Preliminary
Post-structuralism in the 1980s
The words "Post" refers to one phase of a situation that transcends words, beyond, past, after / against. So the Post-structuralism is the movement of thought that refers to surpass, exceed, / against the idea of structuralism.
In thinking in the era of post-structuralism are thought leaders among other things:
1. Roland Barthes's famous with the idea of Mythology (Myth).
2. Jaques Derrida is famous for its mind about Dekontruksi (Demolition / falsehood).
3. Jean Baudrillard is famous for its thoughts on Simulation.
In this paper I will discuss about the thoughts of a character that is Jean Baudrillard is famous for its thoughts on Simulation. One of postmodernism thinker who pays great attention to the issue of culture in contemporary society is Jean Baudrillard.Somewhat different from other postmodern philosophers who focus on metaphysics and epistemology, Baudrillard prefers culture as field assessment. He took that choice is not without purpose. Baudrillard would like to express transformations and shifts occurring in the structure of Western society today that calls the simulation community and hiperrealitas. He tried to combine Marx with French structuralism.
Discussion
In 1983, his magnum opus, simulations (1983), published in the English language. In a book that immediately became a classic of this, Baudrillard introduces a distinctive character of Western society's culture today. According to him, Western culture today is a representation of the simulation, which is the world that form of relationship the various signs and codes at random, without a clear reference to relational. This relationship involves a real sign of (the fact) that is created through the production process, and the pseudo marks (images) are created through a process of reproduction. In a culture of simulation, two markers overlapping and interwoven kelindan form a unity. Can no longer be recognized which were genuine, real, and which are false, false. It's all part of reality which lived and lived Western society today.Unity is what Baudrillard referred to as simulacra or simulacrum, a world that is built up from the chaos of values, facts, signs, images and code. Reality no longer has refernsi, except simulacra itself.
By analyzing American society and culture, Baudrillard states that in reality the true discourse of simulation (the fact) is not only mixed with artificial reality (image), yet even been defeated by the image. Furthermore, the image is more reliable than the facts. This is the era hiperrealitas, where the original reality defeated by artificial reality.
Postmodern Culture Jean Baudrillard
A. Signs and Symbols Value Value
Values and value-symbol sign, a form of status, prestige, style and expression of lifestyle, luxury and prestige is the main motive of the activity of consumer consumption. The shift value that occurred with the changing character of postmodern society is then attracted Baudrillard to study it in more depth.
Baudrillard states that the mechanism is basically consumption system departs from the value system of signs, symbols and values, and not because of the need or desire to receive pleasure (Baudrillard, 1970: 47). With this statement does not intend Baudrillard completely negate the importance of needs. He just wanted to say that in a consumer society, consumption as a system of meaning is no longer governed by a factor of the need or desire for enjoyment, but by a set of desires to have the honor, prestige, status and identity through a tagging mechanism.
Thinking about the phenomenon of consumer society and the victory-sign value and the value-symbol is then reached a maturity in For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (1981). In this book Baudrillard separate themselves from Marx by stating that in today's consumer society, use-value and exchange value, as Marx suggested, can no longer be used as a means of analyzing the social conditions of society. Now, according to Baudrillard, is the era of the triumph of the value of signs and symbols are values supported by the bursting of meaning and imagery by developments in technology and mass media (Lechte, 1994: 234). Baudrillard then change all the people who made history periodization of Marx. According to Marx, there are three stages of the structure of society, ie feudal society, capitalist society and communist society.
Departing from this framework, Baudrillard periodization proposed changes in the structure of society, from primitive societies, hierarchical society and mass society (Lechte, 1994: 238). In contrast to Marx who use knives analysis of political economy, Baudrillard use semiology as a tool of analysis. According to Baudrillard, primitive society is characterized by the absence of signs of elements in the interaction of all aspects of community life. The object is understood in a pure and natural based on their usefulness. Furthermore, in hierarchical societies, birth marks elements which still operates within a limited scope. The sign is understood as meaning that inculcated by the class of the class to another class. Signs are also beginning to replace the position of pure object, which now has exchange-value. Finally, at the highest stages, forming a mass society. In mass society, the sign dominates all aspects of life. No more pure object, except the sign of the object. Individual in mass society serves as a sign of consumers without having the status of a particular class.
