In the same way that we need statesmen to spare us the abjection of exercising power, we need scholars to spare us the abjection of learning.
Interpretation
Baudrillard suggests that just as we require politicians to manage power responsibly, we also need scholars to guide us in the pursuit of knowledge without degrading the learning experience.
In this quote, Jean Baudrillard reflects on the vital roles of statesmen and scholars in society. He draws a parallel between the necessity of statesmen to wield power wisely, thus preventing the negative aspects of authority, and the need for scholars to approach the act of learning with integrity and depth, avoiding its trivialization. Baudrillard emphasizes that both governance and education are crucial in shaping a meaningful society, highlighting the responsibilities that come with these roles.
In practice
As a professor, I often refer to Baudrillard when discussing the importance of integrity in education.
The war was won on both sides: by the Vietnamese on the ground, by the Americans in the electronic mental space. And if the one side won an ideological and political victory, the other made Apocalypse Now and that has gone right around the world.
Television knows no night. It is perpetual day. TV embodies our fear of the dark, of night, of the other side of things.
This false distance is present everywhere: in spy films, in Godard, in modern advertising, which uses it continually as a cultural allusion. It is not really clear in the end whether this 'cool' smile is the smile of humour or that of commercial complicity. This is also the case with pop, and its smile ultimately encapsulates all its ambiguity: it is not the smile of critical distance, but the smile of collusion
There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world.
the neighborhood is nothing but a protective zone- remodeling, disinfection, a snobbish and hygenic design- but above all in a figurative sense: it is a machine for making emptiness.
Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy. In other countries, the business of laughing is left to the viewers. Here, their laughter is put on the screen, integrated into the show. It is the screen that is laughing and having a good time. You are simply left alone with your consternation.
Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorised in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange
Boys do not evaluate a book. They divide books into categories. There are sexy books, war books, westerns, travel books, science fiction. A boy will accept anything from a section he knows rather than risk another sort. He has to have the label on the bottle to know it is the mixture as before.
I remember having this vague idea that what mathematicians did was that some authority, someone, gave them problems to solve, and they just sort of solved them.
Woe be to him that reads but one book.
Learning to write programs stretches your mind, and helps you think better, creates a way of thinking about things that I think is helpful in all domains.
Your ancestors fought for you to have a share in that institution over there. It's yours. See the school board, and every Friday night hold your meetings there. Have your wives clean it up Saturday morning for the children to enter Monday. Your organization is not a praying institution. It's a fighting institution. It's an educational institution along industrial lines. Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living!
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