Tomorrow, Smoke Your Gauloises Down to Half Mast in Remembrance

The French critic and provocateur Jean Baudrillard, whose theories about consumer culture and the manufactured nature of reality were intensely discussed both in rarefied philosophical circles and in blockbuster movies like “The Matrix,” died yesterday in Paris. He was 77. . . .

With a round face and big, thick glasses, Mr. Baudrillard was known for his witty aphorisms and black humor. He described the sensory flood of the modern media culture as “the ecstasy of communication.”

One of his better known theories postulates that we live in a world where simulated feelings and experiences have replaced the real thing. This seductive “hyperreality,” where shopping malls, amusement parks and mass-produced images from the news, television shows and films dominate, is drained of authenticity and meaning. Since illusion reigns, he counseled people to give up the search for reality.

“All of our values are simulated,” he told The New York Times in 2005. “What is freedom? We have a choice between buying one car or buying another car? It’s a simulation of freedom.”

This breaks my heart. When Derrida died, I felt like a favorite teacher had passed away. Baudrillard's death is different. It feels more like a fellow student has passed away -- a much older, much brighter (much, much brighter) student has passed away. Unlike Foucault and Derrida, Baudrillard did not recreate the world with his theories. He wasn't a genius or a father (or founder) of any particular discourse. He was more like a grad student, reading everything he could, absorbing all the theory available, and then using those theories to make what was origin about his own ideas shine, the way every grad student is taught to do. His ideas were fresh and they were exciting, and they were full of the passion and wonder and sheer bliss that studying and sharing ideas are for students. Unlike the other philosophers we read, he seemed to have feet of clay. Reading Baudrillard was like hanging out in the study carrels at night talking about the best of what you've read or learned that day. He was just like us -- except he was brilliant. And he was the counterpoint to Derrida, Foucault, et al, the geniuses. With them, your ideas seemed small and trite by comparison. Their work left you questioning "Why am I doing this?" Baudrillaud's work answered for you: "Because it's fun and because you love it." When you're wringing your heart out every day, trying to say something original about the world and feeling like you're getting nowhere, you can't hear that enough. I'm really sorry to hear he's gone.