I’d like to start out by saying I really enjoyed Ken Rufo’s post on Baudrillard.
The connection to structuralism is where I feel I’m a little weak, but here is my attempt to go through it. The connection has to be made through Marxist theory. I recently went on a little consumer binge and purchased a pair of $100 leather boots. I think the connection is that I paid so much to have the Frye brand. Sure, these boots are high quality. But I doubt they would have cost as much under another label.
But what do my boots have to do with all this? I think my boots are like any other commodity. The exchange-value is more important than the use-value. These boots better last awhile, but money!
Alright,that’s enough of me bragging about my sassy leather boots. The connection I see is that theory is a commodity as well. Theory has an important exchange-value just like the boots. “…Something we use to make our class papers or arguments look good…”. Since Marx developed these ideas, he created this commodity of theory.
I have a suspicion that after watching The Matrix, I might grasp the concept of simulation. As for now, it seems like Baudrillard is saying the simulation becomes reality. Through a process, a simulation first substitutes for reality. A simulation hides this substitution. Eventually, a simulation doesn’t even need this model. This is the copy with no origin (which really confused me at first). There is no copy behind it anymore since reality is absent. Bye bye real.
We have to understand our own experiences through these copies with no origin (simulacra). I believe it was Max who said we observe in comparison to something we observe in Die Hard. So when 9/11 occurred, we didn’t experience it in the real. We had to match it up with something we saw in an action movie.
“The world ultimately resists our attempts to theorize it” first struck me as “well then what are we doing?” Is it because of the simulations that it becomes impossible to try to theorize our world? All the theories we’ve studied create a way to view the world. Do these theories cause us to look at the world in a way that simply fulfills that particular theory?
And while I’m on a roll with asking questions, I’m hoping someone can help me out with this. I’m a little confused about ambivalence. Help?
3 comments:
Hello,
I too am still confused about Baudriallard's work and the whole "simulation" concept...but you said you were confused on how this relates to structuralism? This I think I can help you with. Ken was writing about how a sign is made of up of the signified and the signifier, which we already knew, but he relates this to Baudriallard and Marx by saying that the commodity is like a sign, except it is composied of use-value and exchange-value instead of the signified and signifier. It starts of as this manufactured object with a randomally assigned value into a commodity through its relationships to other commodities, which is like structuralism because language is a system of a string of signs in relation to one another. I think that is what he was saying at least. I hope that helps some.
First of all I haven't seen your new boots and I'm curious to see if they'll fit me.
Seeing as you had questions about simulacra too, I suggest looking up that short story about the map that we talked about in class, it actually helped. Which is good, because the map analogy threw me off more than anything else. I think that the idea of living in a world of simulations that have lost connection with what they simulate (simulacra) is an increasing result of the over-production of images and symbols in the world we live in today, which is scary in a way, but I suppose nothing short of a nuclear war is going to stop/slow it down. Besides, who'd want to love in the desert of the real anyways?
"I believe it was Max who said". That makes me feel like I'm a wise old fellow. Which is untrue.
For some reason I didn't think much of the Marxism side of Baudriallard. Maybe just because I never connected with Marxism in the first place. But yeah, the whole commodity thing is definitely a present part of society. Your boots are a good example.
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