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This study seeks to bring to light how Baudrillard reconstructs certain critical elements, strategies and figures in Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. To my knowledge, no scholar has specifically tried to show how Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals is remobilized in Baudrillard’s work. 1

In chapters 1, 2 and 3, I deal with Baudrillard’s genealogy of consumer society as outlined in Consumer Society (1970; 1998).

In chapter 4 and 5, I go through his genealogy of the image and of simulation, as analyzed in the books Simulacra and Simulations (1981; 1994) as well as Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976; 1993).

In chapter 6, I tackle Baudrillard’s genealogy of death as sketched in his book Symbolic Exchange and Death. In this final chapter on Baudrillard’s genealogy of death, I discuss Baudrillard’s (problematic) relation to Heidegger, which as we shall see, further underlines Baudrillard’s closeness to Nietzsche.2

I will start the following introduction to my study with some comments made by Baudrillard regarding his relation to Nietzsche. This serves as a background to clarify why I find it important to focus on certain elements within Nietzschean genealogy to better understand Baudrillard.

Baudrillard’s direct and explicit references to Nietzsche are rare but comments he has made in interviews show the importance of Nietzsche to his thought. In the following excerpt from an interview collected as D’un fragment l’autre Baudrillard says:

“I read [Nietzsche] very early … I held him in a kind of quasi-visceral memory, but I’d retained only what I wanted to” (Baudrillard 2004, 1).

Baudrillard, in the footsteps of Nietzsche, advocates an “interpretative violence” at the heart of his approach and it is in On the Genealogy of Morals that Nietzsche suggests that interpretation is always a matter of “forcing, adjusting, shortening, omitting, filling-out, inventing, falsifying and everything else essential to interpretation” (Nietzsche 2007, 112; italics in the text). In addition, Baudrillard follows Nietzsche in regarding all interpretation as polemical: to support one view is to combat another view. The subtitle of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals is A Polemic and a characteristic of Nietzsche’s genealogical study is that it combats interpretations which claim to be self-evident, beyond dispute, necessary and eternal.

In interviews, Baudrillard admits that he indirectly extends Nietzsche’s work and creates an afterlife for Nietzsche’s ideas. Baudrillard says:

“I find it curious, all those people who’ve read Nietzsche … but nothing has rubbed off on them. How can you go on doing your own thing in your own little discipline as though nothing had happened?” (Baudrillard 2004, 56).

Here we see how Baudrillard highlights the transformative effect of Nietzsche’s writing. For Baudrillard, it is only possible to study a single philosopher seriously and he claims that the one philosopher he did study was Nietzsche.3 Engaging with Nietzsche’s thought, in Baudrillard’s eyes, does not entail explicit interpretation and detailed analysis of Nietzsche or becoming involved in the debate regarding (the value of) Nietzsche’s philosophy. Baudrillard does not follow Nietzsche in any systematic way but secondary critics often underscore (without systematic, in depth or prolonged analysis, however) the clear and “profound influence” (Pawlett 2007, 3) of Nietzsche on Baudrillard. Holger Zapf (2010, 12; my translation) claims that Baudrillard can be regarded as the “Nietzsche of social scientific theory” (he does not go into further detail on this, however).

Baudrillard is constantly in search of radical otherness and seeks to lift any anchors that fix thoughts or the world. He disputes the meaningfulness of the fundamental concepts of the social sciences as well as the appropriateness of social scientific methods; he throws out normative orientations and declares many theoretical enterprises (from Marxism, Positivism up to “Post Modernism”) as redundant. He thereby constitutes the degree zero of theory.

Baudrillard disputes in a certain sense that social reality can be grasped within theoretical statements and even denies the existence of “the social” and “the political” as categories that pick out their corresponding referent. When he does provide a description of social reality, he uses neither a rigorous conceptual set of instruments nor an explicit theory that clearly states its epistemological premises. Rather, according to the Baudrillard critic, Peter W. Zima (2010, 104), Baudrillard makes use of alarming metaphors to create a conceptual fog and shows no interest in theoretical coherence.

