Appearances are immortal while meaning is mortal and dispensable

Evidence

There is no more hope for meaning. And without a doubt this is a good thing: meaning is mortal. But that on which it has imposed its ephemeral reign, what it hoped to liquidate in order to impose the reign of the Enlightenment, that is, appearances, they, are immortal, invulnerable to the nihilism of meaning or of non-meaning itself. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 542

Categorization

• XREF: Inverts the Enlightenment’s project as Baudrillard frames it — appearance over meaning — and parallels Jameson’s critique of the loss of depth/modality in postmodern surface. — connects to: Mortals accept symbolic immortality when literal immortality is unattainable — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of…, 472; Humans pursue symbolic immortality through works, namesakes, and progeny — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of…, 63; Being-towards-death frames mortality as the source of authentic existence — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 933 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Mortals accept symbolic immortality when literal immortality is unattainable #expands (0.85) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 472
• At death a life becomes an in-itself whose meaning only others sustain. #expands (0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 63
• Humans pursue symbolic immortality through works, namesakes, and progeny #expands (0.82) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 63
• Representation and textuality can literally determine life and death, not merely shape discourse #expands (0.80)
• Conceptualization inevitably imposes form on formless life #expands (0.78) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 1018
• Being-towards-death frames mortality as the source of authentic existence #complicates (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 933
• Unique identity is the last defense against being reduced to a living corpse #qualifies (0.72) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1016
• Collectivism erases actual death by treating everyone as interchangeable #exemplifies (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 107
• Another group’s immortality beliefs threaten one’s own death-transcendence claims #complicates (0.70) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 485