26 November 2010

THIS IS A REAL IMITATION

According to Baudrillard, if I read him correctly, "simulacrum" is not only imitation of something that never existed, it is the process in which mediatization destroys any originals--they cease to "exist", even from being created in the first place outside of media (or at least we would never know, and value, them).

In this view, everything in a simulacrum society, at least all value and understanding of events, and life and reality itself, are simulacra.

Simulacrum, then, is not an imitation of something that never existed, it is all value that comes to exist in the first place. No imitation is needed (unless it reflexively imitates itself!); nothing else "exists" in society. He says America has already reached this state.

See the next report on the News at Five!

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