacks? Was there an ethical way to view them?
These are just a few of my questions regarding these texts. I would love to hear what questions and ideas other people have about the texts, about the issues they raise, about lower Manhattan five years ago.
magazine covers from September 2001
Here are two collections of magazine covers from September 2001:
http://www.september11news.com/Magazines.htm
http://americanhistory.si.edu/september11/collection/record.asp?ID=136
Baudrillard claims that what we experienced in Sept 2001 was not an event but an image-event, an event consumed by the image in order to be consumable. It is worthwhile looking at how the event was imag(e)ined on the covers of national magazines-- a medium that seems to exist somewhere between newpapers and television coverage, a hybrid of print news and visual culture.
I am particularly interested in how the covers aestheticize the attack in both the image of the Twin Towers both in their absense.
Baudrillard
Baudrillard typically writes in hyperbole and rarely develops his ideas to the extent many readers would like. Nevertheless, I find his work often has explanatory power and that we do live in a world where the symbolic has triumphed to a great extent over the semiotic. Baudrillard would argue that we are long past the point of asking if there was a right way to cover the attack on the WTC.
With GM now using images of Hurricane Katrina to sell trucks, it won't be long before the image of the collapse of the towers shows up in a Chevy Silverado ad.
In fact, I watched the Silverado ad tonight (not the parody in the link), and the reference to the WTC is there as the twin beacons on the New York skyline (which many have interpreted as representing the missing phalluses).