TV set left on in an empty room… It is as if another planet is communicating with you.

 Baudrillard is a maestro of that peculiarly French kind of sentence which doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but drips with poetic suggestion. America consists largely of observations such as this: “Here in the transversality of the desert and the irony of geology, the transpolitical finds its generic, mental space.” The cumulative effect is mesmeric, and the insights are often haunting: “There is nothing more mysterious than a TV set left on in an empty room… It is as if another planet is communicating with you.” To Baudrillard, the ubiquitous American smile “signifies only the need to smile. It is a bit like the Cheshire Cat’s grin: it continues to float on faces long after all emotion has disappeared.”

Today, the America we thought we knew has vanished. Baudrillard suggests it was never really there.