According to Baudrillard, the contemporary ‘value system’ is based on binary oppositions. The most vital of those are good and evil, man and machine and crucially important life and death. In our society, death is increasingly separated from life in stark contrast to what is still to be found in the ‘primitive cultures’. Without being able to explain the alternative system – symbolic exchange – in its complexity, it is important to note its contrasting idea of “a circular form, a circuit, reversibility” (Baudrillard, 2003: 16ff). In a symbolic system associated but not limited to ‘primitives’, death is not negativity, not endpoint but rather charged with symbolic meaning as part of a constant exchange procedure, always part of life. For us, death is ‘abnormal’ and we are constantly striving to extinguish it, make it ‘extraterritorial’ (Baudrillard, 1993: 126, 182) (e.g. in hospitals, out-of-town cemeteries, palliative clinics). In the following paragraphs, the essay will suggest a reading of Baudrillard’s contrasting notion of ‘natural death’ that he claims to be ‘everyone’s right and duty’. In the first part, we give a close reading of Baudrillard’s notion of natural death - without a primarily critical reflection. What will be suggested is that progress creates both the possibility for a natural, i.e. designed, death and its imperative. The critical reflection of part two will try to qualify Baudrillard’s statements with a general critique of his ironic style and advance arguments with regards to content: How is it possible to close of individuality? Is it really a right for ‘everyone’? Before this critical account can be appreciated, however, the notion of ‘natural death’ shall be explained in the following.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction to Baudrillard’s Binary Oppositions and Death
2. The Economic Phenomenon of Death in Capitalist Society
3. Technological Progress and the Concept of Natural Death
4. Natural Death as a Right and Duty
5. Critical Reflections on Individualism and Style
Objectives and Topics
The primary objective of this essay is to analyze and critically evaluate Jean Baudrillard’s provocation that, within the system of political economy, death has become both a right and a duty. The essay examines how modern society has transformed death from a symbolic exchange into a linear, economic phenomenon controlled by technological progress.
- The binary opposition between life and death in contemporary value systems.
- The shift from symbolic exchange to the capitalist logic of accumulation.
- The role of technological progress in creating a 'natural' or 'designed' death.
- The social contract and the obligation of the individual to conform to systemic survival.
- A critique of Baudrillard’s ironic methodology and his treatment of individualism.
Excerpt from the Book
The role of technological progress in the naturalisation of death
Rather than nature, it is technological progress that brings about this turn from the symbolic death of ‘primitive cultures’. From a perspective that perceives of death as a different, but exchangeable phenomenon, it becomes a negative, irreversible object to be extinguished, naturalised, by science (Baudrillard, 1993: 158). As Baudrillard (ibid.: 162) puts it: “The only good death is a death that has been defeated and subjected to the law: this is the ideal of natural death.” Death and life are made equivalent under the law of value in this way. Death becomes an option (Baudrillard, 2011: 101). Science strives for the “progressive control of life and death” (Baudrillard, 1993: 172) in a “neurotic control of the subject” (ibid.: 176; Baudrillard, 2003: 62). In Baudrillard’s later writings (2003: 68; 2011: 37ff; 1994: 91), this seems to find a culmination in cloning that generates the possibility of immortal humankind in a (genetic) code. Whether this progress assumed as a preface for natural death really exists will be debated below in the critical part. Accepting the idea at this point, Baudrillard goes on arguing that natural death does not bring either conclusion or end. Dying a natural death, merely means passing from “one form to another” without finality (Baudrillard, 1993: 97). Death is in this way equalised and closed off by an unusual notion of nature. This death, however, is not part of a symbolic order. Although seemingly being on par with life – naturalised, neutralised or equalised – it is not exchangeable. The equivalence is only a ‘simulacrum’ without symbolic meaning.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction to Baudrillard’s Binary Oppositions and Death: This chapter introduces the theoretical landscape, establishing how modern society separates life from death, contrasting it with the symbolic exchange found in primitive cultures.
2. The Economic Phenomenon of Death in Capitalist Society: This section explores how capitalism turns life into a parcel of capital, creating a linear existence where survival serves the principle of accumulation.
3. Technological Progress and the Concept of Natural Death: This chapter examines how technological and scientific advancement, rather than nature itself, drives the control and standardisation of biological death.
4. Natural Death as a Right and Duty: This part investigates how the system imposes a 'social visa' on death, framing it as a technological entitlement and a non-negotiable societal obligation.
5. Critical Reflections on Individualism and Style: This chapter provides a critique of Baudrillard’s ironic writing style and challenges his dismissal of individual agency within his deterministic system.
Keywords
Baudrillard, Political Economy, Natural Death, Symbolic Exchange, Technological Progress, Accumulation, Simulacrum, Capitalist System, Individualism, Biological Control, Social Contract, Mortality, Irony, Survival, Modern Social Thought.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core argument of this essay?
The essay explores Baudrillard's claim that under modern capitalism, death is no longer a natural end but a 'naturalised' event—a designed, socialised obligation that serves the system's logic of perpetuation.
What are the primary thematic areas covered?
The themes include the capitalist transformation of life into capital, the role of medical and technological control, the loss of symbolic meaning in death, and the tension between individual choice and systemic obligation.
What is the central research question?
The essay investigates the meaning behind Baudrillard's statement: "Everyone has a right, but also a duty to a natural death, for this death is characteristic of the system of political economy, its typical obligation to die."
Which scientific methods are employed in this analysis?
The essay utilises a close reading and textual analysis of Baudrillard’s primary works, complemented by a critical reflection on his philosophical and ironic approach to social theory.
What does the main body of the work focus on?
The main body deconstructs the shift from symbolic death to economic death, analyses the "socialisation" of mortality through technology, and critiques the negation of the individual within Baudrillard's framework.
Which keywords best characterise this research?
The work is defined by concepts such as symbolic exchange, political economy, simulacrum, technological control, and the systemic logic of accumulation.
How does Baudrillard define the "duty to die"?
Baudrillard implies that individuals no longer "own" their deaths because society, science, and the state have turned dying into a responsibility managed through a "bureaucracy of death" to ensure the system's survival.
Is Baudrillard’s concept of "natural death" actually natural?
No, Baudrillard argues it is a "simulacrum." It is a death by design, where biological processes are controlled, neutralised, and stripped of symbolic meaning to fit the requirements of a capitalist political economy.
- Quote paper
- Johannes Lenhard (Author), 2012, Natural Death in Baudrillard, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/193220
