The Agony of Power : The World We Are Living In

During 2005, Baudrillard wrote three short pieces and gave a brief magazine interview, all treating similar ideas; following his death in 2007, the four pieces were collected and published posthumously as The Agony of Power, a polemic against power itself.[26] The first piece From Domination to Hegemony contrasts its two subjects, modes of power; domination stands for historical, traditional power relations, while hegemony stands for modern, more sophisticated power relations as realized by states and businesses. Baudrillard decried the "cynicism" with which contemporary businesses openly state their business models. For example, he cited French television channel TF1 executive Patrick Le Lay who stated that his business' job was "to help Coca-Cola sell its products".[27] Baudrillard lamented that such honesty pre-empted and thus robbed the Left of its traditional role of critiquing governments and businesses: "In fact, Le Lay takes away the only power we had left. He steals our denunciation."[28] Consequently, Baudrillard stated that "Power itself must be abolished—and not solely in the refusal to be dominated [...] but also, just as violently, in the refusal to dominate..."[29]

The latter pieces included further analysis of the September 11 terrorist attacks, using the metaphor of the Native American potlatch to describe both American and Muslim societies, specifically the American state versus the hijackers. In the pieces' context, "potlatch" referred not to the gift-giving aspect of the ritual, but rather its wealth-destroying aspect: "The terrorists' potlatch against the West is their own death. Our potlatch is indignity, immodesty, obscenity, degredation and abjection."[30] This criticism of the West carried notes of Baudrillard's simulacrum, the above cynicism of business, and contrast between Muslim and Western societies: "We [the West] throw this indifference and abjection at others like a challenge: the challenge to defile themselves in return, to deny their values, to strip naked, confess, admit—to respond to a nihilism equal to our own."[31]

Note:

A Potlatch is an opulent ceremonial feast to celebrate an important event held by tribes of Northwest Indians of North America. A Potlatch is characterized by a ceremony in which possessions are given away, or destroyed, to display wealth, generosity and enhance prestige.