Icons Do Not Die

I hoped to meet him some day. I hoped he would come to the University of Amsterdam with a lecture. Why not? Jacques Rancière did…

But he, who in my eyes was so close to Plato and also to the whole oriental concept of this world being but a reflection of the unknown, he is gone. He died in Paris , at the age of 77, the papers said on Wednesday. I will be in Paris next week. I will be thinking of his non-existence.

And of the non-existence of the real Paris. I am ready to witness the simulacrum of romantic anticipation, of beauty and passion, of style and refinement.

Did that recreation of fantasies about Paris begin with the coming of postmodernism or did it begin much earlier, with the colourful impressionists who wanted to present France as one tempting Night Café?

And since they succeeded so remarkably with France, could the media also create us a flawless new version of Jean Baudrillard? A meta-Baudrillard?

We did not know the real Baudrillard anyway. We don't know who has passed away and what his death changes in his image. Most probably, his death will change nothing and the image he created of himself will live on.

Indeed, has not he created a hyperreal self? The self that no longer had anything to do either with his communist past or his personal attachments, his doubts or insecurities? The self that had always been aware of the fact that we live in a Matrix and therefore remained unimpressed by another Hollywood copy of his work? The self that knew how to explain the whereabouts of the spirit of terrorism in the simple notions of the balance between good and evil.

And I think it has been the hyperreal Baudrillard I have admired. Ironically enough, he remains available for me. Every time I open his books. Every time I look around with that special Baudrillard glance.

It is the real Baudrillard that I will no longer get a chance to meet.