Baudrillard Simulacra

8/12/2019 Baudrillard Simulacra

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Smulacra anil Simulations t67&ru boqr\\. Ran ?ose,'l-Snfint unjrl. .simulacra and Simulations( ct-lS, gKThe simulacrum is never that which conceals the nuth - it is the rurhwhich conceals that there is none.The simulacrum is true' Eccresiastes

If we were able to take as the finest allegory of simulation the Borgestale where the canographers of the Empire draw up a map sodetailed that it ends up exactly covering the territory (but where,with the decline of the Empire this map becomes frayed and finallyruined, a few shreds still discernible in the deserts - the metaphysical beauty of this ruined abstraction, bearing wimess to an imperial pride and rorting like a carcass, returning ro rhe substance of rhesoil, rather as an aging double ends up being confused with the realthing), this fable would then have come full circle for us, and nowhas nothing but the discrete charm of second-ordcr simulacra.rAbstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, rhemirror or the concept. Simuladon is no longer thar of a rerritory, areferential being or a substancei.--lt is the generarion by models of areal without origin.or realiry: a hyperreal. The territry longerprecedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth, ii is the map thatprecedes the territory - precession of simulacra - it is the map thatengenders the territory and if we were to revive the fable today, itwould be the territory whose shreds are slowly roning across rhc' map. [t is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges subsist here andthere, in the deserts which are no longer those of the Empire, butour orvn. The desert of tbe real itself.ln fact, even invened, the fable is useless. Perhaps only the allegoryof the Empire remains. For it is with rhe same imperialism thatpresent-day simulators try to make the real, all the real, coincidewith their simulation models. But it is no longer a question of eithermaps or territory. Something has disappeared: the sovereign differenceberween them that was the abstraction's charm. For it is the difference

which forms the poetry of rhe map and the charm of theterritory, the magic of rhe conccpr and-the charm of the real. This

The divine irreference of images


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168 Simulacra and Simulations

i medicine? Dreans alreadY are.' The alienist, of course, claims rhat "for each form of the mentalalienation theie is a particular order in the succession of symptoms,of which the simulator is unaware and in the absence of which thealienist is unlikely ro be deceived.' This (which dates from 1865) inorder to save at n .ort the trurh principle, and to escape the specter

ntic symPtom. "lf he ecrs crezyis it mistaken: in the sense thatlack of distinction is the worstical reason armed itself with all

Simulacra and Simulatons 169its categories. But it is this today which again outflanks them,

uits,donanes

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170 Simulacra and Simulatiotsof power - the end of transcendence, which no longer serves as alibifor a strategy completely free of influences and signs. Behind thebaroque of images hides the grey eminence of politics.Thus perhaps at stake has always been the murderous capaciry ofimages: murderers of the real; murderers of their own model as theByzantine icons could murder the divine identity. To this murderouscapaciry is opposed the dialectical capacity of representetions as avisible and intelligible mediation of the real. All of Western faithand good faith was engaged in this wager on representation: that asign could refer to the depth of meaning, that a sign could. exchangefor meaning and that something could guarantee this exchange -God, of course. But what f God himself can be simulated, that isro say, reduced to the signs which attest his existence? Then thewhole system becomes weightless; it is no longer anything but agigantic simulacrum: not unreal, but a simulecrum, never againexchanging for what is real, but exchanging in itself, in anuninterrupred circuit without reference or circumference.So it is with simulation, insofar as it is opposed to representation.Representation sterts from the principle that the sign and the realare equivalent (even if this cquivalence is Utopian, it is a fundamenralaxiom). Conversely, simulation starts from the Utopia of this principleof equivalence, from the radical negotion of the sign as ualue, fromthe sign as reversion and death sentenc#of every reference. Whereasrepre5ehtation tries to absorb simulation by interpreting it asfalse representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice ofrepresentation as itself a simulacrum.These would be the successive phases of the image:1 It is the reflection of a basic reality.2 It masks and perverts a basic reality.3 It masks the bsence of a basic reality.4 It bears no relation to any realiry whatever: it is its own pure

simulacrum.f t" the first case, the image is a good appearance: the representationf__

is of the order of sacrament. In the second, it is zn eailappearance:of the order of male6ce. In the third, it plays at being an eppearance:it is of the order of sorcery. In the founh, it is,no longer in theorder of appearance at all, but bf simulation.The transition from signs which dissimulate something to signswhich dissimulate that there is nothing, marks the decisive tumingpoint. The first implies a theology of truth and secrecy (to whichthe notion of ideology still belongs). The second inaugurates an age

