What is America Reaction/Reflection with Regards to Baudrillard Chapter Utopia Achieved - Assignment Example

Section/# Reaction/Reflection with Regards to Baudrillard Chapter “Utopia Achieved” Although it is impossible to adequately define and interpret specifically what America is and is not, many people attempt to do this in what can only be understood as incomplete and limited ways. Due to the fact that the United States and its culture(s) is broad, diverse, and storied, it is difficult to conveniently define and describe such an entity in the same way one might describe a more ethnically and culturally homogenous nation. One such author that misrepresents and underappreciates the nuanced levels of culture that exist within the United States is Jean Baudrillard. In his chapter “Utopia Achieved, Baudrillard’s primary thesis surrounds the nature and definition of American identity. Although Baudrillard has many points, sub-points and counterpoints in his analysis, the main argument behind all of these is that he claims that the United States has no defined or congealed culture. This in and of itself is of course a wide generalization that is worthy of discussion. When one compares this generalization with key facts concerning the birth and history of the United States, many of Baudrillard’s generalizations does not reflect the entirety of the truth. Therefore, this author will describe a few of the ways in which Baudrillard’s analysis falls short on describing the United States of America as well as recommending some alternate means of analysis through which the United States and its unique culture could have been better understood by Baudrillard. Baudrillard describes the American Revolution as merely an issue that Americans were eager to “duck” away from (Baudrillard 77). Rather than at least attempting to understand the causal factors behind the American Revolution, Baudrillard finds it simpler to merely dismiss it out of hand. Although it is clear to see what Baudrillard is attempting to convey to the reader by oversimplifying the facts, issues, beliefs, and ideologies, the end result is that his argument is greatly weakened due to these oversimplifications. Baudrillard goes on to analyze the growth and progression of the American populace through the prism of a petulant and inherently barbaric culture which is bent on war, acquisition, and conquest. Although there are elements of truth to each of these assertions, they are again a gross oversimplification of the issue and serve only to tell part of the story; the part that corresponds to Baudrillard’s specific world view. As such, the reader is left wondering whether the inference the author draws on this as well as other facts is equally suspect. Rather than attempting to understand cultural nuances and circumstances that have helped define American culture, Baudrillard merely dismisses it straight away as somehow contrived and inferior to his own conceptualization of culture. One of the ways in which Baudrillard has was not able to adequately weigh and interpret the level of culture that exists within the United States is his complete and utter failure to mention globalization. The reader may question why globalization factors in to understanding the United States; however, the globalization is a direct outgrowth of American dominance in the world. This is not mentioned to give the United States a superior footing with relation to the arguments at hand; merely to point out to the reader that the affects of Americanization can directly be attributed to the overall effects of globalization throughout the world. As more and more countries coalesce their respective cultures and succumb to “globalization”, they are in fact accepting fundamental aspects of American culture in the process. Due to the fact that Baudrillard does not consider globalization’s affect on world culture, he is missing one of the most definitive explicators of current American culture. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the fact that globalization, and in turn Americanization, is a net good or a net evil, the fact remains that they are noticeable, measurable means through which our world has been forever altered. Likewise, by categorizing the United States as devoid of culture, Baudrillard misses out on the fact that it is indeed United States culture that is providing the very basis of modern culture that the entire world, inclusive of France, is accepting. Says Baudrillard, “America has never been short of violence, nor of events, people, or ideas; however, these thigns do not of themselves constitute a culture” (Baudrillard 80). By oversimplifying the facts that help to define the United States, Baudrillard glosses over the very definitions of culture that could help to explain the United States in reasonable terms. Baudrillard has further underestimated the sense of culture and identify that many Americans share and experience. The truth is America takes great pride of being the world’s premier cultural melting pot. As such, the United States has built a society composed of immigrants from all over the world who share the common dream of pursuing a better life. What is unique about Baudrillard’s assessment is that in many ways it is self-contradictory. Baudrillard notes that the United States has no specific culture; however, he also freely admits that the melting pot has given rise to a unique “culture” of arrogance based on a false belief system. Says Baudrillard, “It is built on the idea that it is the realization of everything that others have dreamt of – justice, plenty, rule of law, wealth, freedom; it knows this, it believes in this, and in the end, the others have become to believe in it as well” (Baudrillard 77). In much the same way as before, Baudrillard is magnifying key points of minutia while missing the bigger picture. Rather than seeing the United States as a place filled with radical ideas, violence, and inane beliefs that do not correspond to rational actions. Baudrillard would do better to understand that he is attempting to analyze a very young nation that has rapidly formed a democracy, rid itself of the evil of slavery, fought in two world wars, helped guide the world through nuclear deterrence, and stands poised as an economic powerhouse that drives the world’s economy. Notably missing from the author’s analysis is a firm and specific definition of culture. Rather, Baudrillard delves directly into his attack on the lack of culture exhibited within the United States by a particularly barbed salvo which states, “For the European, even today, America represents something akin to exile, a fantasy of emigration and therefore a form of interiorization of one’s own culture” (Baudrillard 75). Therefore, without a firm working definition of what is and what is not culture, the analysis is unable to reasonably convince the reader that the United States is somehow lacking in an abstract concept that the author himself has failed to convincingly define. Furthermore, although the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement have provided difficult stumbling blocks to the way that America has progressed, the way that these contentious items resolved proved without debt that the nation has a sense of purpose, a shared culture, and an identity that is a function of both the dreams that the collective citizenry aspire to as well as the belief and respect in the founding precepts upon which the country is based. This noticeably exclusion takes a great deal of merit away from the arguments that the author is attempting to prove. Although imperfect, as any culture and nation, the culture of the United States has affected a great many positive things throughout the world as well. As such, due to the fact that the author is unable and unwilling to give the reader a working definition of culture by which he/she can measure the existence of aforementioned culture within the United States, the analysis itself loses a great deal of credibility. Likewise, the single largest drawbacks to the way that the piece is organized and presented to the reader are concentric around the fact that the author creates a set of broad/comfortable overarching stereotypes with which to present the argument. Although this is convenient for the author to be able to succinctly and clearly display his own point and draw inference from it, it leaves the analysis weak in the fact that it does not analyze or weigh all of the component pieces of the argument equally. Additionally, due to the fact that a firm and working definition of culture is never given to the reader in which to measure the United States against, the analysis also falls short of providing a convincing case. As a means of ameliorating these inherent missing components of the analysis, the author chooses to gloss over these points while belaboring the point on others so that his particular world-view and understanding of the subject matter will be translated to the reader. Works Cited Baudrillard, Jean. America. London New York, NY: Verso, 1989. Read More