Artificial realities are characteristic of this age, a sign of middle age menjelangnya a new cultural era: postmodern culture. By taking over and developing the ideas of his predecessors: semiology Saussure, Marx commodity fetishism, the theory of differance Derrida, Barthes's Mythologies, as well as genealogy Foucault, Baudrillard tried reading the distinctive character of Western society (Rojek, 1993: 125). Through his book, which attracted much attention, simulations (1983), Baudrillard describes the socio-cultural conditions that Western society was in a world called simulacra, simulacrum, and simulation. This is the world made up of the consequences of the relation of science and technology development, the glory of late capitalism, consumerism, and the collapse of big narratives of modernism.
Baudrillard states that the paradigm of modernism that stands on the logic of production as Marx voiced now no longer relevant. If the pre-modern era is marked by the exchange of symbolic logic (symbolic exchange), the modern era is marked by the logic of production, it is now leading a new era, the postmodern era, characterized by logic simulation. Along with the birth of the postmodern era, according to Baudrillard, the principles of modernism was facing a moment of his death. In a typical language, Baudrillard proclaimed the death of modernism with its production logic as: The end of labor.
Baudrillard this phrase signifies the belief of the coming new era, the postmodern era.In the postmodern era, the principle of simulation of a commander, in which the reproduction (with information technology, communication and industry knowledge) replaces the principle of production, while the game mark and image dominated almost the entire process of human communication. In the simulation community like this, everything is determined by the relation marks, images and code. The sign is anything that contains the meaning, which follows the theory of Saussurian semiology has two elements, namely markers (form) and signified (meaning). The image is anything that appears to the senses, but actually has no substantial existence.
While the code is a sign of an agreed way of combining socially, to allow a single message can be conveyed from one person to another (Piliang, 1998: 13). In the world of simulation, the identity of a person for example, is no longer determined by and from within himself. Identity is now more determined by the construction of signs, images and code that make up mirror how individuals understand themselves and their relationship with others. Furthermore, the economic realities, political, social and cultural, all governed by the logic of this simulation, where the codes and models determine how one should act and understand its environment.
The living reality of today's culture, according to Baudrillard is a reflection of what he describes as simulacra or simulacrum. Simulacra of reality which is the space disarati by reduplication process and recycle a variety of different fragments of life (in the form of commodity images, facts, signs, and codes that cross-chaos), in one space dimension and the same time (Piliang, 1998: 196 ). Simulacra do not have a reference, it is a duplication of duplication, so the difference between the duplicates and the originals have become blurred. In this space can no longer be identified where an original and which are false, where the results where the production and reproduction, where the object is and where the subject, or where the signifier and signified where.
Simulacra space allows one to explore the various fragments of reality, whether real or fictitious; reproduce, manipulate and simulate everything until the farthest limits.World of simulacra, which became the dominant discourse of public awareness of the West today, explains Baudrillard, has actually existed since the Renaissance era. The reality of simulacra has three levels of historical periods, since the Renaissance era to the present, namely First Order simulacra, and simulacra simulacra Second Order Third Order (Baudrillard, 1983: 54-56).
First Order simulacra, ongoing since the Renaissance-Feudal until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In this order, the reality of the world is understood based on the principles of natural law, with the characteristics of order, harmony, hierarchy of natural and transcendent. Nature became a major supporter as well as cultural determinants. The signs are produced in this order are the signs that give priority to the integration between the facts and images in a harmonious and balanced. This is closely related to man's will to maintain the age structure of the natural world. Thus, the dominant principle that characterized the First Order simulacra is the principle of representation. Language, objects and signs is an imitation of a natural reality that is formed in a linear and a single. As an imitation, language, objects and signs still have a distance to the original object (Kellner, 1994: 103).
Second-order simulacra, held in conjunction with the roar of the era of industrialization which is the logical consequence of the Industrial Revolution. Industrial Revolution, on the one hand has contributed greatly to the development of culture. But on the other hand, the Industrial Revolution also has led to the excesses of negative cultures. The logic of production, which became the principle of second-order simulacra, has encouraged the development of mechanical technology to the furthest limits. Following Walter Benjamin, in his essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1969), Baudrillard states that with the technology as a medium of mechanical reproduction and production principles of natural objects and properties have lost their aura of transcendence. The object is no longer within imitation of the original object, but rather completely the same exactly as the original. With advances in reproductive technology is mechanical, the principle of commodities and mass production became the dominant characteristic of the era of second-order simulacra.Third Order of simulacra, born as a logical consequence of the development of science and information technology, global communication, mass media, consumerism and capitalism in the era of post-World War II. More than ever before, on the order of this relation various elements and cultural structures undergoing fundamental change. Mark, image, code, and cultural subjects no longer refers to the reference and current realities. Third Order of simulacra is characterized by structural laws. Signs form a structure and give meaning to reality. This era is called Baudrillard as the era of simulation.
