Baudrillard Notes

8/8/2019 Baudrillard Notes

1/3

Westwood Debate 2010-2011 File Name

Tournament 1

Baudrillard Notes

Wikipedia

Simulacra and Simulation is most known for its discussion of images, signs, and how they relate to

contemporaneity. Baudrillard claims that our currentsociety has replaced all reality and meaning

withsymbols and signs, and that human experience is of a simulation of reality. Moreover, these simulacra are

not merely mediations of reality, nor even deceptive mediations of reality; they are not based in a reality nor do

they hide a reality, they simply hide that anything like reality is irrelevant to our current understanding of our

lives. The simulacra that Baudrillard refers to are the significations and symbolism ofculture andmediathat

construct perceived reality, the acquired understanding by which our lives and shared existence is rendered

legible; Baudrillard believed that society has become so saturated with these simulacra and our lives so

saturated with the constructs of society that all meaning was being rendered meaningless by being infinitely

mutable. Baudrillard called this phenomenon the "precession of simulacra".

"Simulacra and Simulation" breaks the sign-order into 4 stages:

1. The first stage is a faithful image/copy, where we believe, and it may even be correct that, a sign

is a "reflection of a profound reality" (pg 6), this is a good appearance, in what Baudrillard called "the

sacramental order".

2. The second stage is perversion of reality, this is where we believe the sign to be an unfaithful

copy, which "masks and denatures" reality as an "evil appearance-it is of the order of maleficence".

Here, signs and images do not faithfully show us reality, but can hint at the existence of something real

which the sign itself is incapable of encapsulating.3. The third stage masks the absence of a profound reality, where the simulacrumpretends to be a

faithful copy, but it is a copy with no original. Signs and images claim to represent something real, but

no representation is taking place and arbitrary images are merely suggested as things which they have

no relationship to. Baudrillard calls this the "order of sorcery".

4. The fourth stage is pure simulation, in which the simulacrum has no relationship to any reality

whatsoever. Here, signs merely reflect other signs and any claim to reality on the part of images or signs

is only of the order of other such claims.

Simulacra and Simulation identifies three types of simulacra and identifies each with a historical period:

1. First order, associated with the premodern period, where the image is clearly an artificial

placemarker for the real item. The uniqueness of objects and situations marks them as irreproducibly

real and signification obviously gropes towards this reality.

2. Second order, associated with the modernityof the Industrial Revolution, where distinctions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_(semiotics)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_(communication)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_(communication)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolutionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolutionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_(semiotics)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_(communication)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution


2/3


Tournament 2

between image and reality break down due to the proliferation ofmass-reproducible copies of items,

turning them into commodities. The commodity's ability to imitate reality threatens to replace the

original version, especially when the individual person is only concerned with consuming for some

utility a functional facsimile.

3. Third order, associated with thepostmodernity, where the simulacrum precedes the original and

the distinction between reality and representation vanishes. There is only the simulacrum, and

originality becomes a totally meaningless concept.[2]

Baudrillard theorizes that the lack of distinctions between reality and simulacra originates in several

phenomena:

1. Contemporary media including television,film,printand the Internet, which are responsible for

blurring the line between goods that are needed and goods for which a need is created by commercial

images.

2. Exchange value, in which the value of goods is based on money rather than usefulness.

3. Multinational capitalism, which separates produced goods from the plants, minerals and other

original materials and the processes used to create them.

4. Urbanization, which separates humans from the natural world.

5. Language and ideology, in which language is used to obscure rather than reveal reality when

used by dominant, politically powerful groups.

A specific analogy that Baudrillard uses is a fable derived from On Exactitude in Science byJorge Luis Borges.In it, a great Empire created a map that was so detailed it was as large as the Empire itself. The actual map grew

and decayed as the Empire itself conquered or lost territory. When the Empire crumbled, all that was left was

the map. In Baudrillard's rendition, it is the map that people live in, the simulation of reality, and it is reality that

is crumbling away from disuse.

The transition from signs which dissimulate something to signs which dissimulate that there is nothing,

marks the decisive turning point. The first implies a theology of truth and secrecy (to which the notion of

ideology still belongs). The second inaugurates an age of simulacra and simulation, in which there is no

longer any God to recognize his own, nor any last judgment to separate truth from false, the real fromits artificial resurrection, since everything is already dead and risen in advance. [3]

It is important to note that when Baudrillard refers to the "precession of simulacra" in Simulacra and

Simulation, he is referring to the way simulacra have come to precede the real in the sense mentioned

above, rather than to anysuccession of historical phases of the image. Referring to "On Exactitude in

Science", he argued that just as for contemporary society the simulated copy had superseded the original
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_productionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation#cite_note-PH-1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Televisionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange_valuehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange_valuehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Sciencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borgeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borgeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation#cite_note-2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Sciencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Sciencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_productionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation#cite_note-PH-1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Televisionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange_valuehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanizationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Sciencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borgeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation#cite_note-2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Sciencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Science


3/3


Tournament 3

object, so, too, the map had come to precede the geographic territory (c.f. Mapterritory relation), e.g.

the first Gulf War(see below): the image of war preceded real war.

Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory - precession of simulacra - it is the map that

engenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds

are slowly rotting across the map.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Gulf_Warhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation#cite_note-3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Gulf_Warhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation#cite_note-3

Baudrillard Notes

Documents

Transcript of Baudrillard Notes