Weber, Baudrillard and the Erotic Sphere

Abstract

The previous two chapters addressed the possibility of resistance to the rationalization of the world, first, through analysis of Lyotard’s theory of postmodern science and aesthetics (Chapter 7), and second, through assessment of Foucault’s project of genealogical transfiguration (Chapter 8). The present chapter addresses a further strategy through which such resistance may be possible, namely that of re-enchantment. It is argued that this strategy is pursued by Jean Baudrillard, whose work emphasizes the threat symbolic forms continue to pose to the order of Western rationalism. This chapter focuses on Baudrillard’s account of the subversive nature of the ‘symbolic order’, and examines the possibility of developing a strategy of re-enchantment from the play of symbolic forms. This analysis centres on Baudrillard’s theory of the radical opposition of the symbolic order to the capitalist order of value, and examines the possible challenge of the former to the latter through a comparative analysis of Weber’s position on the erotic sphere and Baudrillard’s theory of seduction.

In seduction … it is the manifest discourse … that turns back on the deeper order … in order to invalidate it, substituting the charm and illusion of appearances.

Baudrillard (1990a, 53).

Achieving depth through erotic adventures is something quite problematical.

Max Weber (quoted in Marianne Weber, 1975, 381).