Abstract
In this study, I seek to show how Baudrillard reactualises Nietzsche’s On The
Genealogy of Morals. To my knowledge, no scholar has specifically tried to
reconstruct how certain critical elements, strategies and figures within Nietzsche’s
On The Genealogy of Morals are mobilized in Baudrillard’s work.
I first deal with Baudrillard’s genealogy of consumer society. I show that both
Nietzsche and Baudrillard are interested in analysing the power structures and
differential relations upholding moral systems. Baudrillard applies the critical tools of
genealogy to Saussurean linguistics and he analyses concepts as symptoms of the
powers and forces that have become dominant. For Baudrillard, Saussurean
linguistics presents us with a theory of language and it describes the consumer
“morality” of late modernity.
Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals anticipates the general outline of
Baudrillard’s critique of the morality of consumption, but Baudrillard also transforms
certain Nietzschean positions, processes, practices and figures. I show how the
Nietzschean figure of the ascetic priest is transformed into the modern advertiser in
Baudrillard’s works on consumer society. In addition, I scrutinize how the ascetic
ideal lives on in consumer society, despite the “end of transcendence”.
After tackling Baudrillard’s consumer society, I scrutinize his genealogy of the order
of simulacra in relation to Nietzsche’s “reversal of Platonism”. In addition, I deal with
Baudrillard’s genealogy of death and in the process, I discuss Baudrillard’s
(problematic) relation to Heidegger, which I do to emphasize Baudrillard’s closeness
to Nietzsche.