The Death of Baudrillard

Last week the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard died. Philosophers are not household names in America, which has an aversion to deep thinking. Especially the kind dished up by Baudrillard, whose specialty was Materialism--the American creed, in other words. Never in our short history as a species have we human beings been so preoccupied with our "stuff" as we are right now. To say that this renders us “shallow” misses the point. It renders us inhuman. In glorifying “the thing,” we denigrate our humanness and turn ourselves into mere units of production and consumption. Produce and consume. Produce and consume. These are the drumbeats that inform our every waking moment. Whatever God’s true purpose for us may be (or Nature’s "will" if you will), it will sadly have to wait for some future generation to uncover it. But Baudrillard had his eye on the present, not the future. He was the supreme critic of the new Materialist status quo. He uncovered the problem, but not the solution. Without solutions, philosophical critiques become mere harangues. Poor Baudrillard. He died, choking on his own harangues. Like most philosophers, he didn’t seem to understand that people can’t deal with problems that lack solutions. This is why he (along with most philosophers) hasn't become a household name.