Byronic terror and impossible exchange

from Werner to Baudrillard's the spirit of terrorism

Piya Pal-Lapinski

pp. 182-195

in: Matthew A. Green, Piya Pal-Lapinski (eds), Byron and the politics of freedom and terror, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

Abstract

First prize for cerebral coldbloodedness goes to the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, in his slim little book THE SPIRIT OF TERRORISM AND REQUIEM FOR THE TWIN TOWERS (Verso, paper, $13). “In terms of collective drama,” he writes, “we can say that the horror for the 4,000 victims of dying in those towers was inseparable from the horror of living in them—the horror of living and working in sarcophagi of concrete and steel.” It takes a rare, demonic genius to brush off the slaughter of thousands on the grounds that they were suffering from severe ennui brought about by boring modern architecture.2

Cited authors

Baudrillard Jean