DeLillo's White Noise: psy-opping ourselves on death and po-mo

“All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots.”

After a break, the boys jump into the 1980s po-mo White Noise by Don DeLillo. We talk about the denial of death, toxic airborne events, and Baudrillardian copies of copies of copies (of copies...)

Simulacra: The boys shake off their reddit I Love Science teenage years and start to embrace all things post-modernism. Namely, Baudrilliard's idea of the Simulacra where some "signs" no longer point to any underlying reality.

Denial of Death: A fairly straight-forward retelling of Ernest Becker's Denial of Death: We're all terrified of death, so we build our entire lives to avoid confronting it. Cam and Benny try denying Becker's denial thesis.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00:00) Chitter chatter
• (00:03:13) Quick summary
• (00:09:16) The most photographed barn in America
• (00:13:51) Post-modernism
• (00:16:35) Baudrillard's Simulacra
• (00:24:26) How po-mo is DeLillo himself
• (00:32:18) Fake preferences & signalling
• (00:36:36) Airborne Toxic Event
• (00:55:17) Fear of Death
• (01:17:50) Ending and Jack's arc
• (01:31:26) Final thoughts

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NEXT ON THE READING LIST:

• Ursula Le Guin - The Dispossessed
• Ted Chiang - Truth of Fact, Truth of Feeling
• Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything is Illuminated