Lit Theory - Baudrillard - The Precession of Simulacra

Jean Baudrillard

1.     The Precession of Simulacra  

a.     The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth.  It is the truth which conceals there is none.  The simulacrum is true.

b.     An analogy:

                                               i.     The notion of a territory becomes represented by a map.

                                             ii.     The map becomes the idea of a territory.

                                            iii.     What is real affects the territory, not the map.

                                            iv.     We are like the territory, not the map.

                                             v.     Modern day imperialists try to make the real conform with their simulation of the real.

c.     The age of simulation strips the gaps of imagination.

                                               i.     The real is made from measurements and precision and no longer includes the need for interpretation during its formation or viewing.

                                             ii.     It no longer needs to be rationalized as there are no measurements to which it needs to be compared.

                                            iii.     As there is no need for imagination, it becomes hyper-real.

d.     A distinction:

                                               i.     Dissimulate – to conceal what someone has.  To conceal what is.  Implies an absence.

                                             ii.     Simulate – To conceal what someone does not have.  To produce what is.  Implies a presence.

                                            iii.     Feigning means pretending, as pretending to be ill.  Simulating means producing effects, as in producing the real symptoms of being ill.

                                            iv.     Science is unable to deal with simulation as it can only address the real.

                                             v.     We tend to draw away from determining the real from the symptom.  The person feigning to be mad, is mad as long as they are producing the symptoms.

e.     What happens when the divine is simulated.

                                               i.     Supreme authority becomes images or visible theology.

                                             ii.     The visible machinery of icons substitute the intelligent ideas of god.

                                            iii.     To some, this demonstrates a simulation of god that prompts the idea of not god.  God is viewed as a simulation, not an intelligent idea.

                                            iv.     It is dangerous to unmask images, since they dissimulate the fact that there is nothing behind them.

f.      Behind the style of images hides the grey eminence of politics.

g.     Western faith relies on the idea that a sign could refer to depth and meaning.          

                                               i.     If god can be reduced to simulation, then god becomes meaningless.

h.     A distinction:

                                               i.     A representation starts with the idea that the sign and the real are equivalent.

                                             ii.     A simulation starts with the negation of the sign being needed.

1.     The phases of a simulated image are:

a.     The image is a reflection of basic reality.

b.     The image masks and perverts a basic reality.  It is not reality.

c.     The image masks the absence of a basic reality.  The viewer supplants the image for reality.  A reality that is produced.

d.     It bears no relation to any reality whatever.  Much like the distinction between the map and the territory.  The map, in reality, does not accurately describe the territory, but it is considered the territory.  Note – The medium between the concept of a simulation and the reality becomes invisible, leaving only the simulation.

i.      Science classifies things.  As it does, the individual object is lost and comes to represent the class.  Ethnology example. 

                                               i.     Science may duplicate things for viewing and then protect the original. 

                                             ii.     However, it is a simulation and the real is removed from view.

                                            iii.     The essence of the original is not present in the simulation, nor is it viewable.

                                            iv.     The original is lost.

j.      Using Disneyland, it is not a question of false representations, but an exclusion, or concealment, of the rest of the world being real.

Works Cited

Baudrillard, Jean. The Precession of Simulacra. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al.  2^nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010. 1553-1566. Print.