Simulations (Foreign Agents Series)

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one of postmod's founding texts, tr various hands

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Customer Reviews

Review by Steven A. Peterson, 2007-01-02

Jean Baudrillard, postmodern thinker, despairs; he claims, in "Forget Foucault," that there is an "impossibility of any politics" in our current situation. An important part of this context are media simulations, of reality so obscured by the play of images completely unrelated to any "reality" which might be out there that we are hopelessly incapable of arriving at any judgments on which to base political decisions and actions. Images on television and in the movies and in other media are "floating signifiers," having no real connection to concrete referents. The key concept associated with Baudrillard is simulations and the simulacrum. He begins by quoting Ecclesiastes: "The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth that conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true" (by the way, this quotation may be a simulacrum; I could not find it in Ecclesiastes!). Simulations began historically as replicas of the real, as reflections of "reality." However, with time, simulations have become increasingly detached from concrete "real" references. Simulations do not have reference points or substance or any tie to "reality." Simulations have become "a real without origin or reality"--a hyperreal. We face a procession of images and simulations, and lose sight of the simple fact that they are "floating signifiers." The simulacra become real for us.

Put in post-structural (or postmodern) terms, the models created are floating signifiers (simulations in Baudrillard's terms) which structure people's discourse with one another and shape their behavior. Images become crucial in politics. After presidential debates or major policy speeches or elections, the "spin patrol" gets going. These are the spokespersons of the parties or candidates who try to convince the audience that their simulations of the event are better than their opponents' simulations. In the process, no one particularly cares what actually happened or what was said. It is the simulations pushed by the various actors that become the news.

Baudrillard's writing is challenging; many will write him off as an unreadable crank. Nonetheless, the underlying concept of the simulacrum is fascinating and generates much reflection. This is a postmodern work that may actually speak to some real world issues. . . .

Review by a reader, 2004-06-21

A very interesting read on the nature of reality. Baudrillard has a wonderful way of shuffling your thinking that can only be understood by reading his work first hand. I highly recommend this work, but I would suggest buying a different edition; the Semiotext edition fell to pieces the first time I read it.