Simulacra and Simulations

“The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth – it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true.”

Ecclesiastes (Poster, 1988:166)

A puzzle before we even start – Baudrillard apparently later admitted this quote is a fabrication (see Jean Baudrillard. Cool Memories III, 1991-95. London: Verso, 1997. Editor’s note: In Fragments: Conversations With François L’Yvonnet. New York: Routledge, 2004:11, Baudrillard acknowledges this “Borges-like” fabrication). Some see this as an illusion within an essay about illusions…

Before attempting any deep dive into the swampy world of Baudrillard, I am dipping my toe in the water with this important essay. My interest comes from my work at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, which is anything but natural being largely the result of various forms of human activity through time. It is essentially built and managed to a plan – the model precedes the reality.

We begin with Borges’ tale of the Map and the Territory – by now deeply imprinted in photographic lore – the original idea being of a map on a 1:1 scale that exactly covers the ground it represents. Baudrillard states that “Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory – precession of simulacra”…”If we were to revise the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map” (Poster, 1988:166). This is the key idea he will go on to develop.

There is a distinct political stance to Baudrillard’s writing, and I should start by saying this always makes me uneasy. Partly since it dates a philosophy whose other aspects might transcend time, but also because it can diminish the rest of the writing by including political ideals such as marxism that have been proved damagingly ineffective. Finally, it is often an ideology that is presented, rather than a reasoned argument – again further degrading the writer’s stance.

Having said which, Baudrillard begins, very reasonably, to frame an argument by taking a stance against the concepts of Empire and imperialism. This at least does stand the test of time, and we can perhaps extend the concept of imperialism into the imperial measuring system – the need to measure the extent of Empire, if you will. Baudrillard perhaps alludes to such a construction, almost a Victorian catalogue of conquests: “The real is produced from miniaturised units … in fact … it is not real at all. It is hyperreal.” (Poster, 1988:167).

“It is no longer a question of imitation, …, it is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself” (Poster, 1988:167). Here we get to Baudrillard’s key idea, and he interrogates the conundrum of truth by proposing that in all the attempts to discover, measure, model (perhaps even control?) the truth it has in fact been lost, although this loss of truth is the one thing such systems cannot tolerate (since they lose credibility). I am reminded of the recent issue brought to a head in the House of Commons, where Members are not allowed to call one another a “liar” even if they have not told the truth – a decorum must be maintained, since without it the political fabric of the House, of Government itself, will crumble.

Perhaps the ultimate expression of this enigma is found in faith. Baudrillard discusses the danger of icons that are venerated and worshipped – they represent and yet ultimately reveal the truth that they are only icons – fronts to a system of Supreme Being who is shown to be absent.

My nephew-in-law is an academic studying the psychology of climate denial. There is perhaps the obvious reason that people do not want to give up their lifestyle (he has dramatically changed his and now lives in a vegan commune, but it is perhaps understandably hard to persuade everybody in this direction). Yet material desire, underpinned by advertising driven by aspirational and ultimately fake imagery – idolatry if you will – has strong parallels with religion here. Faith relies on overcoming doubt (a very understandable and now scientifically non-controversial doubt), and cannot exist in a climate of certainty. Similarly desire for objects quickly fades once satiated with the actual. A bigger question could be that in denying a Supreme Being and accepting the implications of the Anthropocene, do we take on an unbearable responsibility? Will we go to great lengths to avoid this burden, even to our own destruction? Or another take – we have replaced faith in God with faith in consumerism, but cannot replace this with any form of actualism based on climate evidence. Just as faith and material desire vanish when faced with the actual, it is impossible to replace a system based on simulation with one based on reality – it just does not live up to the hype(rreality). The absence of God implies the absence of Last Judgement and hence the absence of Truth. Has there ever been a reality we believe in? Reality changes every second – as soon as it is observed it is gone (interesting link with Time here). The observer changes reality by interacting with it, if only by defining a point in space and time at which it cannot be measured and still continue to be true (since it has been and gone). “When the real is no longer what it used to be, nostalgia assumes its full meaning” (Poster, 1998:171). History is not the same as Truth… Baudrillard proposes that representation and simulation are opposing systems … so are photographs representations of that which used to be true or simulations …?

