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We live today the promotion of nature [...] Seduction, however, never belongs to the order of nature, but to that of artifice [...] Above all, seduction supposes not a signified desire, but the beauty of an artifice.
Baudrillard - Seduction - free book
Re: Baudrillard - Seduction - free book
An ellipsis of the sign, an eclipse of meaning: an illusion. The mortal distraction that a single sign can cause instantaneously.
Consider the story of the soldier who meets Death at a crossing in the marketplace, and believes he saw him make a menacing gesture in his direction. He rushes to the king's palace and asks the king for his best horse in order that he might flee during the night far from Death, as far as Samarkand. Upon which the king summons Death to the palace and reproaches him for having frightened one of his best servants. But Death, astonished, replies: "I didn't mean to frighten him. It was just that I was surprised to see this soldier here, when we had a rendez-vous tomorrow in Samarkand."
Yes, one runs towards one's fate all the more surely by seeking to escape it. Yes, everyone seeks his own death, and the failed acts are the most successful. Yes, signs follow an unconscious course. But all this concerns the truth of the rendez-vous in Samarkand; it does not account for the seduction of the story, which is in no way an apologue of truth.
What is astounding about the story is that this seemingly inevitable rendez-vous need not have taken place. There is nothing to suggest that the soldier would have been in Samarkand without this chance encounter, and without the ill-luck of Death's naive gesture, which acted in spite of itself as a gesture of seduction. Had Death been content to call the soldier back to order, the story would lose its charm. Everything here is hinged on a single, involuntary sign. The gesture does not appear to be part of a strategy, nor even an unconscious ruse; yet it takes on the unexpected depth of seduction, that is, it appears as something that moves laterally, as a sign that, unbeknownst to the protagonists (including Death, as well as the soldier), advances a deadly command, an aleatory sign behind which another conjunction, marvelous or disastrous, is being enacted. A conjunction that gives the sign's trajectory all the characteristics of a witticism.
No one in the story has anything to reproach himself with - or else the king who lent his horse, is as guilty as anyone else. No. Behind the apparent liberty of the two central characters (Death was free to make his gesture, the soldier to flee), they were both following a rule of which neither were aware. The rule of this game, which, like every fundamental rule, must remain secret, is that death is not a brute event, but only occurs through seduction, that is, by way of an instantaneous, indecipherable complicity, by a sign or signs that will not be deciphered in time.
Death is a rendez-vous, not an objective destiny. Death cannot fail to go since he is this rendez-vous, that is, the allusive conjunction of signs and rules which make up the game. At the same time, Death is an innocent player in the game. This is what gives the story its secret irony, whose resolution appears as a stroke of wit [trait d'esprit], and provides us with such sublime pleasure - and distinguishes it from a moral fable or a vulgar tale about the death instinct. The spiritual character [trait spirituel] of the story extends the spirited character [trait d'esprit gestuel] of Death's gesture, and the two seductions, that of Death and of the story, fuse together.
Death's astonishment is delightful, an astonishment at the frivolity of an arrangement where things proceed by chance: "But this soldier should have known that he was expected in Samarkand tomorrow, and taken his time to get there..." However Death shows only surprise, as if his existence did not depend as much as the soldier's on the fact that they were to meet in Samarkand. Death lets things happen, and it is his casualness that makes him appealing - this is why the soldier hastens to join him.
None of this involves the unconscious, metaphysics or psychology. Or even strategy. Death has no plan. He restores chance with a chance gesture; this is how he works, yet everything still gets done. There is nothing that cannot not be done, yet everything still preserves the lightness of chance, of a furtive gesture, an accidental encounter or an illegible sign. That's how it is with seduction...
Moreover, the soldier went to meet death because he gave meaning to a meaningless gesture which did not even concern him. He took personally something that was not addressed to him, as one might mistake for oneself a smile meant for someone else. The height of seduction is to be without seduction. The man seduced is caught in spite of himself in a web of stray signs.
And it is because the sign has been turned from its meaning or "seduced," that the story itself is seductive. It is when signs are seduced that they become seductive.
Consider the story of the soldier who meets Death at a crossing in the marketplace, and believes he saw him make a menacing gesture in his direction. He rushes to the king's palace and asks the king for his best horse in order that he might flee during the night far from Death, as far as Samarkand. Upon which the king summons Death to the palace and reproaches him for having frightened one of his best servants. But Death, astonished, replies: "I didn't mean to frighten him. It was just that I was surprised to see this soldier here, when we had a rendez-vous tomorrow in Samarkand."
Yes, one runs towards one's fate all the more surely by seeking to escape it. Yes, everyone seeks his own death, and the failed acts are the most successful. Yes, signs follow an unconscious course. But all this concerns the truth of the rendez-vous in Samarkand; it does not account for the seduction of the story, which is in no way an apologue of truth.
What is astounding about the story is that this seemingly inevitable rendez-vous need not have taken place. There is nothing to suggest that the soldier would have been in Samarkand without this chance encounter, and without the ill-luck of Death's naive gesture, which acted in spite of itself as a gesture of seduction. Had Death been content to call the soldier back to order, the story would lose its charm. Everything here is hinged on a single, involuntary sign. The gesture does not appear to be part of a strategy, nor even an unconscious ruse; yet it takes on the unexpected depth of seduction, that is, it appears as something that moves laterally, as a sign that, unbeknownst to the protagonists (including Death, as well as the soldier), advances a deadly command, an aleatory sign behind which another conjunction, marvelous or disastrous, is being enacted. A conjunction that gives the sign's trajectory all the characteristics of a witticism.
No one in the story has anything to reproach himself with - or else the king who lent his horse, is as guilty as anyone else. No. Behind the apparent liberty of the two central characters (Death was free to make his gesture, the soldier to flee), they were both following a rule of which neither were aware. The rule of this game, which, like every fundamental rule, must remain secret, is that death is not a brute event, but only occurs through seduction, that is, by way of an instantaneous, indecipherable complicity, by a sign or signs that will not be deciphered in time.
Death is a rendez-vous, not an objective destiny. Death cannot fail to go since he is this rendez-vous, that is, the allusive conjunction of signs and rules which make up the game. At the same time, Death is an innocent player in the game. This is what gives the story its secret irony, whose resolution appears as a stroke of wit [trait d'esprit], and provides us with such sublime pleasure - and distinguishes it from a moral fable or a vulgar tale about the death instinct. The spiritual character [trait spirituel] of the story extends the spirited character [trait d'esprit gestuel] of Death's gesture, and the two seductions, that of Death and of the story, fuse together.
Death's astonishment is delightful, an astonishment at the frivolity of an arrangement where things proceed by chance: "But this soldier should have known that he was expected in Samarkand tomorrow, and taken his time to get there..." However Death shows only surprise, as if his existence did not depend as much as the soldier's on the fact that they were to meet in Samarkand. Death lets things happen, and it is his casualness that makes him appealing - this is why the soldier hastens to join him.
None of this involves the unconscious, metaphysics or psychology. Or even strategy. Death has no plan. He restores chance with a chance gesture; this is how he works, yet everything still gets done. There is nothing that cannot not be done, yet everything still preserves the lightness of chance, of a furtive gesture, an accidental encounter or an illegible sign. That's how it is with seduction...
Moreover, the soldier went to meet death because he gave meaning to a meaningless gesture which did not even concern him. He took personally something that was not addressed to him, as one might mistake for oneself a smile meant for someone else. The height of seduction is to be without seduction. The man seduced is caught in spite of himself in a web of stray signs.
And it is because the sign has been turned from its meaning or "seduced," that the story itself is seductive. It is when signs are seduced that they become seductive.