One of Baudrillard’s sharpest critics, Alex Callinicos, claims that in Baudrillard’s work all that is left are “belles lettres”, where unsubstantial theoretical propositions encounter “banal aperçus” (Callinicos 1989, 147). This is a valid criticism and Baudrillard indeed has more in common with a novelist than with a theoretician. For King (1998, 99; italics in the text), Baudrillard’s

“writing is merely an earnest but stripped form of academic writing, which moves from asserted claim to claim, rather than from sustained claim to claim for the slow but rigorous building of an argument”.

The building of arguments indeed does not interest Baudrillard as much as the stylistic figures that make up the literary and rhetorical charge of a text. It is obvious, however, that behind his literary mediated perspective there lies an indirect semiology (such as that of Ferdinand de Saussure), anthropology (such as that of Marcel Mauss), philosophy (such as Nietzsche) and theology, in short a ‘theory’, which can be made explicit by the secondary literature (for instance Gary Genosko’s (1994) Baudrillard and Signs. Signification Ablaze, Holger Zapf’s (2010) book on The Radical Thinking of Jean Baudrillard as a Political Theory, James Walters’s (2012) book on Baudrillard and Theology and Charles Levin’s (1996) book on Baudrillard’s Cultural Metaphysics.

What differentiates Baudrillard from a literary figure is his heterodox notion of theory. With no evident method, with no explicit premise, Baudrillard only equips himself with a set of arbitrary hypotheses and theorems which most of the time contradict each other and make a coherent theory impossible. For example, he claims “All things,” (including statements on these things) “are ambivalent and reversible” (Baudrillard 1993 TE, 77). Regarding political facts, he says “this confusion of the fact with its model…allows each time for all possible interpretations, even the most contradictory” (Baudrillard 1981, 32; 1994, 17).

Baudrillard’s work can by no means comply with theoretical standards, because he himself declares these standards inadequate. As a result, his thinking cannot qualify as theoretical. Critics of Baudrillard do mostly agree, however, that he has many important insights.

How does Baudrillard come to these perspectives and what scope do they have? To investigate this, one would have to reconstruct a theory from his fragmented insights, as one does with works of literature.

Perhaps there is a theory in Baudrillard’s work, which he himself eliminated. For Baudrillard, a good theory is “reversible”; it eliminates itself. Reversibility is in tune with Baudrillard’s rejection of any notion of linear progress and his Nietzschean view4 that systems have a built-in obsolescence.5 Baudrillard’s own work follows a strategy of reversibility, which according to Rex Butler means that the “basic axioms of the system” under examination must be pushed “to the point where they begin to turn upon themselves, to produce the opposite effects from those intended” (Butler 1997, 52).

For Baudrillard, the rationality of the Enlightenment produces “the orders of simulacra” that destroy it (chapter 4 and 5). ‘Reality’, in Baudrillard’s eyes, has become hyperreal. A central Baudrillardian concept I will study is hyperreality (chapter 5), which is the new ruling linguistic condition of society. Hyperreality puts an end to distinctions between object and representation, thing and idea. It is a world composed of models or simulacra, which have no referent or ground in any ‘reality’ except their own, and I will show how this parallels Nietzsche’s definition of nihilism: the highest values cannot resist their own reversal and devaluation.

Generally speaking, nihilism takes two forms in Nietzsche. The first is when life is judged lacking in relation to something super-sensuous beyond it, as in the case of Platonism or Christianity. In this case, truth, meaning and value is derived from a transcendent origin. The second form of nihilism is when these higher values are devalued, as in the case of the Enlightenment. In this case, meaning and value are questioned. For Nietzsche, any philosophy must decide how to deal with these two problems, which are integral to thought. According to Nietzsche, passive nihilism remains locked within the recognition that the world is without true foundation, ground and meaning. Active nihilism, on the other hand, arises from the general insight that “the meaning and value of life depend on fictions that we must accept as true” (Winkler 2018, 105).

