Tuesday Sept 28

Today in class we began to talk about Baudrillard. I found Baudrillard's theory of the real very interesting and true. To us, real is what we define it as internally. We defined the simulacra as something that simulates something that already exists, a likeness of something that may have no connection to something that is real.

The example that was used was the mini Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas. Some people who see the mini Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas believe that since it simulates the real Eiffel Tower in Paris, that there is no need for them to experience it. This is an example of what Baudrillard explains as substituting the real for the real. His idea of what we have become is that we don't care about the natural world, we want the fake.

Another example of simulacra is Disneyland. Baudrillard talks about the hyperreal and the Imaginary and how it applies to Disneyland. "It is first of all a play of illusions and phantasms: the Pirates, the Frontier, the Future World , etc. This imaginary world is supposed to ensure the success of the operation" (460). Baudrillard from there goes on to explain, "Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of simmulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology) but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle"(461). I found this to be an understandable example of simulacra and how the real delivers false promises.

I found it alarming yet true about the public's reactions to pictures of the war. It is not popular for mass amounts of people to see pictures of death and destruction. Once we see those pictures, we pay less attention to what is going on abroad. Though that is a sad fact, it is very true.