Seduction is the world’s elementary dynamic… All this has changed…

Seduction is the world’s elementary dynamic… All this has changed significantly for us, at least in appearance. For what has happened to good and evil? Seduction hurls them against one another, and unites them beyond meaning, in a paroxysm [sudden outbreak of emotion] of intensity and charm. (p. 59)

Sourced, The Ecstasy of Communication (1987)

Other Jean Baudrillard Quotes

The simulacrum now hides, not the truth, but the fact that there is none, that is to say, the continuation of Nothingness.( essay -”Radical Thought”) - View Quote Details on The simulacrum now hides, not the truth, but the fact…
Picturing others and everything which brings you closer to them is futile from the instant that ‘communication’ can make their presence immediate. (p. 42) - View Quote Details on Picturing others and everything which brings you closer to them…
The only thing worse than being bored is being boring. - View Quote Details on The only thing worse than being bored is being boring.
The need to speak, even if one has nothing to say, becomes more pressing when one has nothing to say, just as the will to live becomes more urgent when life has lost its meaning. (p. 30) - View Quote Details on The need to speak, even if one has nothing to…
Driving is a spectacular form of amnesia. Everything is to be discovered, everything to be obliterated. Admittedly, there is the primal shock of the deserts and the dazzle of California, but when this is gone, the secondary brilliance of the journey begins, that of the excessive, pitiless distance, the infinity of anonymous faces and distances, or of certain miraculous geological formations, which ultimately testify to no human will, while keeping intact an image of upheaval. This form of travel admits of no exceptions: when it runs up against a known face, a familiar landscape, or some decipherable message, the spell is broken: the amnesic, ascetic, asymptotic charm of disappearance succumbs to affect and worldly semiology. - View Quote Details on Driving is a spectacular form of amnesia. Everything is to…
Take provocation, for instance, which is the opposite and the caricature of seduction. It says: “I know that you want to be seduced, and I will seduce you.” Nothing could be worse than betraying this secret rule. Nothing could be less seductive than a provocative smile or inciteful behaviour, since both presuppose that one cannot be seduced naturally and that one needs to be blackmailed into it, or through a declaration of intent: “Let me seduce you” (p. 67) - View Quote Details on Take provocation, for instance, which is the opposite and the…
The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is already reproduced, the hyper-real. (p. 146) - View Quote Details on The real is not only what can be reproduced, but…
Boredom is like a pitiless zooming in on the epidermis of time. Every instant is dilated and magnified like the pores of the face. - View Quote Details on Boredom is like a pitiless zooming in on the epidermis…
There is no aphrodisiac like innocence. - View Quote Details on There is no aphrodisiac like innocence.
It is perhaps not a surprise that photography developed as a technological medium in the industrial age, when reality started to disappear. It is even perhaps the disappearance of reality that triggered this technical form. Reality found a way to mutate into an image. - View Quote Details on It is perhaps not a surprise that photography developed as…