The Intelligence of Evil : Or, The Lucidity Pact

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and at the height of the "War on Terror", the controversial postmodernist thinker Jean Baudrillard wrote The Intelligence of Evil. In tackling the rhetoric of the so-called "clash of civilizations" between a capitalist West and a fundamentalist religious Islam, the book also provides a summation of many of the most important themes of Baurdrillard's philosophical project. Baudrillard here explores how neoliberal political rhetoric has divided human cultures are divided into two antagonistic forces, one based on symbolic exchange, which is dual and reciprocal, and one based on money and sign exchange, which is totalising. Non-western societies can create genuinely symbolic, durable cultures. But the western world-system, based on a logic of empire, is designed to create an integrated and sealed reality, to snap tight around the world and its image. If the first is indestructible and the second is irresistible, who can win and what will victory look like? Cover HalfTitle Series Title Copyright Contents Preface The Intelligence of Evil Chapter 1 Integral Reality Chapter 2 On the Fringes of the Real Chapter 3 On the World in its Profound Illusoriness Chapter 4 The Easiest Solutions Do you want to be free? Do you want to be anyone else? Chapter 5 The Murder of the Sign Chapter 6 The Mental Diaspora of the Networks Chapter 7 We Are All Agnostics . . . Chapter 8 The Violence Done to the Image Chapter 9 Contemporary Art: Art Contemporary with Itself Chapter 10 Virtuality and Events Chapter 11 Evil and Misfortune Chapter 12 The Intelligence of Evil Chapter 13 For Whom Does the Knell of Politics Toll? Chapter 14 The Destruction of the Golden Temple Chapter 15 The ‘Blowback’ of Duality Chapter 16 Lines of Fracture Chapter 17 Parallel Universes Existential divide Time divide Chapter 18 Anamnesis