Simulacra and Simulatots I t to[ simuacra an simu\ation, in which there is no \onger ""y 9odto judgement to separte truth. fromfa resurrection, since everything isal t'it u"d to be, nostalgia assumesits full meaning. There is aroliferation of myths of origin.andSn'of reality; of second-hand truth, obiectiviry and authentrctty' I hereir "" .tf"tion of the true, of the lived experience; a resurrectionf .ir.-ngri"tive where rhe obiect and substance have disappeared.rr.t.r is a panic-stiicken prduction of the real and the referendal,;-";;i.f . the panic of material production. This is row;;"di." pp."r, in the'phase that conceins us: a strategy of the;."1, ;;*.;ind nyf.it."i, *hos. universal double is a strategy ofdeterrence.

HYPerreal and imaginary

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172 Simulacra and Simulationsrowards the imagina :'l':":::::';:",e a rearity 0...;;in distress.Th denunciation of.scandal always pays homage to the law. Andwaterbo-vdli-iticeded in impsiig ihe id"ea that Watergateutas a scandal - in this sense'it was an extraordinary operation ofintoxication: the reinjection of a large dose of political morality ona global scale. It could be said along with Bourdieu that: "The jspcific characer of every relation of frce is to dissimulare itself as /,such, and to acquire all its force only because it is so dissimulated"; 'understood as follows: capital, which is immoral and unscrupulous,can only function behind a moral superstructure, and whoeverregenerates this public morality (by indignation, denunciation, etc')spontaneously furthers the order of capital, as did the WashingtonPosf journalists.But this is still only the formula of ideology, and when Bourdieuenunciates it, he takes "relation of force' to mean the truth of.capitalist domination, and he denounces this relation of force asitself a scandal: he therefore occupies the same deterministic andmoralistic position as the W4sr2ington Post journalists. He does thesame iob of purging and reviving moral order, an order of truthwherein the genuine symbolic violence of the social order isengendered, well beyond all relations of force, which are onlyelements of its indifferent and shifting configuration in the noraland political consciousnesses of people.All that capital asks of us is to receive it as rational or to combatit in the name of rationaliry, to receive it as moral or to combat itin the name of moraliry. For they are identical, meaning tbey canbe read another way: bef.ore, the task was to dissimulate scandal;today, the task is to conceal the fact that there is none.Warte is not a scandal: this is what must be said at all cost,for this is what everyone is concerned to conceal, this dissimulationmasking a strengthening of morality, a moral panic as we approachthe primal (mise-en-)scene of capital: its instantaneous cruelry; itsincomprchensible ferocity; its fundamental immoraliry - these arewhat are scandalous, unaccountable for in that system of moral andeconomic equivalence which remains the axiom of leftist thought,from Enlightenment theory to communism. Capital doesn't give a lidamn about the idea of the conact which is imputed to it: it is a .'monstrous unprincipled undertaking, nothing more. Rather, it is"enlightened' thought which seeks to control capital by imposing irules on it. And all that recrimination which replaced revolurionarythought today comes down to reproaching capital for not followingthe rules of the game. *Power is unjust; its justice is a class justice;

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Utopies, digest of theto Ameri lized transpo- To be su ceals someth" blanker ro cover o

The Disneyland imaginary is neither rrue nor false: it is a deterrencemachine ser up in order to rejuvenate in reverse the fiction of thereal. Whence the debility, the infandle degeneration of this imaginary.It is meant to be an infantile world, in order to make us believe thatthe adults are elsewhere, in the 'real' world, and to concear thefact that real childishness is everywhere, particularly among thoseadults who go rhere ro act rhe child in oider to foster iltuJi,ons oftheir real childishness.

