Simulacra and Simulation

“Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal.”

In the book’s opening chapter, Baudrillard outlines his theory of hyperrealities and argues that humans live in a world that is now detached from true reality. He argues that simulacra have become a pervasive part of human culture. In the past, “abstraction” referred to things like maps and concepts, which still had a clear connection to something real. However, in the contemporary word, signs are copied repeatedly until they lose all connection to their original value, and he calls this the “hyperreal.” These ideas connect to the theme Simulacra and the Loss of Meaning.

“Pretending, or dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the ‘true’ and the ‘false,’ the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary.’”

Baudrillard draws a line of distinction between pretending and hyperreality. When people are pretending, they are still anchored to original meaning. They know that what they are doing is grounded by a reality outside of it. In hyperreality, however, people do not know that what they are experiencing is simulated; the hyperreal becomes more real than reality itself. Baudrillard explains that this is how Hyperreality and the Death of the Real manifest in the postmodern world.