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192 views15 pagesEthical Value and Negative Aesthetics: Reconsidering The Baudrillard-Ballard Connection - Bradley Butterfield
Ethical Value and Negative Aesthetics: reconsidering the Baudrillard-Ballard Connection by Bradley Butterfield
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/ 15
Ethical Value and Negative Aesthetics: Reconsidering the
Baudrillard-Ballard Connection
Bradley Butterfield
PMLA, Vol. 114, No. 1, Special Topic: Ethics and Literary Study. (Jan., 1999), pp. 64-77.
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Mon Oct 9 12:51:43 2006 Bradley Butterfield
Ethical Value and Negative
Aesthetics: Reconsidering the
Baudrillard-Ballard Connection
BRADLEY BUTTERFIELD, as
sistant professor of English at
the University of Wisconsin, La
Crosse, isthe author of “En-
lightenment’s Other in Patrick
Suskind's Perfume: Adorno and
the ineffable Utopia of Modern
Art” (Comparative Literature
Studies, 1995). He is working
‘ona study of postmodern nega
tive realist fiction and the aes-
thee urn in 1wenseth-century
hilosophs
“4
‘Crash isthe first great novel of the universe of simulation, the one with which we
will all now be concerned—a symbolic universe, but ane which, through a sort
of reversal ofthe mass-mediated substance (neon, concrete, car, erotic machin
79) appears as if traversed by an intense force of initiation
Jean Baudrillard, “Crash
OW THAT PRINCESS DIANA has been sacrificed by her
public to the “universe of simulation,” literally driven to death,
by the very media that immortalized her, Jean Baudrillard’s readers no
doubt expect to be told that in some real sense the princess never died,
that the real tragedy was somehow lost inthe hyperreal hype. The entire
spectacle—the need t0 know every intimate detail ofthe princess's death,
the various reconstructions of the crash in every medium, and of course
the endless photos, many of persons taking photos—is indeed the most
obscene celebration to date of a celebrity's death and of the media's
power, making the question of the relation between the aesthetic and
ethical spheres a timely one. Perhaps more than the writing of any other
cultural theorist, Baudrillard’s bears witness to such phenomena. In the
ncoprimitive climate of his “universe of simulation,” the Princess Diana
spectacle can be seen as a high-powered symbolic exchange with the
ddead and with the power of death through the ritual sacrifice of a media
icon, The question of whether Baudrillard’s theory advocates or criticizes
this savage new world lies at the heart of the controversy surrounding
his work, and itis of general importance to those who are concerned with
the relation between theory and ethics. As fora literary analogue to the
Princess Diana phenomenon, J. G. Ballard’s Crash was quickly named
by Salman Rushdie in an article titled “Crash” that appeared in an issue
of the New Yorker devoted entirely to the princess's death,’ Ballard’s Bradley Butterfield
6
Crash, written in 1973 and made into a movie in
1997 by David Cronenberg, depicts characters who
push their fascination with things like the death of.
celebrity in a car crash to an absurd limit, using
such events as models for a new form of sexuality
deriving not from nature and life but from tech-
nology and death. Princess Diana aside, popular
fascination with violent deaths and technological
disasters is a major theme in both Ballard’s and
Baudrillard’s work, so it is not surprising that the
‘ovo names are often associated.
In 1991, Ballard and Baudrillard were the center
‘of a debate staged in Science-Fiction Studies for a
special issue on science fiction and postmodernism,
\hich featured the first English translation of Bau-
rillard’s essay “Crash” and of another of his short
essays, “Simulacra and Science Fiction.”? Re-
sponses to Baudrillard were elicited for the issue
from N. Katherine Hayles, David Porush, Brooks
Landon, Vivian Sobchack, and Ballard himself.
Hayles and Sobchack are explicitly critical of Bau-
Grillard’s reading of Crask, a work Baudrillard
holds as the exemplar of his morally ambiguous
theory of the postmodern era’—ambiguous not only
according to his critics but also in accordance with
his own intentions, which seem to problematize the
debate, Ballard, in contrast, praises Baudrillard and
excludes him from perceived intrusions of postmod-
ern theory into sci-f’s aesthetic sanctuary, though
Ballard’s praise is itself marked by ambiguity:
‘The “theory and criticism of s-f"! Vast theories and
pseudo-theories are elaborated by people with not an
idea in their bones. Needless to say I totally exclude
Baudrillard (whose essay on Crash Ihave not really
‘wanted to understand) —I read it forthe first time
some years ago. Of course, his Amerique is an ab
solutely brilliant piece of writing, probably the most
sharply clever piece of writing since Swift [...). But
‘your whole “postmodern” view of SP strikes me as
{doubly sinister. SF was ALWAYS modern, but now itis
“postmodern” —bourgeoisification in the form of an
coverprofessionalized academia with nowhere to take
it girlfiend for a bottle of wine and a dance is now
rolling its jaws over an innocent and naive fietion that
desperately needs tobe left alone. You ae killing us!
