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Simulacra and Simulation (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism) By Jean Baudrillard ( University of Michigan Press )
Release Date: 1995-02-15
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Product Description
The first full-length translation in English of an essential work of postmodernist thought.
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 MA(t)R(i)X : Not Sci-Fi, Post-Marxist ( mikyruiz )
I read this little book years ago as part of my grad studies. It is amazing to me how accurate many of Baudrillard's observations have proven to be. It's as if he were some kind of Prophet (LOL!). But, seriously, the loss of Reality is embodied in many different ways. Our use of the Internet is the number one example. Many forms of Virtual reality such as Reality TV, Chatrooms, Avatars, Online dating, even the Fashion industry qualify.
As for Desert of the Real, let me give you this example: Just 2 weeks ago I arranged a flight and never had to make any contact with anyone. I ordered my ticket online, printed it out, took it to a self-check-in machine, punched in my numbers, got a boarding pass, and walked on the plane. I have to admit I missed the human contact. But such is the post-Modern condition. Of course, there were people on the plane, but no individual attention, only contact as a group. Another example: Video games, email, Demographics, credit cards and direct deposit, Hollywood (originator of the Virtual), Celebrity culture (ex: Why is it that when they use certain people in a commercial they include the phrase "Real people, not actors"? Aren't actors real?), Paparrazzi, the Digital revolution. I could go on listing the many Virtual worlds we inhabit, but suffice it to say they are self-generating!
If you plan on reading this book, do yourself a favor and forget the Matrix (great movie, though). This is very real, Hyper-Real. Read Marxist ideology and some Existentialist "Being and Nothingness" Sartre, after reading Plato and Kant, and you wont be so put off by the big ideas. Baudrillard describes a world based on economic relationships only, and as such it is a system of objects, based on nothing but Material gains. To many this describes an impoverished system, morally bankrupt and soulless. Baudrillard is suspicious and critical of Capitalist Democracies and Socialism. He sometimes implies that Anarchy is the only way out of this Technocratic Police State we have so far evolved into.
In this scenario the invisible ruling class controls the masses with its House of Mirrors. Baudrillard seems to be saying we either join the Dance of the Marionettes, revel in our liscentious artificiality or smash the Glass House, being careful enough to move out of the way of the falling shards. Shiva must be allowed his Dance of Destruction before Vishnu can be born again to save the world, sayeth Brahma. But even such an allusion to an Ancient religion crumbles in the face of the Hyper-Real.
It is our physical connections to our bodies that we must not negate, negotiate, or re-imagine (but, we do). And that is the exchange-value for our status within this system of objects. It is also the original site of our Loss. Only a jarring blow to the body can wake us from our complacent complicity in doing violence to the Real. Violence is as real as it gets. Do damage to a physical body and there will be a reaction. Do violence to the State as a body and you partake in the Virtual discourse that is Politics.
If only I could truly understand all the delicious ironies and nuances in the French language. Bad translations are all we deserve. Great writing, forever misread, generates even more writing, cleverly said. I suspect the French don't truly want to be translated by the English, but that is an old war and I've always been the paranoid sort.
Not really as dense as many would have you believe. Blinded by the Light is more like it. Keep reading.
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Good read.
If I hadn't already taken a look at nihilism and sociology years before, this book might've been too much of a read for me. I agree with all of what was covered. If it's a bit too "crazy" for you, try not to approach this book with your socialface on. Save that face for when you're with your friends, at work, or with family.
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 If you must read it, borrow not buy. ( trufiend138 )
Although this is a very original work I cannot help to think that maybe it would of been better as a single short essay, and not some elaborate spiel hoping to convince the reader of his correctness. Maybe much of the thesis is lost in translation, maybe not and it is an uninteresting read.
Granted simulation is often accepted as THE reality by much of the masses, worldly prose is not the solution. Philosophy should be something everyone (with a 11th grade public education) can understand, appreciate, and apply to their own lives. This book, although initially provoking becomes trivial, it writes itself out of its own existence. The only reason why the book will endure is it has much originality but overall I agree with the reviewer who stated that a person would be better off reading "green eggs and ham"...
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 Caveat emptor(s): ( aquaticmarsupial )
1. The first two chapters are more or less verbatim permutations of his 'Simulations', which this reviewer finds more substantial, though this book contains a few elaborations that are left aching for in Simulations. In every other respect, the first two chapters say little that Baudrillard had not already accomplished in previous publications in greater depth. The possible advantage herein could be lie in that the less extensive use of Semiotical and Marxist concepts may make this more accessible. But this assumes the utility of accessibility. Elsewise, the Semiotext(e) translation of 'Simulations' was more than adequate, you may just want to start there.
2. This text will likely be indecipherable jabberwocky to anyone not acquainted with Semiology and economics. Furthermore, if these thing bore or otherwise hold no relevance to one, there is no real point in reading any of Baudrillard unless one is in possession of a patience willing to wade through some genre specific terminology and verbiage to get some cultural and social analysis out of it; those critiques stand on their own for the most part.
3. The Matrix: low relevance to the film, his earlier writings are more radical.
4. Baudrillard has little reverence for the institutions of Socialism and Democracy, reading this may infuriate or otherwise cause a lapse of faith in those deus ex machinas.
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 surprising ( grace00_uk2 )
Fell into this straight away, Used to reading similar but find it hard to read heavy theory, this was surprisingly easy to read, although some of the ideas are extreme, a lot can be taken from them and i look forward to reading every last word. truly tasty
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