An Introduction to Baudrillard

[Music] New Horizons in a restless search for new opportunities and new ways of living the mystery and the promise of distant horizons always have called men forward the Industrial Revolution effectively freed man from being a beast of burden the computer revolution will suddenly free him from dull repetitive routine the computer revolution hears however perhaps better compared with a Copernican or the Darwinian revolution [Music] is it possible to lose contact with reality to float away from the material world towards something else what happens when real bodies can be replaced by holograms when real food is replaced

with perfect synthetics when real pleasure is replaced with pleasure perfectly calibrated to your own tastes what happens baudrillard writes on the other side of truth not in what would be false but in what is more true than the truth more real than the real but what if we haven't noticed that this strange new world has already arrived isn't the act of writing already a kind of virtual reality don't pixels already trick us into thinking the image on the screen is real dopes artificial flavors already replace any authentic food the earth with that conceit don't all

of these things already merge in advertising what is the combination of attacks the pixel and an artificial flavor if it's based on nothing these machines which have been with us less than a millionth of a second in terms of the temporal span of man's history have already given promise of deep and far-reaching change in our way of life and way of thinking they literally accelerate into milliseconds of time our ability to perform logical arithmetic and control cat there was a time as in the Middle Ages when only the superfluous the excess of production was exchanged

there was again a time when not only the superfluous but all products all industrial existence had passed into commerce when the whole of production depended upon exchange and finally there came a time when everything that men had considered as inalienable became an object of exchange of traffic and could be alienated [Music] Jean Baudrillard was born in Reims France in 1929 like many of his contemporaries his work crossed disciplinary boundaries but he's best known for attempting to describe and theorize this shift from a time in the Middle Ages when only the superfluous the excess of production

was exchanged the rest he argues then was real real food real shelter real travel there was not marketized to turned abstract by a monetary value and exchanged how have we got from here to a place where everything is defined not by its real value but by abstract terms in attempting to theorize this shift Baudrillard becomes the most controversial provocative cynical and mind twisting thinker there might have ever been he becomes the postmodern thinker par excellence he wrote that people no longer look at each other but there are institutes for that they no longer touch each

other but there is contact oh therapy they no longer walk but they go jogging etc everywhere one recycles lost faculties or lost bodies or lost sociality or the lost taste for food as with most post-structuralist Spode riad was heavily influenced by Ferdinand Assoc or evolutionary theory of language socio argued that linguistic systems should be studied synchronically that's how words relate to each other at any given moment rather than dire chronically and that's studying the history of a word Nietzsche had argued that if you wanted to understand the word Liberty for example you wouldn't be able

to just by looking it up in a dictionary you'd need to look at its history how it's been fought for and which parts have been sidelined or repressed this is a diachronic reading of a word so she argued that this was not enough to understand the word Liberty you'd have to understand it in its context as part of a network of other words in the moment servitude slavery despotism liberalism words were tied together in a system that gave them meaning this is a synchronic reading of a word welcome to the world of tomorrow climb aboard

you are about to take a journey out of this world into the world of the future forget the world around you forget the people around you you are entering Futurama alone with your own thoughts [Music] post-world War to France was undergoing a consumer revolution electricity radio television washing machines were suddenly everywhere Beaudry are wants to take socio synchronic theory of language and apply it to this new world of consumer objects his first book was the system of objects published in 1968 he thought that consumer society aimed to draw people in by producing systems of objects

that all relate to one another the branding and the idea of the complete modern home would mean that if you have the iron you'd want the washing machine with the same logo that if you wanted the blender you'd want the orange peeler he could see this logic being applied to the new ways products were being designed and styled modern and minimal design simplifies everything so that it goes together the simple IKEA table goes with the lamp the iPhone goes with the iPad he wrote few objects today are offered alone without a context of objects to

speak for them and the relation of the consumer to the object has consequently changed the object is no longer referred to in relation to a specific utility but as a collection of objects in their total meaning washing machine refrigerator dishwasher and so on have different meanings when grouped together than each one has alone as a piece of equipment the display window the advertisement the manufacturer and the brand name here buy an essential role in imposing a coherent and collective vision of an almost inseparable totality in this period Baudrillard was working in a Marxist framework that