In this era of simulation, reality no longer have an existence. Reality has been fused into one with signs, images and models of reproduction. No chance of us finding the real reference, made a distinction between representation and reality, image and reality, signs and ideas, as well as the artificial and the real. There is only mixed among them all.
Baudrillard saw the development of digital technology, which is based on this binary model as a basic process of social transformation of society capitalism. McLuhan's ideas about the medium is the message he pulled up to the most extreme limits, namely the media in the form of digital codes. With digital codes then moved to the reproductive process the most extreme limits, too. When objects are reproduced by the model-binary technology, then the objects become indistinguishable from each other, even from the models that became the source. Furthermore, the reality of a loss of reference. Reality, according to Baudrillard, must now be redefined as all things are possible and can be reproduced perfectly, can be simulated (Baudrillard, 1983: 146).
Simulation, in Baudrillard, in the wake based on models that were precise, all models are almost close to the facts, and where the model appears precedes the facts. The fact is now no longer has its own history plot, he attended the joint cross-chaos models; even be a fact produced by the models. Simulation is not related to a territory, a reference or any substance. Simulation is an era that was built by the models of reality without origin; a hiperreal world. Territory is no longer present before the map, or shape it. Conversely, petalah present before a reference simulacra petalah territories that make up the territory. And if this time we still want to revive the language fable-turn, then it means now is the time where the territory that was rot slowly stretched over a map. Is the real reality, and not a map, which traces are still visible everywhere, in a desert, not the former a kingdom, but a former our own. A desert of reality itself).
Simulations rely on the principle of absence and negation, by way of obscure references and even eliminate, the reality and truth, and put forward as a principle of truth ontologism appearance. Thus, the simulation begins the era of the destruction process any reference to reference and even worse: with the proliferation of pseudo references in the tagging system, then the material properties rather than penetrate the meaning of equality into all systems, binary oppositions and all forms of algebraic combinations. The era of simulation is no longer associated with the problem of imitation, reduplication or even parody. The era of simulation is more interested in questioning the process of replacing the signs of real, for reality itself, which is a process to deter every real process with multiple operating mechanism, a concept of metastable, programmatic, as a depiction of a perfect machine that provides all the signs of real and a series of possibilities the changes. Hiperrealitas thus completely different from the real or imaginary, which is a place for the continuous repetition of the models and differences).
In the world of simulations like this, the representation principles of modernism became no longer relevant. The distinction between object and subject, real and fictitious, markers and markers, in the paradigm of modernism can no longer be done. In the simulation mechanism, man trapped in a room which he considers a real, when in fact superficial. Virtual reality space is the antithesis of the representation space representation itself a kind of deconstruction, in Derrida's discourse. With a simple example of Baudrillard describes the simulation with an analogy map.According to him, when in real space, a map is a representation of a territory, then the simulation mechanism of the opposite is true. Map precedes the territory. Territorial realities of social, cultural or political, are now built on models from existing maps. In the world of simulations, not reality to mirror reality, but the models offered by television, advertising or cartoon characters. It is places like Disneyland, or Universal Studios; movie stars such as Madonna or Leonardo de Caprio; ad Levis pants or Guess watches; film telenovela Maria Mercedes or Esmeralda; figure doll Barbie, Mickey Mouse cartoon Doraemon or what is now the models reference in building the image, value and meaning in social life, culture and political society today (Piliang, 1998: 194).
Postmodernism: A World Hiperrealitas
Hiperrealitas is a phenomenon in which a lot of scattered artificial realities which seem even more real than reality sebenarnya.Boneka Barbie, who has produced and continues to be produced by
Mattel Toys since 1959, is a clear example hiperrealitas, when an artificial reality has exceeded the actual reality. Made without reference to body proportions and natural beauty, appeared as Barbie dolls with beauty and perfection of the body that exceeds the image of human beauty. Barbie also exceed the size of a human life to roles who instilled in him as a career woman, fotomodel, kindergarten teachers, movie stars, honorary ambassador for the United Nations, environmentalists and others at the same time. In short, he is a perfect human figure. Meanings embedded in the figure of Barbie is a cross-chaos marks, images and codes are deliberately created to maintain its presence as a symbol of the modern woman. With representation like this Barbie as Barbie was born as a real, living Barbie, Barbie is really there with all keleluarbiasaannya. He goes so far as a model for humans to determine the size and shape of beauty and perfection of her appearance.
