Simulacra and Simulation

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1981

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1

Chapters 2-5

Chapters 6-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-15

Chapters 16-18

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary: “The Precession of Simulacra”

In his opening chapter, Baudrillard claims that humans no longer live in a real, authentic world of experience. Instead, everything they encounter is either a copy of a real experience, or a copy of a copy, and so on—until it no longer resembles any aspect of the original. He terms these copies “simulacra.” The persistent abstraction caused by simulacra has destroyed the possibility of an authentic life, leaving behind a poor simulation, which he describes as “[the] desert of the real itself” (1). At first, the abstraction feels novel and exciting, as it did during the modernist movement. However, Baudrillard explains that the magic of abstraction is lost over time, and it begins to feel real. Humans lose the ability to differentiate between reality and simulation until, eventually, they find no difference at all. This forms the basis of Baudrillard’s concept of “hyperreality,” which he argues is the simulation that humans take as real.

Hyperreality differs from pretending or representation because it accepts the abstraction as truth. In a hyperreality, humans are surrounded by signs that merely symbolize other signs instead of tangible objects rooted in reality. Simulacra, the copies, have varying degrees of separation from the original. Each time a copy is made, part of the original is lost. This continues until the abstraction has no association with its original whatsoever. Baudrillard explains that a process occurs in which a profound reality is reflected and then masked. Soon, the absence of profound reality is masked as well, leading to a complete simulacrum—a copy that no longer has a relationship with its original. When this happens, the hyperreality has no connection to meaning or original reality.

Disneyland offers a model of simulacrum in action. The imaginary world presents copies of fantasies that were originally copies of fairy tales. Baudrillard traces these copies as an example of how the hyperreal eventually replaces reality. People who visit Disneyland purchase items and pay for experiences that have no relationship with the external world.

People construct these hyperrealities to replace authentic feeling and experience. The trick of hyperrealities is that they purport to somehow provide an alternative fantasy to a concrete reality. Baudrillard explains that places like Disneyland are intended to fool people into believing that everything outside of it is real. However, he argues that the world outside Disneyland is just as fabricated. Political scandals like Watergate and the ways politicians create narratives of villainization are examples of the pervasive power of simulacra.

Hyperreality has replaced the panopticon as a means of control. People do not need constant surveillance when they live in a hyperreality because their actions and judgments are influenced by the abstracted signs all around them. Rather than behaving out of fear, humans willingly comply with social expectations because they buy into the hyperreality presented to them. For this reason, the signs and symbols of power are more important than power itself.

Chapter 1 Analysis

In Chapter 1, Baudrillard adopts a postmodernist perspective as he argues that the world as humans perceive it no longer has any connection whatsoever to reality. Instead, they are living in a simulation that has lost all meaningful connection to what it once represented. For Baudrillard, Hyperreality and the Death of the Real leads to constant replacement and abstraction. He argues that the postmodern era is a hyperreality, devoid of meaning and originality. This hyperreality is made up of simulacra, or copies of copies of things that once represented profound reality. Baudrillard titles this chapter “The Precession of Simulacra,” and his use of the word “precession” is significant. He borrows the term from astronomy, where it describes the way gravity slowly changes the orbiting and rotational patterns of a planet. Baudrillard uses this term to explain how simulacra slowly and methodically change reality into a simulation. The term “precession” also relates to the word “precede,” meaning to come before. In the context of Baudrillard’s argument, it shows that simulacra precede reality, meaning that they shape and determine reality itself.

Baudrillard argues that the function of hyperreality is to maintain power and control. To build this idea, he references the panopticon, a concept made popular in 1975 by French philosopher Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. Foucault presented the panopticon—a prison design where a central guard can observe all inmates without being seen—as a model for how governments maintain control through surveillance. He said that the possibility of being watched compels individuals to conform and comply with societal rules and laws, even when no one is actually watching.

Baudrillard challenges Foucault’s ideas, arguing that in the hyperreal age, people no longer need to fear surveillance to be controlled. He believes that hyperreality is a highly effective tool of control. Through Simulacra and the Loss of Meaning, it shapes perceptions and emotions in ways that are difficult to resist or even notice. It creates an all-encompassing illusion of reality where meaning is lost. Baudrillard uses the example of Disneyland to show how hyperrealities manipulate the emotions and perspectives of people. He explains that the hyperreality of the theme park is intended to make the external world feel more real:

The world wants to be childish in order to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the ‘real world,’ and to conceal the fact that true childishness is everywhere—that is that of the adults themselves who come here to act the child in order to foster illusions as to their real childishness. (13)

Baudrillard explains that the distraction of Disneyland is intended to give the impression that real work and real life is taking place outside of it. However, he argues that the entire postmodern world is a hyperreality like Disneyland. It is a fabricated simulation of simulacra that has no connection to original reality. Baudrillard describes the attitude of adults within this hyperreality as “childishness” to show that adults accept it with childlike complacence, rather than any critical questioning. Disneyland, like all hyperrealities, functions as a distraction from the fact that hyperrealities have become pervasive to human life.