applied to objects to values use value an exchange value the use value is tangible it relates to a human need it's how we need bread or housing as humans we value something intrinsically based on that Marx argued that capitalism instead prioritized the exchange value of an object what it was worth on the market in this way a small diamond can be worth more than a house this led to commodity fetishism we fetishize diamonds because of their use value but because of their exchange value baudrillard thought that any proper analysis of an object required a third

metric sine value the sine value is derived from this so serein relationship between objects represented by signs images signs language pixels adverts branding and a web of related objects imbue an object with a different type of value than any period in the past as Baudrillard thought progresses he argues that these relationships and objects sign value overtakes use and exchange value and begins to take on a life of its own in the ideological genesis of needs baudrillard argues that consumer objects are valued in four ways they use value that's functional and economic value based on exchange

a symbolic value based on things like gift-giving and personal relationships and a sign value and where Marx thought that the exchange value led to us fetishizing objects for Baudrillard consumer items are further fetishized by their sign value diamonds Arsuf used with even more value by which celebrity is wearing them in the prestige of the brand perfumes aren't just about what they're worth on the market but a part of a system of signs signs images linked to movie stars and glamour and sex champagne and fine wine becomes fetishized and collects value through who's been seen drinking

it and where big tail fins on 50s American cars were actually counterproductive but borrowed the idea of speed from the new and glamorous air travel that was taking off at the time the value of the iPhone isn't just measured by its utility or how much it cost manufacturer it's also derived from the space it shares with other related signs the iPad the iMac Steve Jobs the flashy advertising the social capital of the celebrity with the air pods and there is the way in which we create meaning socially is directed by a number of things including

utility how useful an item is but also by aesthetics by history or by the power of capital the powerful display their power through their Styles their tastes that wealth which in turn creates a prestige that's attached to those objects hobbies or trends these different ways of valuing objects become mixed together but increasingly throughout his life baudrillard argues that in our postmodern world sign value begins to dominate and all of this combines into what he ambiguously refers to as the code an aggregate of value dominated by signs that orders and erect the world of political economy

it's a world based on a utilitarian logic of balance sheets capital investment sales figures algorithms all of which are the codified representation of for example in the iPods case the utility of listening to music the aesthetic design Steve Jobs stage presents the dullness of PCs at the time all of this becomes abstracted into a code at this point baudrillard work becomes increasingly radical in 1973 he published the mirror of production attacking Marxism and breaking from it spectacularly however in the mid nineteen forties in 20th century a different kind of tool was invented a tool for

extending certain of the powers of man's might this tool is the electronic computer [Music] the end of Labor the end of production the end of political economy the end of the dialectic signifier signified which permitted the accumulation of knowledge and of meaning the linear Syntagma of cumulative discourse the end simultaneously of the dialectic of exchange-value use value the only one to make possible capital accumulation and social production the end of the linear dimension of discourse the end of the linear dimension of merchandise the end of the classic era of the sigh the end of the

era of production [Music] in this mature period Baudrillard took Marshall McLuhan's famous phrase the medium is the message as one of the defining axioms of postmodern life what mattered in this new world was not what was real and material but what was represented as science in short television and now the computer screen has come to dominate social life sign production has replaced material production as the organizing principle of political economy in a chapter of symbolic exchange and death titled the orders of simulacra he outlines how this has happened historically his story goes something like this

simulacrum is a copy or representation of something a pictogram a letter assigned a gesture a signifier Baudrillard follows Foucault by arguing that signifiers have become slowly detached from their signified well once language was a gift from God where tree meant tree and good was what God said was good we now live in a world where language is freed from any determinant we realize it's socially constructed we realized that it's humanly made and communally agreed upon and so it is flexible images paintings photos poems essays conversations about a tree are simulacra of the tree but their

meaning comes not just from the tree but from the person's worldview their poetic Flair the hidden meaning of the story the composition of the painting your relationship with the person you're conversing with the signifier tree can detach from the real tree for Baudrillard there are three orders of simulacra the first he writes our simulacra boats are natural naturalist founded on the image on imitation and counterfeit that are harmonious optimistic and that aim for the restitution or the ideal institution of nature the painter sitting painting a tree the second our Simula crowd that are productive productivist

