  At this stage of his thought, Baudrillard stood in a French tradition of extolling “primitive” or premodern culture over the abstract rationalism and utilitarianism of modern society. His defense of symbolic exchange over production and instrumental rationality thus stands in the tradition of Rousseau’s defense of the “natural savage” over modern man, Durkheim’s posing mechanical solidarities of premodern societies against the abstract individualism and anomie of modern ones, Bataille’s valorization of expenditure of premodern societies, or Mauss’ or Levi-Strauss’ fascination with the richness of “primitive societies” or “the savage mind.” After deconstructing the modern master thinkers and his own theoretical fathers (Marx, Freud, Saussure, and his French contemporaries) for missing the richness of symbolic exchange, Baudrillard continues to champion the symbolic and radical forms of thought and writing in a quest that takes him into ever more esoteric and exotic discourse.