which is norhingon picturc, needsfaked phanrasms

Political incantationWatergate. Same scenario as Disneyland (an imaginary effecrconcealing that reality no more exists outside than inside the boundsof the_artificial perimeter): though here it is a scandal-effect concealingthat there is no difference between the facts and their denunciatioemployed by the CIoperation, though thregenerate a moral

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174 Simulacra and Simulatiotsi capital exploits us; etc.' - as if capital were linked by a contract toth society it rules. lt is the left which holds out the mirror of,equivalence, hoping that capital will fall for this phantasmagoria ofl ttre social contiact and fulfill its obligation towards the whole of'; sociery (at the same time' no need for revolution: it is enough thatd capital eccept the rational formula of exchange).-Capital in fact has never been linked by a contract to the societyit dorninates. It is a sorcery of the social relation, it is a challengeto socety and should be responded to as such. lt is not a scandalto be deiounced according t moral and economiiinl-, buta challen$'t take u'acrding to symbolic lw.'' -

Moebius: sPiralling negativitYHence Watergate was only a tr^P set by the system to catch itsadversaries - L-srmglaiqn. of sandal to regenerative ends. This isembodied by th character called "Deep Throat," who was said tobe a Republican grey eminence manipulating the leftist journalistsin ordei to get rid of Nixon - and why not? All hypotheses repossible, although this one is superfluous: the work of the Right ison. u.ry we[, nd spontaneously, by the Left on its own. Besides,it would be naive to see an embittered good conscience at workhere. For the Right itself also sPonteneously does the work of theLeft. All the hypotheses of manipulation are reversible in an endlesswhirligig. For manipulation is a floating causality -where-positivityand ngtivity .ttgend.r and overlap with one another; where thereis no lnger any active or passive. It is by puning an arbitrary stopto this revolving causality that a principle of political realiry can besaved. It is by the simulation of a conventional, restricted perspectivefield, where the premises and consequences of any act or event arecalculable, that po[tical credibiliry can be maintained (including,of course, "obiective' analysis, struggle, etc.) But if the entire cycleof any cr or event is envisaged in a system where linear continuiryand ialectical polarity no -longer exist, in a 6eld unbinged by, simulation, then-all determination evaporates, every- act terminatesi at the end of the cycle having b:neted everyone and been scattercd'.\ in all directions.\v Is any given bombing in ltaly the work of leftist exrremists; or ofextr.- right-wing provocation; or staged by centrists to bring everyterrorist .t.-. it disrepute and to shore up its own failing po\rrer;or again, is ir a police-inspired scenario in order to appeal to callsfor p"ublc security? All this is equally true, and the search for proof

Simulacra and Simulations 175- indeed the objectiviry of the fact - does not check this vertigo ofinterpretatio". lL "t. i. " logic of simulation which has nothing todo *ith a logic of facts and an order of reesons. Simulation is.h"r".t.rir.d 6y a precession of tbe model, of all models around theIn.r"* fact - the models come first, and their orbital (like the bomb)circulation constitutes the genuine magnetic field of events. Facts nolonger have any trajectory f their own, they arise at the.intersecdonof ihe modelsi"

titgl.-fact may even be engendered- by all themodels ar once. This nticipation, this precession, this short-circuit,this confusion of the fact with its model (no rnore divergence ofmeaning, no more dialectical polarity, no more 1regaliu9 electriciryor implsion of poles) is whai each time allows for all the possibleinterpetationr, u.r, the most contradictory - all are-true, in thesens that their truth is exchangeable, in the image of the modelsfrom which they proceed, in a generalized cycle.The communisti a*ack rhe socialist parry as though they wantedto shatter rhe union of the Left, They sanction the idea that theirredcence stems from e more radical political exigency. [n fact, it isbecause they don't wanr power. But do they not- want it at. thisconiuncmre because it is unfavorable for the Left in general, orbecuse it is unfavorable for them within the union of the Left - ordo they not vrnt it by de6nition? lflhen Berlinguer declares, "'We.urmt be frightened of seeing rhe communists seize power in ltaly,"this means simultaneously:1 That there is nothing to fear, since rhe communists, if they cometo power, will change nothing in its fundamental capitalistmechanism.2 That there isn't any risk of their ever coming to Power (for theeason that they don't want to); and even if they do take it up,they will only ever wield it by proxy.3 Tht in fact po*"t, genuine )ower' no longcr exists, and hence