founded on energy force its materialization by the Machine and its whole system of production a Promethean aim of a continuous globalization and expansion of an indefinite liberation of energy we might simplify this to an architect looking at the tree and drawing a house to be built from it but the third a simulacra of simulation founded on information the model the cybernetic game total operation ality hyper-reality aim of total control the global architecture corporation algorithmically processing timber locations stock numbers shipping details to work out the best utilization of the woods in the most efficient and profitable

way these are all different types of copies and in each order of simulacra we move steadily away from the real from the touch the smell the use value of that single tree in the woods he writes the super ideology of the sign and the general operationalization of the signifier everywhere sanctioned today by the new master disciplines of structural linguistics semiology information theory and cybernetics has replaced good old political economy as the theoretical basis of the system it's in this third order of simulacra that the world is controlled by code that breaks away from signifying anything

real he argues that we now live in a world of simulation we are already in the matrix in our world the speed and tempo of modern living are increasing at an ever-accelerating rate without organization without system the result would be chaos our control over a bewildering environment has been facilitated by new techniques of handling vast amounts of data at incredible speeds the tool which has made this possible is the high speed digital computer operating with electronic precision on great quantities of information even humans become superfluous to the self-management of systems like self-checkouts deals determined algorithmically

security replaced with AI CCTV for Baudrillard the mid-70s or an implosion of sine value in the beginning of the era of hyper reality of simulation of code the information age in this era there is no more mirror of being appearances of the real in its concept no more imaginary coextensive ax t it is genetic miniaturization that is the dimension of simulation the real is produced from miniaturized cells matrices and memory banks everything's organized by the code algorithms dominating financial services our news websites on Instagram on radio schedules computer models simulates war economic models dictate policy

even DNA is altered genetically based on incomprehensibly large computer models the hyper real governs us more than the real in the run-up to the 2008 crash the real value of mortgages was hidden under layers of sine value under deceitful insurance policies and financial ratings based on nothing in the postmodern world everything is a copy of a simulacrum of something real to the point of the real real being forgotten images of pixel societies are based on polls everything implodes into everything else and real life begins to disappear Baudrillard invites us to ask what the consequences of

this are what happens if we lose our grasp of grip if the real one was the desert if we become unbale a medium a success [Music] he says it's a question of substituting the signs of the rail for the real that is to say an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double with fake news it doesn't matter what's real what matters is how it said who says it the perspective whether it will be provocative enough whether it will entertain you rate that by crossing into a space whose curvature is no longer that

of the real nor that of truth the end of simulation is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referential the referential czar the referential zuv the signifier to the signified the painter to the tree it all slowly slips away [Music] we live in a world where things like reality TV Disneyland and Facebook define our lives porn gadgets Google Maps computer games fake grass fake meat synthetic clothing we live in a postmodern carnival Disneyland exists in order to hide that it's the real country all of real America that is Disneyland a bit like prisons are there to

hide that it's the social in its entirety and it's banal omnipresent that is carceral 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 and no longer real but belonged to the hyper real order and to the order of simulation in simulacra and simulation Baudrillard points to the absurd paradox of reality TV he discusses the first reality series 1973 is an American family in 2011 an article in The New York Times said that for the viewing public the controversy

surrounding an American family doubled as a crash course in media literacy the Louds in claiming that the material had been edited to emphasize the negative called attention to hang nonfiction narratives of fashioned some critics argued that the cameras presence encouraged the subjects to perform some even said it invalidated the project that line of reasoning as mr. gilberto point tonight would invalidate all documentaries it also discounted the role of performance in everyday life and the potential function of the camera as a catalyst not simply an observer Baudrillard had already written in 1981 that more interesting is

the illusion of filming the lines as if TV wasn't there the producers triumph was to say they lived as if they were not there an absurd paradoxical formula contestants on reality TV are already hyper real choices averages ideals chosen with expectations designed to provoke by their likeliness to entertain in the correct way Big Brother contestants chosen by how well they'll fit into a Piper real narrative contestants and stars pressured to act and talk how they think they should act ants walk under the all-pervasive eye of the camera and the audience television has increasingly adopted this

