![]() ![]() ![]() You can see this in pop up ads and promos, all trying to out-gimmick the others. The impression left, and perhaps the one he intended, is that post-modern, post-structuralism humans live mostly in our own simulations, subject to chaotic flips in meaning as discordant images flash by. I could not follow many of Baudrillard reversals of logic. For Baudrillard, coupling sex and death in one emotional smash up invokes the full circle of life – but this combination didn’t particularly grip me. The plot hinges on people being sexually aroused by fatal car crashes, either as victims or as witnesses. Incidentally, Baudrillard did not mention The Matrix, but cited the 1996 British-Canadian movie, Crash, as one that approached seeing reality through the superficiality. He claims that hyperreality is the medium by which humans communicate, so it’s not new, but with modern media, we swim in an ocean of hyperreal nothingness. It’s like seeing a video of a resort only to find that the real resort, if such really exists, is much less elegant than the video. ![]() Its opening attributes to Ecclesiastes the observation that, “the simulacrum (a representation) never hides the truth – it is truth that hides the fact that there is none.” (I could not find this in Ecclesiastes, but suspect that Baudrillard refers to its refrain that of much study there is no end all is vanity.)īaudrillard harps on “hyperreality,” symbolism as in videos, whereby images seem more real than whatever they represent. Simulacra and Simulation is an eye glazer. Consequently he is an expert turning logic in loops, citing referential contradictions, and doubling logic back on itself. None of it may represent reality, if there is such a thing. Baudrillard posited that we create meaning only by symbols referencing other symbols in a pattern that makes sense to us. So if Simulacra and Simulation inspired The Matrix, what did the horse’s mouth say? Practically nothing that’s the point. The plot of The Matrix hinges on people being unaware that they are interacting with an alien, faux world, not reality, somewhat like Orwell’s 1984 earlier. This bores anyone not deep into philosophy, so why dig into it? Because Simulacra and Simulation is mentioned in the movie, The Matrix, which is becoming a classic among people questioning all authenticity in an on-line world, and this book partly inspired it. Jean Baudrillard was a French philosopher, a contributor to post-structuralism, along with the better-known Jacques Derrida. ![]()
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