Philosophical Rogues and Antiheroes of the Intellectual. Jean Baudrillard (part 2)

(Image Adrian Glass)

"Everywhere one seeks to produce meaning, to make the world signify, to render it visible. We are not, however, in danger of lacking meaning; quite the contrary, we are gorged with meaning and it is killing us."

Jean Baudrillard was born in 1929, Reim, France.  Showing an interest in Philosophy and of course that would be namely French philosophy in high school, he graduates, teaching German literature.  He then later attends the Paris Nanterre University, as a sociological teacher from that point Bauldrillard begins to manifest, during the early 1960s, the key elements to his early writing and books, drawing his early facination with Paratphysics (a satirical viewpoint on alternate physics) and postmodern and Marxist thought.  The leaning  towards the left wing or Marxist ideology was clear in the early parts of his career, at a time when France during the 1960s was in turmoil, the unpopular Algerian/French war, student riots and the collapse of the Franc against the US dollar (inflation).  It sets the ground for revolutionary ideas, which was heavily influenced by early French Utopian theory of the 1800s.  The intertwining of rejecting modernist aesthetics and embracing it with postmodern theory hinged almost entirely on Marxism (as a base), which spreads throughout the Universities of France solidifying its adhoc ground work of theory  – despite its obscurity in clarification of what it actually means.   It is fixed to the idea of revolution, the removing of capitalism and the imprint of a society based solely on capital and trade. To implement a new directive beyond semantics and symbolism.  Which, later after his split with so called postmodern and Marxist philosophers, Bauldrillard explained that would be impossible to achieve, as described in his later writings – that the formulation of opposite ideologies would end up becoming the same.  The confusion of postmodern ideas of replaced semantics and Marxist rhetoric, begins to overlay in conjunction with conservative viewpoints.  To which Bauldrillard commented “...We live in a world where there is more and more information and less and less meaning.”   His moving away from left wing ideologies in the later part of his career, was to accommodate a more defining viewpoint of his theory of a simulated reality or hyper-reality.  The critique from his former peers, that he ended up attracting, ironically, adding further to the obscurity of French philosophy  - which within its irony added to the disdain Bauldrillard had towards his peers.  Retiring in 1987 he untangled from the  messiness  of postmodern ramblings (confined to the Universities), to formulate a simplified theory of his famed sociological inspired writings of the erosion of truth via rapid media duplication. Further critiques of Bauldrillard before his death had him confined within the fictional based world of writing.  That l feel he didn't care even if he was reclassified, his deflating of French philosophy meant a rise in popularity in America.  Which, one could assert that all philosophy is a form of fiction.  Not as decisive as science, but still holds, at times, a relevancy.   The philosopher and even the scientist (at least it can be tested) can fall into Kanji (illusion of thought).

Baudrillard set the tone of theory from his now famous book Simulacra and Simulation (1981), with follow up papers and lectures thereafter.  Was his attempt at showing the discourse and the breaking down on reality through media consumption, the Simulacrum (Latin) is a duplication of what is real or what was once real.  A copy.  The Simulation is a repetition of that copy under a simulated reality or a reality that is now simulated.   For Bauldrillard as we became more  attune to the digital era, he decreed that the media, as an overlapping simulation  of copies, begins to further and further remove itself from the original concept or "map".   Yet, the truth remains concealed beneath its simulation.   His theory of a simulated reality and hyper reality is the adjustment to political and social thought, Establishing a fixture that if one stands back from the hyper reality, one may able to discern what lies beneath – that society is “frozen” in its collapse.   It is only the the simulation that is reconfigured as its apparent normalcy, but, the flux of media in a constant over-layering, is now stuck on re-loop.   As Bauldrillard once said, in relation to the attacks on America 9/11 the aim of the terrorist, is the use of Western technology against the West, to assist the onset of, quote: “...and excess of reality (post digital age) and have that system collapse beneath the weight.”    Although slightly ambiguous in his opinion of the attacks, Bauldrillard never the less received a lot of criticism for over theorizing the attacks on the World Trade Center.   And these critiques against Bauldrillard maybe warranted.  However it is a fascinating as aspect of a thinker, who started from the postmodern and Marxist mindset and settled into his own design of philosophy, rejecting and criticizing everything as a resembling copy of everything else.  From the right and left of politics to the over consumption of media idealism in a quest for meaning, consumes itself and becomes meaningless.  The influences of science fiction are evident in his theories of Simulacra and Simulation.  The block buster 1999 movie "The Matrix", utilizes and cites Bauldrillard work as a main influence, despite Bauldrillard  at the time holding very little connection to his theory and the movie's fictional premise.   But, it does correlate, as early French science fiction writers had an significant impact on Hollywood – introducing the concept art via post dystopian collapsed and retrofitted cities seen in "Blade Runner" (1981).  The simulation theory, with social political hinges was actually devised by an American, more so the use of simulated reality to test advertising in “The Tunnel under the World” (1954) by the late Frederik Pohl.

Bauldrillard, towards the end of his life, in sentiment, appeared to have simplified his reasoning. The convoluted thought processing of philosophy, that at times ends up going around in circles dissipated.  

“Smile and others will smile back. Smile to show how transparent, how candid you are. Smile if you have nothing to say. Most of all, do not hide the fact you have nothing to say nor your total indifference to others. Let this emptiness, this profound indifference shine out spontaneously in your smile.”

So, maybe we are all living in a simulation or as Jean Bauldrillard explains a simulacrum of signs and information, inflated capitalism, tuned into socialist and collectivist idealism all vexed into a automated  process of dissemination.   And the collapse has already happened.     

If that is the case,  then we should just sit back with the popcorn and just enjoy the show.