Stay your hand! Leave us be! Turn your “intlli-
gence” t0 the iconography of filling stations, cash
‘machines, or whatever the nonsense yout entertain
‘ment culture deems to be the flavor of the day. We
hhave enough intellectuals in Europe as itis; let the
great USA devote itself tothe spirit ofthe Wrights—
bicycle mechanics and the sons ofa bishop. Te lat-
ter's modesty and exquisitely plain prose style would
be an example to you—[... ] a model ofthe spirit of
SS at its best. But I fear you are trapped inside your
but by way of the sign and makes art important for
philosophy. In a world dominated by immeasur-
able simulacra despite the continued existence of
the body, Ballard’s and Baudrillard’s aestheticism
claims social relevance by demonstrating in guer-
Filla fashion interventions whereby one fiction is,
played against another as a means of challenging
the darkest secrets and silent hopes of the social
imaginary. Aestheticism thus gains its power to
challenge the universe of simulation by remaining
unapologetic to its norms and moral standards, and
on this point Ballard and Baudrillard are again in
agreement with Adorno:
‘This isnot the time for political works of at rather
politics has migrated into the autonomous work of art,
and it has penetrated most deeply into works that pre
sent themselves as politically dead,
(Adorno, “Commitment” 93-94)
Whereas ethical or just relationships among beings
remain the implicit utopia of such works, a politi
cally dead society is negated only through such
‘works’ politically dead form, through the negation
‘of negation, “Affirmative culture” remains the hall
mark of an omnipresent culture industry, the “in
sufferable kitsch” Adorno remarks in American
consumer society ("Position” 30). And yet the uni-
verse of simulation, in all its banality, is never po-
litically dead for those who own and exploit the
‘media's means of production, The climate of the
late twentieth century is largely manipulated and Bradley Butterfield
determined by what Adorno might have termed
instrumental simulation, Baudrillard writes little
about this interestedness of simulacra, about the
powers behind the omnipresence of advertising, and
‘one wonders to what extent any literary work can
effectively reverse those powers’ hold on con-
temporary reality. Imaginative, negative works like
Ballard's Crash can nevertheless offer hypotheses
about the world unauthorized by political or eco-
nomic interests In ths light, an amoral aestheticism
‘can hardly be seen as inimical to leftist political pri-
rites orto ethical advancement in general,
Comparing Baudrillard and Ballard may not
help resolve the question of the relation between
ethics or theory and literature, but it does compel a
rethinking of one’s relations to both. Perhaps want-
ing to protect an “innocent” fiction from a “guilt
theory (or vice versa), Ballard and the other re-
spondents in Science-Fiction Studies call into ques-
tion expectations of literature: is it expected to
remain outside morality or to represent morality?
And which side is theory on, given Baudrillard’s
purposeful blurring of the boundaries? Baudrillard
tends to affect these tugs-of-war wherever he goes:
between reality and imagination, good and evil,
true and false, theory and fiction, His objective lies
beyond these dichotomies, but he can only get be-
yond them by going through them. Playing the
Gevil’s hand, he seduces the reader into place at the
other end of his rope, hoping to pull the reader into
his abyss. What Ballard fears in the “theory and
criticism of s-f” is not theory’s abyss, however, but
the inertia brought on by its moral reductions,
which spell death to the “spirit of SE” Ballard ex-
‘empts Baudrillard, whom he intuits has seen the
truth of his book: that itis meant to be unapologeti-
cally amoral, that as an artist Ballard too plays the
devil's hand. If Baudrillard may be included among
Foucault, Lyotard, and Derrida as one of the
French Nietzscheans who practice what Carroll
calls paraestheties, then Carroll’s conclusion ap-
plies here as well: “The task of paraesthetic theory
is not to resolve all questions concerning the rela-
tions of theory with art and literature, but, rather, (0
rethink these relations and, through the transtorma-
tion and displacement of art and literature, to recast
the philosophical, historical, and political ‘fields’
—fields with which art and literature are inextrica-
bly linked” (188). Opposing the will of theory to
‘categorize the ethical and anesthetize the aesthetic.
Baudrillard’s negative theory, or what Carroll calls
paraesthetics, aims to displace and transform both
‘and to enact the very aporias that are the wellsprin;
of an extramoral sense—that is, of an ethics or
nating in a space with no closure.
Notes
Crash is narated in the fist person by a character named.
James Ballard, a prdcer of television commercials who iin
am aciden on bis way home fom werk one dr. He an the dei
‘er ofthe other car are badly injured, and a passenger i the
caer ca, the divers husband, is killed While coavalscing in
the hospital Ballard gains a heightened avarenes ofthe sexta
Posies of his environment. He meets the other diver, De
Helen Remington, whois undergoing a similar wansformation,
andthe two begin ahaa, having sex omy in ears, pretersby at
the accident site, The key character inthe novel is Vaughan,
“nightmare angel ofthe expressways” (4), who follows Bal
lard, photographically documenting his accident and his ena
transformation in clinical deta. A one-time compute specs
Vaughan was"one of the first ofthe new-style TV scientists
his esearch involved “the application of computerized tech
niques othe contol fal iterations rai systems" (63)
Since amotoreycle accident however, Vaghan has dropped out
‘of public life wo pursue a sinner experiment concerning the
lation beeen sex and the automobile. Obsessed especialy with
the sexual possiblities ofthe car-crash deths of Famous pr:
Sons e dives a Lincoln ofthe type Kennedy was shot in and
‘plans his own sex death in a head-on collision with Elzaboth
“Taylor, whois etng none of Ballas commercial. Ballard
and Remington jin Vayghan and his cre, and Vaughn tes
‘convince Ballard to inode him to Taplox. However Seagrave
{Vaughan's stunt ving disciple) prempts Vaughan plans by