In chapter 4, I show how Nietzsche problematizes the value of truth (without simply overturning the super-sensuous Platonic value structure, for instance, by privileging appearances). Nietzsche’s early essay “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense” (1873; 1999) overcomes the dualistic and hierarchical ordering between sensuous and super-sensuous, illusion and reality, appearance and essence. This is because, for Nietzsche, the production of truth is itself an illusionary process. I will start chapter 4 (section 1) by discussing Nietzsche’s reversal of Platonism and I do so by examining Nietzsche’s early text “On Truth and Lie in the Non-Moral Sense” as well as his later text Twilight of the Idols.6

Christopher Norris (2000, 364) regards Baudrillard’s own project as “a species of inverted Platonism”. For Norris,

“Baudrillard’s …discourse… systematically promotes the negative terms (rhetoric, appearance, ideology) above their positive counterparts. It is no longer possible to maintain the old economy of truth and representation in a world where ‘reality’ is entirely constructed through forms of mass media feedback, where values are determined by consumer demand (itself brought about by the endless circulation of meanings, images and advertising codes), and where nothing could serve as a means of distinguishing true from merely true-seeming (or logical) habits of belief. Such is the world we inhabit, according to Baudrillard” (Norris 2000, 364).

Norris does not mention, however, the extent to which Baudrillard, like Nietzsche, breaks down privileged hierarchical relations altogether. In my view, Baudrillard does not triumph the rise of the simulacrum nor does he lament a loss of the real in simulation, rather, Baudrillard’s work seeks to challenge processes of simulat ion that try to bring about a real, that create effects of the real (“hyperreality”, as we shall see in more detail in chapter 5).

Rex Butler (1997, 54) rightly claims that “Baudrillard’s point is that each system he analyses (and the work of any great thinker) creates its own reality, sets out the very terms in which it must be understood”. Yet, in Baudrillard’s work, as Butler also points out, there is another side to any attempt to create the real in simulation, a side which resists any method of simulation. 7

Baudrillard’s reversible and “anagrammatic”8 theory is necessarily radical and aims straight at its own roots. For Baudrillard, the real joy in writing is to sacrifice a whole chapter for a sentence, a whole sentence for a word. A theory that destroys itself is not merely something that has vanished to nothing. After the anagrammatic “implosion”, (Nietzsche’s “Twilight of the Idols”, dealt with in chapter 4) there remains a moment of silence, uncertainty and doubt. The theory ends as it started: with “wonder”. In this sense, Baudrillard’s crime was almost perfect: he managed to erase the theoretical traces of his enterprise and he transformed his theory into an uncomfortable but surprising story, with many insights (Zapf 2010, 13).

One should not be swayed by rhetorical strategy; one must (while keeping in mind Baudrillard’s assertion regarding the connection between thought and event) suspend one’s own judgment when the text’s theses collide. Only then perhaps is it possible to glimpse Baudrillard’s theory.

The Baudrillard critic, Charles Levin (1996), prefers to speak of a “metaphysics” rather than “theory” in Baudrillard’s work. Instead of “post-modern,” Levin opts for the label “cultural metaphysics” because metaphysics has relinquished its demand for seriousness and legitimacy (Levin 1996, 15). Theory is associated with intellectual seriousness and involves “academic responsibility” (Levin 1996, 15) even though Baudrillard uses the word himself and plays with its seriousness. Levin’s study seeks to emphasize the non-systematic aspects of Baudrillard’s work, and how Baudrillard strips his work to referentiality and practicality (especially the case in Baudrillard’s later work)9 and the importance it places on the power of criticism to actually end up making reality (Levin 1996, 15). Among other cultural metaphysicians Levin includes Nietzsche, Bataille and Deleuze (Levin 1996, 16) who also have a prominent place in my study.

According to Rex Butler (1999, 15), Levin’s approach does not provide examples of exactly how Baudrillard avoids referentiality and practicality or how Baudrillard transforms them in his work. This means that Levin does not focus systematically enough on Baudrillard’s writing and how its inner logic functions. For Baudrillard, writing is always in the process of being formed and literature becomes the avatar of philosophical renewal. Literature challenges philosophy and in so doing, it triggers the creation of new perspectives, as well as new modes of thinking and writing.

