Don DeLillo, Jean Baudrillard, and the Consumer Conundrum
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Don DeLillo, Jean Baudrillard, and the Consumer Conundrum By Mar ...

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small and the human, a philosophy not unlike that of Baudrillard's fellow countryman Jean Francois Lyotard. Baudrillard's idea that life and death are part of ambivalence should not be taken too literally, but demands decoding in much the same way as his proclamations about the Gulf War demanded decoding. He sees life and death as ambivalent states due to the way in which they balance each other and their incestuous closeness. Schuster reminds us that Baudrillard is not claiming that there is no difference between life and death, only that they are part of the same larger event.

This text demonstrates both art and terror as engaging with consumer ideology, and it places them at opposite ends of a continuum, with terror as a dehumanizing force whilst art emphasizes humanity. Schuster convincingly presents a case for developing the potential to destabilize both consumer beliefs and habits. He illustrates the way in which Baudrillard cites terrorists as having the ability to topple consumer ideology whilst DeLillo feels they instead reproduce and perpetuate it. DeLillo puts faith in artistic endeavors and feels that perhaps novelists can help to shield humanity from absorption into consumer society, in opposition to Baudrillard who believes it is too late for help. Ironically, it is not possible to influence consumer society without first joining it. Novels embrace consumerism with their need to be marketed, purchased, and consumed. Schuster ties this incestuous circularity to the potential to find all possible meaning within the text, tied up in the language used and the way in which that language and its values are interpreted.

Dr. Ruth Helyer

University of Teesside, UK