there is no risk of anybody seizing it or taking it over'4 But more: I, Berlinguer, am not frightened of seeing. thecommunists seize power in ltaly - which might appear evident,but not so evident, since:5 It can also mean the contrary (no need for psychoanalysis here):I am frightened of. seeing the communists seize Power (and withgood reason, even for a communist).All the above is simulnneously true. This is the secret of adiscourse'that is no longer only ambiguous, as political discoursescan be, but thar conveyJ the impossibility of a determinate position


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176 Simulacra and Simulotionserminate Position of discourse'arrY' lt traverses all discourses

wents,fascistdesire

Simulacra and Simulations 117

StrategY of the real


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Simulacra and Smulations l8t180 for sociedes without power: this has.already given rise, to fascism,;h;,;;;;;se of a p*ttrtr referential in a societv which cannotSimulacra attd Simulations

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182 Smulacra and Simulatonsto say melodrama) of production, collective dramaturgy upon theempty stage of _rhe social.li i.s n9 longer a quesrion of the ideology of work - of thetraditional ethic that obscures rhe "real" labour process and rhe'objective" process of exploitation - but of the scenario of work.,i Likewise, it is no longer a question of tlC-TeTffi-oaorver, buti of the .scmario of po.r. Ideology only correspoi', ,o'" betrayalof reali corrspons to a short-circuit of r."iryand ro grs. It is always th iiri of ideologicalanalysi ve process; it is atways a false prol.rnto want to restore the truth beneath the simulacrum... This is ultimately why power is so in accord with ideologicaldiscourses and discourses on ideology, {'or these are all discours oftruth - always goodr- even and- especially if they are revolutionary,to counter the mortal blows of imulation.

Notes1 counrerfeit and reproduction imply alweys an anguish, a disquietingforeignness: the uneasiness befort the photographl considered'like awitch's trick - and more generally before-any technical apparatus, whichis always a -epparatus of reproduction, is relared by njamin'ro theuneasiness before the mirror-image. There is already ior...y at work inthe mirror, But how much morc so when this imge can be detachedfrom rhe miiror and be transported, stocked, reprodced at wtll (c. Thestudent of Pragu.e, where the devil detaches the image of the sudentto death by the intermediary of thiserefore a kind of black magic, fromwn image in the warer, Iike Narcissus,

back or this vast technicar "oo",lTl :::i"uhm:'#image (the narcissistic mirage of tcchnique, Mcluhaij and rhat rerurnsto him, cancelled and distorted - endless reproduction of himself and hiss diabolical in its verylate. This has hardlyas the operation of thee irn i tative . b, lJ'r'jt ;:'i':i: :_ lnr.g. of photo) always had as obiective an opeiation of black imagc.2 There is furthermore in Monod's book a flagrant contradiction, *i.hreflects the ambiguity of all currer t science. Ii, dir.ourr. conc.-r th.code, that is but it does so still according to'scientific' s _ objectiveness, .sciend6c" ehicof knowledg rf truth and transcendence. All thingsincompatible with rhe indeterminable models of the rhird-order.

