Jean Baudrillard「The Spirit of Terrorism」

ジャン・ボードリヤール「パワー・インフェルノ」収録


Sometimes I suddenly notice that there are many diffrent types of people around us even in Tokyo, who have diverse religeon and custom. Today I saw one kosher food outlet nearby have finished their Passover Holiday, that is, they are the Jewish. Several times in a year I see upon a man who has distinguished appearance, yes, he's rabbi. One day I came to think so, it was enough for me, merely single glimpse of his talking with guys at the outlet with graceful attitude. In addition it seems that they have come from Israel. Several weeks ago I heard them talking with some Japanese ready to buy their delicatessen. The new customer said, "これはアラブの料理なの？(Is this a menu of Arab?)" watching menu sheets and signboards in front. Then the guy at the outlet replied, "イイエ、イスラエルデス。(No, it's Israeli one.)" with very modest attitude. I feel it quite a long time since the collapse of the World Trade Center. It has become 8 years. I hear in some news and reports pointing out that every year the ceremony was given place at the site, but for what the prayers were dedicated has changed year by year, from the anger against the Islamic world to the sorrow for the hostile between peoples. Obviously the change was managed after the fact came into light that the weapon of mass destruction wasn't seen in Iraq. The enemy has become quite vague and leaders who govern people have to change themselves from the dictators to police officers.(By the way I followed the news and reports about the CIA leak scandal related to the weapon of mass destruction. There is no more dramatic story in spy novels than affairs in real world. And much the same the collapse, I'm afraid.)


I really can't forget my own thought when I saw in the screen of my computer the image of the collapse of WTC. With no doubt I was irritated myself. I waited for the very moment of collapse, for many times I was repeating the image, collapse like melting down. It was far beyond my imagination this suicidal collapse of the twin buildings, maybe no one can predict such a scene, the skyscraper didn't break down at the point the plane was crashing into it,
Baudrillard said about my irritation here,"At a pinch, we can say that they(=terrorists) did it, but we wished for it." We cannot avoid wishing for any hegemonic power destroyed finally, and that's true with a monster of capitalism. But the Western moral conscious prohibits these kinds of thinking and even coming to think of it. And my irritation indicates that I cannot be out of the law of Western morality by all means.
The world war has changed its phase catching up with progress in technology. We are already aware of a new phase of wars that can't be measured by the number of sacrifices. "They(=terrorists) have succeeded in turning their own deaths into an absolute weapon against a system that operates on the basis of the exclusion of death, a system whose ideal is an ideal of zero deaths." Here the importance of one's death is weighed not equal but for how it is showed up in the mass communication network. In the time of war mass media is controlled with great carefulness by governers not to be exposed their deception by the citizen online.


As to WTC, we can say ironically the architect Minoru Yamasaki (Japanese-American) was good at embodying the tide of philosophy matters. He had designed Pruitt-Igoe housing, the modern style architecture complying with the rules of modernism. This was finally exploded. By the administrator. Because it was not so long years before the building had become slum area and no peace could be expected any more. We, especially in the context of critics about architecture, reffers the explosion event of that housing as the ending of modernism and declaring the beginning of post-modernism. Is it only a coincidence, or his talent of symbolizing the social structure, that two of his buildings had the symbolic meanings for their disappearance?



I read English version here but Japanese one is available.