warning: unnecessarily long response. for some it may be too much, for others an invitation to mental interplay. as for me, i dont care as i had fun thinking it through and it was an invigorating mental exercise
so: very interesting, certainly. i'll admit that i have difficulty reading Baudrillard, in particular his heavy use of referential language; and such a vernacular you almost have to be Baudrillard himself to decode it. As such I feel I miss a lot of his ideas not because they are complicated but because of the way they are communicated. i am not a philosophy savant, though, and perhaps i am inadequate to the task.
first, though, a summary of his position so i can respond to it. having given the essay a twice-through, i see a few core concepts and hope i am being faithful to capturing him in the following nutshell:
summary1. "In this passage to a space whose curvature is no longer that of the real, nor of truth, the age of simulation thus begins with a liquidation of all referentials."
2. "It is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself"
3. "Of the same order as the impossibility of rediscovering an absolute level of the real, is the impossibility of staging an illusion. Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible."
4. "This is ultimately why power is so in accord with ideological discourses and discourses on ideology, for these are all discourses of truth - always good, even and especially if they are revolutionary, to counter the mortal blows of simulation."
And this argument, which I'll comment on later:
"To dissimulate is to feign not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign to have what one hasn't. One implies a presence, the other an absence. But the matter is more complicated, since to simulate is not simply to feign: "Someone who feigns an illness can simply go to bed and pretend he is ill. Someone who simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms" (Littre). Thus, feigning or dissimulating leaves the reality principle intact: the difference is always clear, it is only masked; whereas simulation threatens the difference between "true" and "false", between "real" and "imaginary". Since the simulator produces "true" symptoms, is he or she ill or not?"
responseSymbols: I don't feel savvy enough to respond comprehensively so I'll instead focus on the aspects I know best -- the issues that touch on human cognition and psychology.
Baudrillard laments what he feels is the substitution of 'the real' for symbols of 'the real'. I feel he's rightly pointing out the increasing saturation of symbols in our society, and the increasing use of symbols in communication -- for example advertising, or in complicated social groups like businesses or religious and ideological organizations. I agree that, particularly in advertising, false symbols are commonplace and elaborate simulacra are frequently constructed in place of the actual properties of a product (what would Baudrillard think of bottled water? or designer jeans? though there are in fact tangible psychosocial, non-physical properties associated with each...)
I disagree, however, that these symbols are supplanting 'the real' with a simulacra, or that they are any less real for being symbols. Symbols are a product of cognition. Though Baudrillard supposes that symbols and simulacra are now arising without any 'real' to give birth to them, this cannot be. Symbols of the type Baudrilliard references are a necessary tool in human cognition, and without them we would find it very difficult to run our brains. The symbols themselves are a signpost pointing to 'the real', and a consequence of physiology.
The brain is like a billion simultaneous parallel processes each with a very small capacity. As such the brain constantly reduces the complexity of information passing through it, and heavily cross-references previously stored information in a giant matrix to fill in the blanks. It uses 'symbols', or even simulations/simulacra, as a way to encode and decode any particular thing: its relevance, properties, its nature and its relationship to ourselves. Advertisers use symbols to communicate (or create illusion) as to the properties, nature and relevance of their products. This can create untruth -- but it does not supplant the truth. It is doubtful that in the physical sciences Baudrillard would claim 'dark' is anything but an absence of 'light'. Neither in the social sciences can he claim untruth is but an absence of truth, however widespread or pronounced the untruth may be.
Though Baudrillard may claim (and he does) any given animal as a symbol of what it is not instead of what it is (and therefore 'hyperreality'), our brains in fact store symbols of each animal cross-referencing relevant information: a dog for example may bite. if its wagging its tail, it is happy. dogs like bones. when we see a dog, we do see it as a symbol constructed of previously stored information. we can only cross-reference 'dog is not a cat' because we have positive information on what cats are. it is a reaction between two positives, not between a positive and a negative. this is simply the normal function of the brain.
we may see a dog and incorrectly project on it a symbol of happy behaviors, when it is in fact a mean, biting dog. our incorrect conclusion as to the nature of the dog does not make the dog, our symbol referencing it, or our world any less real. we are simply mistaken, a phenomena oft repeated throughout human experience and throughout history.
That symbols are increasingly common in our society is (i feel) only a symptom of the amount of complex (i.e. other than sensory) information available to any given person today. this available information, and the amount we're exposed to, has dramatically increased through greater literacy rates as well as communications technology and mass media. The amount of complex information the average American adult is exposed to (or consumes) on any given day in 2009 is exponentially greater than the complex information presented to the same adult in 1940.... or dare I say 500 B.C. The saturation of symbols and simulacra in society is also indicative of the tendency for human communicators to communicate through symbols other humans will understand.
Symbols are therefore an increasingly common tool in communication because our neurophysiology and psychologies are responding to the information we're presented with and consuming. Without these symbols we'd be adrift in a sea of the mundane, and society could never transcend to the complexity its reached today (and will reach in the future). When Baudrillard claims that the liquidation of all referentials is ongoing (and certainly not regarding his own referential writing?) he is claiming a physical and psychological impossibility. Symbols are only meaningful in the sense that they are referential, even if those symbols are false, deceitful or misconceived.
On Baudrillard as a simulacra of his own psyche:A well-known position of Baudrillard is his claim that the Persian Gulf War never happened. He states that the actual events of the conflict do not fit with the criteria describing actual war, and that the public perception of the events of the war are false due to misrepresentation in the media. Therefore, a simulacra or overrides 'the real'.
Turning Baudrillards own guns against him, I submit that he has in fact constructed a symbol of what he understands war to be and, finding dissonance between his own understanding of war and the events of the Persian Gulf War, has taken up this position.
Could it be that Baudrillard, as a philosopher and not a soldier, is a victim of consuming an easily-digested symbol of war and has a poorly calibrated understanding as to what armed conflict is, in all its forms?
I agree with Baudrillard that the 'media' did not provide an accurate image of Persian Gulf War events as they transpired -- they are selling a product, after all, and are bound to sensationalize events and focus on the spectacular. Still, though the media may be the proverbial blind monks grasping at parts of the elephant and presuming it to be many different things, they portrayed actual events that transpired -- grounded in reality, though not representing an accurate whole, the events and outcomes nevertheless occur and the consequences are real even if not widely understood. So it may be with Baudrillard and his theories of 'the real' -- perceiving inadequacy or outright falseness in symbols and drawing the conclusion that reality itself is under attack.
Baudrillard himself may be one of those monks, grasping at the parts of the elephant and trying to extrapolate a whole from limited information.
As humans we are limited to only a few senses, and even combined they are inadequate to grasp the whole of reality. In Baudrillard's hypothetical patient simulating the symptoms of an illness, were the doctors own senses refined enough to perceive the whole reality of the patient there would never be a question as to illness or wellness. The doctor's inability to perceive the whole of reality does not unravel reality. Answers come before questions, and facts before our ability to consider them. So shall it always be.
That our society is rapidly increasing in complexity, I do not debate. That symbols are increasing in number and frequency, I do not debate. That these occurrences are any threat to the fundamental way we perceive and interact with reality, I absolutely challenge. Baudrillard's life straddled the transition between eras -- the age of Industry to the age of Information. It is well-known that the transition has not been easy for those in his generation. Still, if biology is any lesson, each generation adapts and each successive generation improves.
Being of the generation born into the information age, I feel agile enough, discerning enough and discretionary enough to navigate this sea of symbols, truth and untruth, ambiguity and masked facts. I see these as a consequence of the increase in the complexity of society, and eagerly welcome each successive generation as it adapts and evolves to become a more advanced human species.