Simulacra and Simulations 1833 'lt's the fceble 'denition' of TV which condemns its sPectator torearranging the few points retained into a kind of abstract work. Heparticipates suddenly in the creation of a realiry that was only iustpresented to him in dots: the television watcher is in the position of anindividual who is asked to project his own fantasies on inkblos that rcnot supposed to represent anything.' TV as pcrpctual Rorshach test. Andfurthermorc: 'Thc TV imagc requires each instant rhat we 'close' thespaces in the mesh by a convulsive sensuous pardcipation that isprofoundly kinetic and tactile.'4 *The Medium is the Message" is the very slogan of the political economyof rc sign, when it cntcrs into the third-order simulation - the disrinctionbeween the medium and the message characterizes instead significationof the second-order.5 The entire current 'psychological" situation is characterized by this shon-circuir.Doesn't emancipation of children and teenagers, oncc the initial phaseof revolt is passed and once therc has bcen established the principle ofthe ight to emancipation, seem like the real emancpation of Prents-And the young (students, high-schoolers, adolescents) seem to sense it intheir always more insistent demand (though still as paradoxicl) for theprcsencc and advicc of parents or of teachers. Alone at last, free andresponsiblc, i seemed to them suddenly that other people possibly havcabsconded with their true liberty. Therefore, there is no question of"leaving them be.' They're going to hassle them, not with any emotionalor material sponraneous demand, but with an exigency that hasbeen premeditated and corrected by an implicit oedipal knowledgc.Hyperdependence (much greater than before) distored by irony andrefusal, parody of libidinous original mecbanisms. Demand withoutcontent, without referent, unjustified, but for all that all the more severe- naked demand with no possible enswer. The contents of knowledge(teaching) or of affective relations, rhe pedagogical or familial referenthaving been eliminated in the act of emancipation, there remains only adcmand linked to the empty form of the institution - perverse dernand,and for that reason all the more obstinate. "Transferable' desire (that isto sey non-referential, un-referential), desire thet has been fed by lack,by the place left vacant, "liberated,' desire capturcd in its own vertiginousimage, desire of desire, as pure form, hyperreal. Dcprived of symbolicsubstance, it doubles back upon itself, draws its energy from its ownreflection and its disappointment with itself. This is literally today the*demandr' and it is obvious that unlike the "classical" obiective ortransferable relations this one here is insoluble and intcrminable.Simulated Oedipus.Franois Richard: 'students asked to be seduced either bodily orverbally. But also they arc aware of this and thcy play the game, ironically-'Give us your knowledge, your presence, you have the word, speak, youare rhere for rhat.' Contestation certainly, but not only: the more authoriry


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184 Simulacra anil Simulatiotsis contested, vili6ed, the greater the need for authoriry as such. Theyplay at Oedipus also, to dcny it all rhe more vehemently, The 'teach;,he's Daddy, they say; it's fun, you play ar incesr, malaise, the untouchable,at being a rease - in order ro de-sexualize finally." Like one underanalysis who asks for Oedipus back again, who tells the "oedipal' srories,who has the 'analytical" dreams ro satisfy the supposed request of thenalyst, or ro resisr him? In thc same way the sudcnt goes rhrough hisoedipal number, his seduction number, gets chummy, close, approches,dominates - but this isn't desire, it's simulation. Oedipal psychodrama

- exacerbated and parodied simulation at one and the same ime - esinterminable as psychoanalysis and for the same rcasons.The interminable psychoanalysis.There is a whole chapter to add ro the history of rrensference andcountertransference: rht of their liquidadon by simularion, of thcimpossible psychoanalysis because it is itself, from now on, tharproduces and reproduces rhe unconscious as its instirurional substance.Psychoanalysis dies also of the exchange of rhe signs of. the unconscious.Just as revolution dics of the exchange of the crirical signs of politicaleconomy. This shon-circuit was well known to Freud in the form of the

becomes unfindable - according to he samc scenario of simulativeanticipation that we have seen at work on all levels with the machinesof the third ordcr. The analysis tren can no longer end, it bccomcslogically and historically interminable, since it stabilizes on a pupper-substance of reproduction, an unconscious programmed on demad - animpossiblc-to-brcak-through poinr around which the whole analysis isrearranged. The mcssages of the unconscious have been shon-circuiteddinal hyperrealism. To thed the imaginary, it is goingcaptures and obstructs thefunctioning of the three orders-6 Athenian democracy, much more advanced han our own, had reachedthe point where the vote wes considered as paymenr for a service, afterall orher rressive solurions had been tried and found wanting in orderto insure a quonm.

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Baudrillard Simulacra