/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14251257]

Redpill me on Baudrillard please

[Anonymous No.14251298]

>>14251257
Be genuine

[Anonymous No.14251309]

>>14251257
Nihilism is inevitable.
Meaning is dead, meaning is lost.
The world and politics are kinda theatre, as the entity behind it does not die.
Capitalism is a failure, and contradictory, but is still alive somehow.
Shits all fucked up yo.

[Anonymous No.14251412]

>>14251309
But he postulates the modern simulation as hiding the lack of reality, in contrast to what?
He never really states what was 'real'

[Anonymous No.14251419]

>>14251412
>in contrast to what?
Napoleonic ontology

[Anonymous No.14251420]

>The beauty of the Black and Puerto Rican women of New York. Apart from the
sexual stimulation produced by the crowding together of so many races, it must be
said that black, the pigmentation of the dark races, is like anatural make-up
that is set off by the artificial kind to produce a beauty which is not sexual, but
sublime and animal - a beauty which the pale faces so desperately lack.
Whiteness seems an extenuation of physical adornment, a neutrality which,
perhaps by that very token, claims all the exoteric powers of the Word, but
ultimately will never possess the esoteric and ritual potency of artifice.

>In New York there is this double miracle: each of the great buildings and each
of the ethnic groups dominates or has dominated the city - after its own
fashion. Here crowdedness lends sparkle to each of the ingredients in the mix
whereas elsewhere it tends to cancel out differences. In Montreal, all the same
elements are present - ethnic groups, buildings, and space on the grand
American scale - but the sparkle and violence of American cities are missing.

[Anonymous No.14251429]

>>14251257

[Anonymous No.14251435]

>>14251412
How do you address what is real if you've only ever observed perfect simulacra?

[Anonymous No.14251445]

>>14251412
The idea of the modern simulation is rooted in Debord. Debord wrote in Society of the Spectacle about the idea that images have become the prevalent form of expression. Images and advertising become prevalent since we are exposed to them, and adapted by them. Baudrillard also believed in the existance of a fourth value, deriving from marx theory of value, that any commodity has a value tied to it intrinsically. But he added a fourth called "Sign-value" which is best expressed by, lets say, fashion. Look at designer clothing or the Supreme brick, which is by no means of a "greater quality" than a normal one, yet people still pay thousands of dollar for it, since it is associated with an image associated with something. Baudrillard means that the contemporary condition of society is getting lost in our own inventions in a way, that the prevalence of images is causing us harm.

[Anonymous No.14251457]

>>14251420
>copy
>paste in searchbar
>click empty spot on page
>click searchbar
>copy
Now you have formatted version.

[Anonymous No.14251460]

>>14251435
If we can't know of reality, then on what basis does Baudrillard assume that there ever was a baseline reality?

[Anonymous No.14251468]

>>14251445
what is defined as 'images'? If any depiction or description of anything 'real' is considered negative, then surely a philosophical text is an 'image' as well. Tracing his musings to a logical point of origin, it's basically 'feeling is good, thinking is bad'.

[Anonymous No.14251471]

>>14251457
im busy

[Anonymous No.14251480]

>>14251460
He doesn't. A simulacrum is an image that "bears no relation to any reality whatever."

[Anonymous No.14251490]

I didn't understand it

[Anonymous No.14251495]

>>14251445
>the prevalence of images is causing us harm.

Metaphysics.

[Anonymous No.14251538]

>>14251480
yes but to discern 'hyperreality', you have to admit to an existence of a 'reality' at some point. So, if Baudrillard has never experienced 'reality', how does he know that there ever was one? And if he doesn't, then the entire idea of simulacra becomes entirely pointless and hypothetical

[Anonymous No.14251580]

>>14251538
>yes but to discern 'hyperreality', you have to admit to an existence of a 'reality' at some point.
These are suppositions on your part that should bear your parsing out. Don't take them for granted.

And while I suspect you're merely taking the piss here, I'll continue with some due diligence. For Baudrillard, hyperreality isn't some supplement, some "added onto" reality. It's the procession of signs that people take for real, so—as with simulacra—it doesn't require a referent; so no, Baudrillard wouldn't need to admit to a reality. Reality is rather beside the point.

[Anonymous No.14251649]

>>14251298
Isn't his point that it is impossible?

[Anonymous No.14251685]

>>14251429
shit take clearly hasnt read him

[Anonymous No.14251717]

>>14251580
If reality is beside the point, then what is the point? What are the ramifications of simulacra, of hyperreality?
Is it just a masturbatory exercise?

[Anonymous No.14251853]

>>14251717
I read simulacra and simulation about ten years ago, but I still remember the gist of it:

Basically, a simulacra is a simulation of a copy of something that never existed. A local example of where I'm from is found in the town of Sister's Oregon. It's a simulacra because, although it's origins are that of an "old west" trading post, the modern buildings are not authentic, rather they are copies created by hipsters in the effort to commodify the town's heritage. So you will see log cabins and cowboy memorabilia, so of it even authentic, but it's been presented in such a way to embody an idealized past, but a past that never truly existed, because it's a copy of what we thought the past was like, rather than what it actually was like.

So in this case, there is a perceived distinction between authentic "reality" and the simulation, or rather simulacra of what we think reality is like.

Another example of simulacra is an Italian restaurant in England demonstrating its authentic "Italianess" with murals of the Godfather. This kind if cargo culture of symbols actually betrays how authentically Italian the place is, but to those who consider the spectacle of the Godfather to imbue the true nature of Italian, then the simulacra works.

[Anonymous No.14251868]

>>14251717
>>14251853

Continuing.

I think what he might of meant by saying that reality is beside the point, is not that there is no reality, but to say that the point is that the way we mediate reality is through hyper reality. Reality exists, but as a species that communicates through symbols, we can at best only approximate reality. Therefore, hyperreality is the way we experience meaning, but we can still abstractly think that behind the symbology, there is a true reality beyond the mediation of symbols.

At least that's what I got out of it.

[Anonymous No.14251871]

>>14251853
Yeah, these are all fairly obvious.
But Baudrillard postulates that the entirety of today's reality is a simulacrum - a veil of symbolism meant to hide that what it's symbolizing no longer exists - that's hyperreality.

My question was - what does Baudrillard define as "reality"? Because you would have to have some sense of reality to postulate that it's gone - especially since Baudrillard has a history of claiming that things are defined by contrast (so you can't define something as a simulacrum if you don't define reality).
The poster I've previously responded to says that there is no need for reality to have ever existed to claim that we live in a hyperreality now, which in my mind begs the question - then what the fuck is the point of Simulacra and Simulation? If the distinction can't be made (or is meaningless), then it's all just Baudrillard stroking his intellectual cock to something that has absolutely no consequence.

[Anonymous No.14251878]

>>14251868
>Reality exists, but as a species that communicates through symbols, we can at best only approximate reality.
This goes completely against the primary postulate of the book - the fact that, over time, simulacra do not exist to represent something else, but exist to hide the fact that that thing does not exist.
The assertion that "reality" doesn't exist anymore is made pretty clear in Simulacra and Simulation

[Anonymous No.14251899]

Sounds like poor man's Neoplatonism, specifically Damascius' Problems and Solutions