As Rex Butler (1999, 5; italics in the text) explains:

“Criticism or theory understands itself no longer as responding to or explaining a previous real, but as bringing about its own real. Or Baudrillard’s work engages with the real, but not in the way this is usually understood. It is a real not external but internal to the work. The model for Baudrillard’s writing, though he rarely mentions him by name, is…Nietzsche.”

The position Baudrillard reaches towards the end of his work is that writing creates its own reality. Writing redirects and transforms external circumstances. For Baudrillard, the distinctive aspect of significant thought is that it overhauls the influences upon it and makes something else of them.

Philippe Lepers (2009, 337-350) in his article “Baudrillard und Nietzsche: vademecum, vadetecum” provides a general overview of the relationship between Baudrillard and Nietzsche, and he investigates to what extent Baudrillard moves under Nietzsche’s shadow, as well as how Nietzsche’s work serves as a platform for Baudrillard’s own projects. Baudrillard is loyal to Nietzsche’s adage “vademecum, vadetecum” (Lepers 2009, 349), and in his conclusion, Lepers questions to what extent Baudrillard’s reception of Nietzsche can bring forth new interpretations of Nietzsche’s philosophy, specifically whether Nietzsche can now be regarded (after Baudrillard) as a philosopher of “alterity”, which in Baudrillard’s work encompasses all that which challenges the homogeneous and universal discourse or code (Lepers 2009, 350). This transformative aspect of Baudrillard’s reading of Nietzsche will also be important for my study. Nietzsche can be seen to anticipate many of Baudrillard’s ideas, but this study will also emphasize how Baudrillard transforms Nietzschean concepts.

Lepers (2009, 344; my translation) identifies certain areas of Nietzschean critique that may have influenced Baudrillard. Below are the ones he identifies that are also important to bear in mind for my study.

 Nietzsche’s allergic reaction to any form of Socialism;

 Nietzsche’s critique of Utilitarianism;

 Nietzsche’s rejection of any objective meaning that is natural or free of human involvement;

 Nietzsche critique of the autonomous rational subject. The human being is the result of a constant struggle of forces and everything the human does is symptomatic, a sign of sickness or health; and

 Nietzsche’s critical position towards any idea of continuous progress of European culture.

In my own study, relating Nietzsche to Baudrillard (and making explicit what Baudrillard left implicit), I will try to reveal the subtle ‘genealogical foundation’ that is hidden behind Baudrillard’s disturbing yet brilliant rhetoric. Baudrillard must be regarded as an intellectual who decides to present his political and social interventions in a disturbing and provocative way. As Anthony King puts it:

“[t]he importance of Baudrillard lies in the fact that he both demonstrates the most extreme symptoms of contemporary intellectual malaise and simultaneous provides the cure for that disease” (King 1998, 106).

Baudrillard, in the footsteps of Nietzsche does not read philosophical truth claims according to their alleged accurate reflection of reality (as it is in-itself), but as symptoms of a certain form of life.10 Nietzsche and Baudrillard use genealogy to undermine modern moral practices expressing a “will to truth”. In On the Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche rejects the idea that there can be one account of truth that corresponds with the way things are in themselves, “independently of the mediation of perspectives by relations of willing” (Allsobrook 2009, 703).

A central claim in On the Genealogy of Morals is that our unconditional will to truth has brought us to the point of nihilism. An unconditional commitment to the value of truth disempowers us as agents. Truth can never be above our interest in truth and our perspectives (from which truth claims are made) are affected by the things we value. Baudrillard, I argue, follows Nietzsche in emphasizing the importance of exploring different perspectives, drives, affects or passions.

Genealogy, as practiced by Nietzsche and Baudrillard, reminds readers not only of the contingency of their perspectives but proposes different perspectives. It motivates readers to assess the value of their perspectives in relation to other perspectives.