The Cultural Revolution Strategy: From Symbol To The Other

In Baudrillard's theory, there is a conversion trajectory about the cultural revolution strategy, that is from symbol to the other. Baudrillard who lived in the post-modern consumer society, drawn the essence from George Bataille and Marcel Mauss's theory , then constructed an unique cultural symbol theory, in which"symbol"is the value standard and meaning system under the human existence condition, and is applied to against modernity, or the other, that includes three parts: symbolic exchange, symbolic death and the seduction. The concept symbol is not only the core concept of Baudrillard's early theory , but also the ideological weapon against Western modern culture; In Baudrillard's later theory, both with the growth of Pessimism and the Nihilism of theoretical strength, he turned to develope the modernity's"otherness", which is just the heterogeneity and diversity factor to against the subjectivity. Compared with Levinas,Lacan and Said's theory, we can find that Baudrillard's theory was more critical, he tried to explore"the strength of the weak"from poetry,graffiti,body and other symbolic things to constitute the cultural revolution strategy, but at the same time what he did also made his theory less critical.After probing the cultural revolution strategy, Baudrillard criticized the Western modern culture profoundly. Undoubtedly, humanism and dualism are the concentrated representation of modernity, Baudrillard's"symbol"and"otherness"were two approaches to criticize the modernity. However, while understanding Baudrillard's cultural critical theory, we still can not ignore his pessimism about revolutionary and nihilistic fatal strategy, only under the premise of comprehensive analysis, can we make comments on him without bias.