Baudrillard suggests phases of the image, a construct which is particularly apt for advertising imagery:

1. It is the reflection of a base reality
2. It masks and perverts a base reality
3. It masks the absence of a base reality
4. It bears no reflection to any reality whatever – it is its own pure simulacrum

Baudrillard suggests Disneyland as a third order simulation presented as imagery in order to prove that the rest of America is real, when in fact it is hyperreal. Many definitions of the hyperreal reference back to Baudrillard, although others discuss it as an image or simulation … if an image is a (symbolic?) representation then the latter definition flattens these opposing (according to Baudrillard) systems into one?

Baudrillard suggests that capital fostered hyperreality by destroying use value. He may have a point here, although of course it depends how you define use value. Meta have invested billions in their version of hyperreality in the hope that people will spend time there rather than the real world, although so far the MetaVerse has proved too glitchy to be of use. While it has been difficult to realise, however, it is not hard to imagine a use value for things like remote shopping experiences that reduce travel (and environmental impact).

For Baudrillard work had begun to separate from production, leading to a scenario as opposed to an ideology of work. It is certainly possible to look back at the traditional values of this system with nostalgia (possibly the same nostalgia Baudrillard refers to earlier in the text) but also perhaps to consider this as a more wholesome approach to life (and work balance). For Baudrillard this new scenario system is in fact a power system and he questions its operation. But this is perhaps a blinkered view, ignoring for example the health knowledge and benefits of a modern economy.

“Capital, which is immoral and unscrupulous, can only function behind a moral superstructure and whoever represents this public morality spontaneously furthers the order of capital” (Poster, 1998:173). Perhaps capital is amoral not immoral? Alternate systems to capitalism propose a more just or fairer reality that conceals real decline due to the (immoral?) nature of humanity. In practice, therefore, Baudrillard’s argument would appear to hold more true for other systems than capital? His claim that “undoubtedly this will end up in socialism” (Poster, 1998:181) appears unsound.

Perhaps the precession of simulacra can be viewed as the art of the possible. The model maker’s art is refined until it achieves reality. From the visual data interpreter’s point of view, the signal and noise are indistinguishable – it is not that the noise drowns out the signal, more that they have become the same or at least perfectly aligned (from the observer’s position at least). Baudrillard continues by discussing the “impossibility of a determinate position of discourse” (Poster, 1998:176). Opposing systems such as nature and history (note – history=culture=human=non-nature?) are confused as if on opposite sides faces of a Moebius strip, becoming a continuum. NOTE – I have long argued that the acceptance of a scale or continuum in discourse is the key to acceptance and understanding of the other point of view…

“Illusion is no longer possible, because the real is no longer possible” (Poster, 1998:177). Only if everyone accepts that nothing is real? But if nothing is real, is everything not an illusion? You can stage an illusion if everyone knows it is one, for example a magic act?

Baudrillard is discussing the impossibility of staging a simulation – the point he wants to make is that it will be treated as real. Of course sometimes a simulation is designed to be treated as real, such as a fire drill. Baudrillard chooses the example of armed robbery, since this raises the stakes to make his point. Other examples (such as magic tricks) may not conform so easily to his idea?

Nevertheless the corollary he is aiming for is that if it impossible to isolate the simulation from the real, it becomes impossible to identify the real from the simulation. Taking this further, “all actions function as a set of signs, dedicated to their recurrence as signs, and no longer to their real goal at all” (Poster, 1998:179).

Hence Baudrillard reached his “own goal”. There is a double meaning to such a phrase – it seems clear that the argument does not quite hold together, at least in the mathematical sense that it is possible to raise concrete objections at each stage, whether to the economics or to the impossibility of illusion. But that is not necessarily the point – Baudrillard proposes a philosophical system that furthers our understanding of how the modern world operates, and there is certainly use value in that.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Poster, M. (1988) Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings. Oxford: Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers