Semiotics

What is this?
• Denotation

• Connotation
 Semiotics
• The study of signs and their meaning.

• How do we communicate?
 Structuralism
1. Ferdinand de Saussure

- Language is a system of rules.

- We implicitly understand these rules.

2. Claude Levi-Strauss

- The rules of language constitute a culture.

- Humans are subjects communicating with signs.

The Hero’s Journey
 God Is Dead
• God is Dead
– Premodernity > Modernity
– End of Western metaphysics
– Nihilism: The conclusion that there is no meaning

– Apollo/ Dionysian
– Herd Mentality

• Morality
– Beyond Good & Evil
– Nobility vs Slave Morality
– Ressentiment

• The Will-To-Power
• - This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also
this will to power—and nothing besides! (The Will to Power)
 The 20th Century
• WWI & WWII
– European imperialism
– The Rise of Fascism
– World War

• The Frankfurt School

– Critical Theory
– Nietzsche + Marx
– The Culture Industry

• The Cold War

– Third World Revolutions
– Stalinism in Soviet Union
– US imperialism
 Deconstruction
• Logocentrism

• Difference

• Same/Other
Is this a pipe?
Is the word “word” a word?
 Baudrillard
• The Empire of Maps
Memes
 Simulacra & Simulation
• 1. Literal: A reflection of a profound reality

• 2. Symbolic: It perverts a basic reality

• 3. Textual: It masks the absence of a basic

reality

• 4. Hyperreal: It bears no relation to any reality

The Hyperreal
 Baudrillard vs Policy Aff
• Policy Aff: The United States federal government should substantially reduce its
restrictions on legal immigration to the United States.

Links:
• USFG
• Plan
• Policy Making (tax)
• Debate
• Images of Suffering
Alt:
Terrorist Singularity
Radical Alterity
 Baudrillard vs K
• Kritik Aff: Unflinching Paradigmatic Analysis of
Antiblackness
– Links
• Images of Suffering/ Wounded Attachment
• Debate Simulation
• Radical Politics as Hyperreality
– Alt
• Neg on presumption
 Baudrillard Aff vs FW
• Baudrillard aff vs FW

• 2AC:
– FW = simulation
– DA to Edu & Fairness
– DA to Policy Making (tax bill/Obamacare)
 Baudrillard Aff vs Kritik
• Baudrillard aff vs Cap K

• 2AC:
– Debate Simulation
– Marxism =/= Postmodern alienation
 Baudrillard Kritik
• Plan Aff Kritik Aff
– Links Links
• Moral framework Resistance is futile!
• Actor Representation replaces praxis
• Plan The Ballot/ Debate
• Policy Making
Agency links
• Debate

– Impacts Impacts
• Simulation Simulation
• Murder of the Real
• Murder of Alterity Alternative
Reject the Aff
– Alternative Vote Neg on Presumption
• Alterity
• Terrorist singularity