Baudrillard, Scorsese & Brecht
I was looking for something in Jean Baudrillard's Fragments and I landed on this: "Given that it is better to be killed by a bullet intended for you rather than a stray one, and given that there are many more stray bullets than ones which reach their target, is it better to be one of the terrorists or one of the victims?"
It immediately reminded me of Frank Costello's line in Scorsese's The Departed: “When I was your age, they would say you could become cops or criminals. What I'm saying is this: When you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?”
Just wonder, is Baudrillard thinking like a gangster mob or the gangsters (the "wise guys" as Lefty in Donnie Brasco called them) are actually acting on a more justifiable philosophical basis? What is crime when the authoritative body–state if you like–who draws the line between "legal" and "illegal" has blood on its hand up to elbow?
I hear Brecht shouting from behind: “What is the crime of robbing a bank compared with the crime of founding one.”
It immediately reminded me of Frank Costello's line in Scorsese's The Departed: “When I was your age, they would say you could become cops or criminals. What I'm saying is this: When you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?”
Just wonder, is Baudrillard thinking like a gangster mob or the gangsters (the "wise guys" as Lefty in Donnie Brasco called them) are actually acting on a more justifiable philosophical basis? What is crime when the authoritative body–state if you like–who draws the line between "legal" and "illegal" has blood on its hand up to elbow?
I hear Brecht shouting from behind: “What is the crime of robbing a bank compared with the crime of founding one.”
Labels: Extemporization
posted by Vahid at 3:06 PM
1 Comments:
Well, given yours and Baudrillard rantings, I have to respond. I guess what Baudrillard is referring to with wise guys, gangsters, terrorists etc., is to try to discuss the State authority in terms of Monopoly of legitimate use of force or violence (think it was Max Weber who defined it). Meaning, any given state - Democracy, Theocracy, Dictatorship - is the the sole legitimacy for any use of violence, by military or police. Others acting out violence are criminals.
The question might be fine to ask, but quite honestly I think it's part of the sociologist text book chapter 1. Baudirllard ought to know that the state legitimacy is founded on the Hobbesian definition made out in Leviathan: the citizens accept the overrule of the sovereign (the State), trading away ultimate freedom in change of security. And here lies the difference between the state with blood up to its elbows: it's a silent treaty - or social contract - that the state can use force in exchange of safety or security.
On the other hand, what legitimacy does gangsters or terrorists have? And what do they offer in exchange of violence? The classic gangsters supply protection and safety in societies where the state authority has lost its legitimacy (according to my knowledge from gangster movies). And terrorists? Well, in some countries, like Palestine, Hamas provides social benefits to people that have no state, but only outside enemies. Fine, but corss-border terrorists have no legitimacy and offer nothing but their ideology of destruction. Including the US blamage on selling democracy in the Middle East.
Baudrillard may seem provocative in his questions, but that's only because he's oversimplifying them
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