Simulacra and Simulation

by Jean Baudrillard

Book Overview

Develops a theory of contemporary culture that relies on displacing economic notions of cultural production with notions of cultural expenditure. This book represents an effort to rethink cultural theory from the perspective of a concept of cultural materialism, one that radically redefines postmodern formulations of the body.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0472095218
• ISBN13: 9780472095216
• Release Date: February 1995
• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The end of authenticity

The whole point of Baudrillard and this boook is that man has lost his autonomy, that the fake, the simulacra, the image (Andre Agassi: Image is everything) the hyper-real product and economy controls us, not the other way around. There is no longer any true value because of the hyper-real and hyper value (fake/fiat) of global capital and thus our lives exchanged and interacting in this valueless vacuum our essentially meaningless, the only meaning found in understanding its meaninglessess. You will never look at politics or advertising in the same way again. He uses Disneyland as the epitome of the fake of modern life: the place where adults go to act like kids to hide the fact they really are children and that modern capital and society offers nothing but childishness and infantility. And he uses Watergate as the epitome of the political scandal that reinjects morality and value into the immoral and valueless reality of modern politics: the scandal satisfies the desire for objective truth, for right and wrong, by the public, but like everything else the modern world offers is nothing but the simulacra of the truth and fake. The Clinton-Monica scandal did the same...Eye opening. Provocative. Titillating stuff. Baudrillard is way more practical, down-to-earth and easy to read than the reviewers make him out to be.

A Metafictional Mystery Novel

This is by no means an easy text to read. For those unfamiliar with postmodern tropes-and especially those who have never read Baudrillard before-this text may seem especially daunting. I recommend that these people start with the essay entitled 'Simulacra and Science Fiction'. In this essay, Baudrillard details the three orders of simulacra: the first, natural simulacra, are operatic, founded on images, and aim at the restoration of "the ideal institution of nature made in God's image"; the second order are both productive and operative, based on energy, and work toward "a continuous globalization and expansion [and] an indefinite liberation of energy"; the third order, the simulacra of simulation, are "founded on information [and] total operationality, hyperreality, [and the] aim of total control" (121). The differences between the various simulacra exist in the distance between the real and the imaginary exhibited by each order. This illuminating interstice provides the locus for projecting critical activity and idealism. The first order maximizes the projection, allowing the utopia to stand in direct opposition to the real. The second order reduces this projection. Baudrillard describes it as a hyper-productive universe in which "science fiction adds the multiplication of its own possibilities" (122). As all previous models implode, the third order of simulacra witnesses the complete disappearance of the projection between reality and the imaginary as it becomes reabsorbed in simulation. To Baudrillard, this is the world in which we live: no more real, no more imaginary, no more fiction, just an endless regression of lost meaning with no foundation, or rather an endless precession of simulacra. The book could easily be read like an apocalyptic Mythologies or a nihilistic Logic of Late Capitalism. In the first essay alone, 'The Precession of Simulacra', Baudrillard draws on such diverse cultural examples as the Tasaday Indians, the mummy of Ramses II, Watergate, and Disneyland. Bordering on the prophetic, Baudrillard heralds the end of Foucault's panopticon by referring to what was then (in the early seventies) only an experiment in TV verité, or what we now effortlessly refer to as reality TV. This first chapter heralds Baudrillard's "Anti-Copernican revolution": a world in which the universe presents itself as its own simulation, reality dissolves in its relentless self-representation, and Ockham's Razor loses its edge (42). As the book continues, Baudrillard presents history as false nostalgia, numbing fetishism, and desensitizing mythology. War and film find themselves conjoined by technology in 'Apocalypse Now'. 'The China Syndrome' further reveals the "telefission of the real and of the real world" as Baudrillard juxtaposes the images of the movie of the same title alongside those of the nuclear catastrophe of Three Mile Island, the latter occurring shortly after the release of the former. Defying causal logic, these events blur the

Pointless? Sure. But enlightening still.

Everything you have heard about this book is true. It is dense, complicated, annoyingly analytical, and fairly pointless. Yet it's also genius. To preface...Continental philosophy, in the past hundred years or so, has not been known for it's practical applications. Existentialism and Postmodernism are mental games for the Ivory Tower intellectual, sure. But that doesn't mean that they do not provide a model for looking at and thinking about the world that the average intellect can relate to and use. And this book is no exception to that. It IS dificult to understand, yes, but no where near as bad as most people in these reviews seem to think. Anyone with a basic understanding of Objectivism v. Subjectism, Platonism, and the empirical philosphers can get plenty out of it. The vocabulary is no worse then most other philosophy, and a lot less complicated then some (this isn't Kant). Baisically, Baudrillard shows us that reality no longer exists, and has been replaced by simulacra via the process of simulation, creatin what he calls the "hyperreal". It is a very enlightening read, and will make you really rethink how you view the world. The major problem with the book, as at least one other person has pointed out, is Baudrillard's cultural references. They are quite dated by this point, and you'll find yourself completely lost as to his point, since you can't relate to his subject. In the end though, it is a book that anyone interested in contemporary philosophy should read.

Look Beyond The Matrix

Many peeple who hear of Baudrillard find themselves fans of the movie The Matrix. There is no doubt that the arguments Baudrillard makes in the first and last chapter do coincide with the movie. However, to accurately interpret the book and get a feel of what Baudrillard is really trying to state, the reader must surpass the framework the media has placed on his philosophy through The Matrix.This is a book, that if one truly comes to an understanding of, would send shivers down our spines. It questions so many facets of our culture via media, politics, socialogy...and one can use the process and the argument Baudrillard makes to any facet of our lives.When reading this book, the reader will get overwhelmed by the complexity and awesomeness of the Baudrillard argument and way of thinking. However, this book will question your perception of reality: what is real versus what is hyperreal and how does that process take place. The simulations of events and the process of simulacrum which is now in its fourth stage. Baudrillard then takes that process and argument and applies it to specific events, places and occurences in history and throughout our culture.While the average Joe may be perplexed and overwhelmed by Baudrillard, I feel this is a must read for anyone who is interested in the subject of what is real, what is hyperreal, and where the simulation comes into place within the simulacrum. If you do read this book I have a good piece of advice: do not apply the The Matrix to the book, rather the see how Baudrillard's arguments coincide with some of the basic ones in the movie. Then take those arguments and apply them to anything- once that is done you will see and feel the pain of Baudrillard's argument.

Mega-intellectual, hard to follow, rambling, and fun

This book is not about coming up with the truth, or with understanding how things really work, or anything like that. It's about pointing out that the emperor is not only naked but standing on his head and juggling. Baudrillard is eternally fun as long as you don't take him too seriously. Let his insanity wash over you like a flood and turn off your reality filters for a while. Let him ask all the questions P. K. Dick does, only in greater and weirder detail. What is real? What is a commodity? Why are some things valuable? Things have no value outside of their relationship to other things... and sometimes, relationships and ideas are the only real commodity, hollow fronts for a system with no foundation in the real world at all. Could you have science without testing things against what is real? Can you simply study unreal things forever, producing paper after paper, all logically consistent but studying something that ultimately doesn't exist?All of Baudrillard since he stopped his Marxist tirade has been a wildly funny and insightful parade of wrong ideas. Enjoy it, be altered by it, and then go back to your regularly scheduled Nike shoe purchase.