Baudrillard thought bases itself on some assumptions of human relations and the media, referred to as reality Mediascape Baudrillard (Baudrillard, 1983: 14). In reality Mediascape mass media become the most dominant cultural products. With the mass media, the media is no longer limited to the human body as an extension of McLuhan-style, but now the media as well as a space for men to establish his identity.
Jean Baudrillard also revealed two terms, namely: Simulation and simulacra in explaining the concept hiperrealitas itself.
Simulation is a process in which the representation (image) of an object it replaces the object itself, where the representation is becoming more important than the object.Analogy, if a map represent (describe) a region, then in the simulation, it was the map that precedes the territory. In the discourse of simulation, humans inhabit a living reality in which the distinction between true and false become thin (people living in an imaginary space is real). For example, discovery channel on television, in fact almost as real as science lessons in school, because both offer information on flora and fauna life in children.
There are four hierarchical / stage in the simulation (Baudrillard, 1983):
When a sign used as a reflection of reality.
For example: art is a form of reality.
When a sign has been covered and misleading reality itself. For example: Gaul it is by watching MTV.
When a sign to cover the absence of a reality. For example:
Disneyland, which really only exist in the imagination of children but made into concrete to cover the absence of Disneyland.
And finally sign into something that has nothing to do with reality, and this is what Baudrillard referred to as simulacra. For example: The World in the movie The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves. Simulacra It allows humans to inhabit a space full of duplication and recycling of various fragments of different world at the same time. For example Bandung society who consume coffee at Starbucks-style shopping Cihampelas Walk; or high school teens who become acquainted in the world of myspace. Well, like Shopping Malls, Television, and Friendster was the one who is a miniature of the world are folded, as already mentioned above.
Some Critical Notes from the weakness of thought Jean Baudrillard (Kellner, 1994: 83).
Argument if there is an underlying thought was full of flaws. Baudrillard totally reject the structure and systems, letting his statements completely floating and fragmented, and prefer the speculation. That is why not a few commentators, such as Chris Rojek, declaring the works of Baudrillard as science fiction and not a text-sociology or philosophy (Rojek, 1993: xi). Another critical voice more systematically presented by Mark Poster. In one of his writings that try to compare the thought of Baudrillard and Habermas, poster noted there are at least five weaknesses of thought Baudrillard (Kellner, 1994: 83).
Baudrillard considered not able to explain the meaning of key terms that exist in his works, especially the term code.
Almost the same with Gane and Hughes style of writing Baudrillard Poster looked strange and odd often not accompanied by a systematic and logical arguments. The downside is, by itself, makes thoughts lose Baudrillard basis of rational arguments.His works became no more than a fictional life story of a vibrant and colorful, but it made no sense.
Baudrillard impressed mentotalisasikan ideas about thinking, and refuse to alter or limit his thinking.
Baudrillard denies the fact that there are benefits from the development of information and communication technology.
Fatalist and nihilist attitude that is consciously chosen, making Baudrillard's thoughts away from moral values and religion. He was not able to see morality and religion as a source of reference values and principles of life.
Cover
So the simulation is defined as a process in which the representation (image) of an object it replaces the object itself, where the representation is becoming more important than the object. Simulation, in Baudrillard, in the wake based on models that were precise, all models are almost close to the facts, and where the model appears precedes the facts. In this era of simulation, reality no longer have an existence.Reality has been fused into one with signs, images and models of reproduction. No chance of us finding the real reference, made a distinction between representation and reality, image and reality, signs and ideas, as well as the artificial and the real.There is only mixed among them all.
In the thought of Jean Baudrillard there are still some weaknesses that made. Yet in spite of the weaknesses he made, Baudrillard's thoughts remain very useful for understanding the reality of today's culture. Similarly, an original and critical approach, which can be an alternative choice for the reading of the reality of today's culture that was changing rapidly.
0 comments:
Post a Comment