virtualization of design and production a thesis - Bilkent University

coexist with the worst misery. In all cases a certain surplus coexists with a
certain poverty (Baudrillard 81).
Baudrillard criticizes the conceptual entity of ‘need’ by making an analogy with
the “mana” which is the magical bond that unifies the opposition of subject and
object. It is like imagining that there is immanent power (the hau) within the
object that haunts the subject and offers him to make use of this internal essence.
He explicitly accuses Western thought to employ copulas like the mana, vital
force, instincts, needs, choices, preferences, utilities, motivations to make a bond
between the insurmountable opposition between subject and object. Need is a
kind of reductionist, artificial, magical and complementary term which can only
explain the subject-object relationship in terms of adequation; functional
response of subjects to objects or vice versa. “In fact the operation amounts to
defining the subject by means of the object and object in terms of the subject. It
is a gigantic tautology of which the concept of need is the consecration”
(Baudrillard 70-71)
Therefore, it seems significant to study the reasons behind this notion of need,
since as Baudrillard claims; both economic science and political order operate on
the basis of the concept of need. For him, needs can no longer be defined within
naturalistic-idealist thesis as in anthropological studies like in the notion of
“primary needs” but rather they should be defined as a function within the
internal logic of the system: “…more precisely, not as a consummative force
liberated by the affluent society, but as a productive force required by the
functioning of the system itself, by its process of reproduction and survival. In
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