quality this is Baudrillard complaint that historical films are a little too good without the psychological moral and sentimental blotches of the films of the era they're meant to depict in the same way Vietnam itself he provocatively claims perhaps never happened it's retrofitted through films like Apocalypse Now our view of it has nothing to do with the realities on the ground he writes the war as entrenchment as technological and psychedelic fantasy the war as a succession of special effects the war became film even before being filmed what was so spectacular about HBO Chernobyl that the depiction

was more real than the event itself costumes props special effects and the perfect angle the Geiger counter mapped onto the score already over determined by signs by Soviet storytelling and the twisting of facts at the time now it's a product rule this times history times politics times entertainment when in 20 years time we think of Chernobyl well we think of the real event or images conjured up by TV Studios Baudrillard point is that if we make meaning socially and words and sentences and paragraphs are defined synchronically then all of these media and their sine values

drive our lives more than anything real and concrete more than The Times Square the Union March or the church on a needle up high you can look through the eye and you see yes you're seeing it all as the present unfold what the picture be home you're a late after day imagine if you can an electronic brain operating at millions of the second speed I say brain because the new electronic central office will almost think for itself it will not only carry out instructions you dial any to it it will also remember instructions you provided

earlier in another wise cynical pessimistic and dystopian interpretation of our postmodern world Baudrillard does theorize one way out he calls it symbolic exchange after his break with Marxism he argued that Marx was stuck in and was a mirror of bourgeois society Marx's fundamental fault was placing production at the center of his analysis continuing to emphasize work routines utilitarian reasoning dialectical history Beaudry are argued that a truly revolutionary society would have to break from all of this to escape from the overbearing subjective fiying pressure to be utilitarian to consume and produce based around what is commanded

of us we must look to a way of thinking that's outside of all of this he points out the pre-modern societies revolved around religion myths the culture of the tribe not production and that these ways of organizing life were based on things like gift exchange ritual sacrifice these may seem outdated to us now but maybe what underpinned them was something primal something truly human in this way Bowdre was almost as well as a technological determinist a romantic and a kind of neo-luddite he argues that within all of us there's an urge to escape from the

law of value that commands us to act in a certain way he says this has similarities with Freud's death Drive and it's the drive to waste energy to dance to do good when it's not commanded of us but when we feel like it festivals are like sacrificial rituals parties should be whims of the moment we should be fickle we should jump from hobby to hobby but I who influence Beaudry are looked to the Sun as a matter - for an object that simply expels energy asking for nothing in return Beaudry are argues that gift-giving works

in a similar way giving when the giver wants when he sees something that he thinks the other person should like not thinking rationally about well if I give this person something now he'll give me something in the future he argues that a society that has this kind of motivation as its basis would be the only one where the individual was sovereign had control over himself free from oppression he also looks to the aristocracy as a model of this when you become rich you simply expel energy drink when you feel like it's self destruct when you

feel the need of it make art one minute and take another hobby the next you do without asking anything in return the idea behind this is that human beings are not just utilitarian creatures but excessive ones with creative desires and irreconcilable urges and drives we should embrace this rather than run from it so Beaudry our theory of history can be divided into three periods a symbolic pre-modern society a productive modern society and a hyperreal postmodern society notoriously pessimistic but who inspiringly innovative Baudrillard is a difficult but thought-provoking thinker he describes the world in a way

that no one else has and while much of what he says might be considered eccentric or hyperbolic his prescience writing decades ago is hard to deny he's also had a powerful effect on our cultural landscape inspiring films music television programs and novels as humans we are both attached and detached from the material world around us the extent to which we continue to float away into something new and the extent to which it can be a positive rather than a negative experience is yet to be seen baudrillard knew though that technology wouldn't just feed our old

desires but would create new ones he said it's always the same once you are liberated you're forced to ask who you are if you like these videos I need your help and here's my request if you think you get the same value from four of these videos as you do from just one cup of coffee then please consider pledging just $1 per video that's three to four dollars per month to keep this channel going you can even limit your pledge to one dollar a month and if you pledge $5 out add your name to the

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