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46 pages 1 hour read

Jean Baudrillard, Transl. Sheila Faria Glaser

Simulacra and Simulation

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1981

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Chapters 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 13 Summary: “Simulacra and Science Fiction”

Simulacra are pervasive and an inevitable part of the expansion of humanity. A simulacrum is a copy of a sign, often in a succession of copies, each losing a small piece of the original sign. Baudrillard divides simulacra into three categories. First, some simulacra are natural—direct copies of original reality. He describes these imitations as harmonious and ideal. Second, some simulacra are useful; they have a productive value. These are focused on globalization and order. Last, some simulacra are copies of the simulation. These are rooted in the saturation of information and technology, or the hyperreal. Each type of simulacra corresponds with a specific type of narrative: utopian, science fiction, or the death of narrative itself.

In the first type of reproduction, there is still some originality. A utopia is resurrected from the negation of the real. In science fiction, however, the real is reproduced, dramatized, and abstracted. In the final model, the original is completely absorbed in the implosive hyperreality. It has no connection to the real or imaginary. Humanity is unable to fully engage with science fiction as it moves into a realm of hyperreality. Baudrillard argues that people cannot imagine a world other than their own. The science fiction that is presented in movies and film is nothing more than a simulacrum, or a lesser copy of that which already exists.

Baudrillard explains that humans have always used the imaginary as an escape and a space in which to imagine something new. However, this is lost in hyperreality since the lines between the real and the unreal have become blurred.  He argues that science fiction will eventually succumb to the same implosive revolution of consumerism and reality. It will fragment the current hyperreality and reinforce it. This process is already occurring. Baudrillard states that it is difficult to distinguish between science fiction that reproduces hyperreality and that which warns against it. The implosive nature of the simulation means that every aspect of life is an amalgamation of science fiction and hyperreality.

Chapter 14 Summary: “The Animals: Territory and Metamorphoses”

Baudrillard looks at the animal world as another space that has been overrun by the effects of hyperreality. He delves into the history of people’s relationship with animals, which was originally seen as symbolic and divine. However, modern life, which is marked by the hyperreal, commodifies everything, including animals. Hyperconsumption led to hyperproduction, damaging the psyches of the animals themselves. Rabbits developed anxiety. Pigs became cannibals. Baudrillard offers these as examples of how hyperreality severs everything from original meaning.

He claims that animals offer insight into the ways that hyperreality has destroyed human life; the condition of animals in the contemporary age parallels that of people. Animals were bred in giant quantities and exploited. Baudrillard argues that this mirrors the relationship between industrialization and humanity. The need for a labor force led to a boom in population. Just as hyperproduction produced damaging mental effects in animals, industrialization damaged people’s physical and mental health.

Animals, too, have been subject to simulation. They are replaced by symbolic representations through images, toys, and zoo exhibits. Baudrillard believes that humans have something to learn from animals. He argues that the common idea that their status is below humans is akin to racism, and it is a failure to understand the complexities of their experience. Humans mythologize and symbolize animals to further distance their own experience from that of animals. Baudrillard sees this as another example of the absorption of violence in the hyperreal. The domestication of animals feels socially acceptable because it masks the reality of the violence that is being committed.

Chapter 15 Summary: “The Remainder”

In this chapter, Baudrillard takes the mathematical concept of the remainder and explains its relationship to hyperreality. He looks at the remainder as an image in the mirror. It denotes both what was once there in the original and what is missing in the reflection. Baudrillard uses the term to refer to what is left over in a simulation. Despite hyperreality’s greatest attempts, something of the original is always left behind because it does not fit into the simulation. This leftover, or residue, is unable to be absorbed into the hyperreal. Thus, he says that “[all] of the real is residual” (146).

Baudrillard proposes that what is left behind—the residual remainder—is highly important. Since it cannot be absorbed into the hyperreal, it is the only indicator of the simulation. Humans can use the remainder to remain rooted in their understanding of the distinction between the real and the hyperreal.

Chapters 13-15 Analysis

In this section, Baudrillard begins to explore what The Implosion of Consumer Culture and hyperrealities looks like. Hyperrealities, devoid of meaning and disconnected from reality, have no choice but to be self-referential. Simulacra are copies of copies, with each consecutive copy losing a small portion of the original until, finally, nothing of the original remains. Baudrillard claims that this gradual loss of meaning even erodes human thought, impacting people’s ability to think about the world in more generalized ways and to engage with the possibility of different types of existence.

Baudrillard identifies science fiction as a type of simulacrum: It copies reality while exaggerating specific aspects for examination and analysis. Take, for example, the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Many aspects of life in the fictionalized world that Bradbury creates mirror the historical context within which the book was written. Bradbury published the book in 1953. While the book exaggerates technological advancements that Bradbury found worrying about his time, it also reflects the social structures of the 1950s. Baudrillard claims that science fiction can only copy reality while hyperbolizing certain aspects of it; it cannot create new realities.

However, he says that the ability to engage with this exaggeration and to note the distinction between the fictionalized world and reality are important. Baudrillard presents a view of the future in which humans are not able to find the distinction between the two—the fictionalized world and the external hyperreality are the same. He says that they “are narrowly linked, and they are two versions of the same general process of implosion” (123). Their distinctions have fully collapsed. In a hyperreal world, the line between fiction and this hyperreality does not exist; they both exist within a self-referential framework that has severed all links with reality.

Animals offer insight into the effects of hyperreality. Baudrillard sees the subjugation and domestication of animals as an example of how hyperreality has desensitized humans to the experiences and lives of the animal world. He suggests that hyperreality will eventually lead humans down the same path—toward a total desensitization toward one another. This connects to his earlier arguments about the mythologization of history and the role of technology in perpetuating violence. As a result of Simulacra and the Loss of Meaning, people became distanced from the nature of humanity itself.

Amid this bleak vision of hyperreality, Baudrillard offers a glimmer of hope. He notes that simulacra always leave out a piece of the original reality. Just as in mathematics, where certain quantities are left over as remainders after division, these remainders persist as traces of the real that hyperreality cannot obliterate. Baudrillard argues that these remainders offer a reminder about the true nature of reality and the existence of hyperreality.

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