It’s ironic, really, that Braudrillard - doubtless like Chomsky when he finally pops off - is most likely destined to be remembered more for his commentary on 9/11 and The War Against Terror than his contributions to academia. It all fits rather neatly into his object value system - the symbolic value placed on his work by a world (unsurprisingly) uninterested in the niceties of postmodernist poststructural semiotics is, it would seem, that of critic of America. Even though his perceived criticism of the US actually existed largely only in the minds of a misunderstanding readership.

The BBC’s item reporting his death yesterday notes that “He gained notoriety for his 1991 book The Gulf War Did Not Take Place and again a decade later for describing the 9/11 attacks as a ‘dark fantasy’.” The New York Times, meanwhile, feels that it has to introduce him as, effectively, the guy who inspired The Matrix.