It’s amazing to me how you “curate” these two postmodernists, Lyotard and Baudrillard, and their thinking into such a comprehensive assessment of the pathology of contemporary society. Today’s culture has a rotten core that seems obviously present but also hard to articulate. Your piece separates key elements from the background noise and highlights them so they can be considered individually.

Each day we take in a certain amount of reality and a certain amount of media, with media a growing percentage. Increasingly, we place reality experiences in a larger context of media experiences, rather than vice versa. As a result, our absorption of reality and media is governed increasingly by the rules (the narratives?) of media. When reality doesn’t fit in media formats, there is something wrong with reality—it’s not “good television.”

Society isn’t becoming more inclusive, it’s declaring war on Christmas. Elections are boxing matches. Partisans tell their politicians to “fight” for their side—what do they mean by “fight”? Like in an action movie? Like the “real housewives”? Does this new media-driven definition of “fight” legitimize dirty tricks over Supreme Court nominations?

Examples in politics feel like scratching the surface. Giving control of signs and narratives to the media (if that’s a fair analysis) has affected so many things. I wonder if understanding the underlying mechanisms you describe would offer better insight or illumination.