Romanticizing the simple folk is really romanticizing the system that oppresses them

Evidence

Now, free, virgin nature, without limits or territories, where each wanders at will, never existed, except in the imaginary of the dominant order, of which this nature is the equivalent mirror. We project (nature, desire, animality, rhizome … ) the very schema of deterritorialization that is that of the economic system and of capital as ideal savagery. Liberty is nowhere but in capital, it is what produced it, it is what deepens it. There is thus an exact correlation between the social legislation of value (urban, industrial, repressive, etc.) and the imaginary savagery one places in opposition to it: they are both “deterritorialized” and in each other’s image. … Nature, liberty, desire, etc., do not even express a dream the opposite of capital, they directly translate the progress or the ravages of this culture, they even anticipate it, because they dream of total deterritorialization where the system never imposes anything but what is relative: the demand of “liberty” is never anything but going further than the system, but in the same direction. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 460 (#expands, via linked claim)

In particular, our sentimentality toward animals is a sure sign of the disdain in which we hold them. It is proportional to this disdain. It is in proportion to being relegated to irresponsibility, to the inhuman, that the animal becomes worthy of the human ritual of affection and protection, just as the child does in direct proportion to being relegated to a status of innocence and childishness. Sentimentality is nothing but the infinitely degraded form of bestiality, the racist commiseration, in which we ridiculously cloak animals to the point of rendering them sentimental themselves. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 437 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Romanticized nature and desire directly translate rather than oppose capital — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 460; Spiritual and countercultural protest gets absorbed harmlessly by the system; Indiscriminate kindness and liberality become affirmation of everything bad that exists — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 87 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Romanticized nature and desire directly translate rather than oppose capital #expands (0.85) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 460
• Spiritual and countercultural protest gets absorbed harmlessly by the system #expands (0.80)
• Sentimentality toward animals is a disguised form of disdain #expands (0.75) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 437
• Indiscriminate kindness and liberality become affirmation of everything bad that exists #expands (0.72) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 87