Jean Baudrillard: The world in which it becomes more and more information and less sense Bashny.Net

Jean Baudrillard analyzes how modern information flow that creates a huge number of copies and simulacra, in the end, destroys reality.

Jean Baudrillard - the intellectual "gurus" of postmodernism, which once opened our eyes to the "unreality." "We live in a world of simulacra," - he said, confirming it is a pile of examples: the work is no longer productive, rather, it bears a social function ( "everything must be in business"), representative bodies of power one can not imagine, is no longer a basis determines the superstructure, and vice versa.

Thus, according to Baudrillard, we have lost touch with reality and entered the era of hyper-reality - the era in which the picture is more important than the content, and the relationship between objects, phenomena and their signs is broken (for the concept of the movie "The Matrix" we just Baudrillard should say thank you, even though he was convinced that his ideas are distorted).




Important role in this process, Jean Baudrillard assigns the media: in his opinion, a modern frantic flow of information creates a huge number of copies and simulacra, which eventually destroy the reality

. Moreover, Baudrillard notes, the more information becomes, the less sense, though, logically, things should be the other way around. The analysis of this problem is devoted an entire chapter of his book "Simulacra and Simulation" (1981). So, check out the offer and find out why there is a total inflation of information and what to do.

SENSE implosion in the media

We are in a world that is becoming more and more information and less and less sense. In this regard, there are three possible hypotheses:

- Either information produces meaning (negentropic factor), but is unable to compensate for the cruel loss of meaning in all areas. Attempts to re-inject it through a growing number of media messages and contents are futile: the loss, meaning the absorption is faster than its re-injection. In this case, refer to the productive basis, to replace the media tolerate failure. That is, to the whole ideology of freedom of speech, the media, divided into numerous separate broadcasting unit, or to the ideology of "antimedia" (radiopiraty, etc.).

- Either the information in general has nothing to do with signification. This is something completely different, the operating model of a different order, external to the meaning and its circulation. This is, in particular, the hypothesis Shannon, according to which the sphere of information, purely instrumental, technical environment, does not imply any ultimate meaning and, therefore, should also not engage in value judgments. This code is kind, such as genetic: it is what it is, it functions as function and meaning - is something else that appears, so to speak, after the fact, like Mono in "Chance and Necessity ". In this case, simply would not have any significant relationship between inflation and deflation of information make sense.

- Or, on the contrary, between the two is tough and necessary correlation between the extent to which the information directly destroys or neutralizes the meaning and signification. Thus, it turns out that the loss of meaning is directly linked to the corrupting, dissuasive action of information, the media and the media.

This is the most interesting hypothesis, but it runs counter to the conventional wisdom. Socialization commonly measured by susceptibility to media reports. Desocializing and antisocial actually is someone who is sensitive enough to the media.

Information everywhere, is believed to contribute to accelerated circulation sense and creates added value meaning similar to which occurs in the economy and is obtained by accelerated circulation of capital. The information is considered as creator of communication, and, despite the huge non-productive costs, there is a general consensus that we are dealing yet with increasing sense that is redistributed in all spaces of social - in the same way as there is a consensus as to what material production, in spite of the faults and irrational, still leads to increased prosperity and social harmony.

We are all involved in this Sustainable myth. This is - alpha and omega of our modernity, without which it would undermine the credibility of our social organization. And yet, the fact is that it is still compromised, and it is for this very reason: where, we believe, the information makes sense, the opposite occurs

. Information devours its own content. She devours communication and the social. This happens for two reasons:

1. Instead of creating communication, information exhausts its forces in staging communications. Instead of producing meaning, it exhausts its strength in the staging of meaning. Before us is a very familiar gigantic process simulation. Untrained interviews, phone calls, viewers and listeners, all sorts of interactivity, verbal intimidation: "It concerns you, an event - it is you, etc.»

. In a growing number of this kind of information is invading phantom content, this homeopathic grafting, this dream to wake communication. Pie chart in which the stage play what the audience wants, antitheater communication, which, as we know, is always a re-use through the negation of the traditional institution, the integrated circuit negative.

The tremendous energy, aimed at retaining the simulacrum in the distance, to avoid sudden dissimulation, which would put us in front of the apparent reality of radical loss of meaning.

"Simulacra and Simulation" by Jean Baudrillard about the destruction of meaning in the modern flow of information

It is useless to ask whether the loss of communication led to this escalation within the simulacrum, or it is a simulacrum, who first appears here for the purpose of apotrope in order to advance to prevent any possibility of communication (the precession of the model, which puts an end to the real).

It is useless to clarify that the original, neither one nor the other, because it is a cyclic process - the simulation process, the process of hyper-real. Hyperreality communication and meaning. More real than the real self - that's the way it is abolished

. Thus, not only communication, but also a social function in a closed loop, a temptation to which is attached the power of myth. Trust, trust in the information attached to this tautological proof that the system provides to itself, duplicating in the signs of the elusive reality.

However, it can be assumed that this belief is just as ambiguous as the belief accompanying myths in archaic societies. They believed and did not believe. No one is unsure: "I know for sure, and yet ...". This kind of feedback simulation occurs in masses, in each of us, in response to the simulation of meaning and communication, in which we closes the system.

In response to a tautology system ambivalence of mass occurs in response to apotrope - resentment or still mysterious beliefs. The myth continues to exist, but do not think that people believe in him: in this lies the trap for critical thought, which can only operate on the assumption of naivety and stupidity of the masses

. 2. In addition to this, over-staged media communication strenuously seeking information majeure irrevocable social destructuring.

Thus information dissolves meaning decomposes social, turns them into a kind of nebula, doomed not on the new growth, but rather on the total entropy.

Thus, the media - is not movers of socialization, but on the contrary, the implosion of the social in the masses. And this is only the macroscopic extension of the implosion of meaning at the microscopic level of the sign. This implosion should be reviewed based on the formula of McLuhan «medium is the message» (means of communication - this is the message), the possible implications of which are far from exhausted

. It means that all contents of meaning are absorbed by a single dominant form of media. Some media outlets only are event - regardless of content, conformist or subversive. A serious problem for any kontrinformatsii, radiopiratov, antimedia etc.

However, there is an even more serious problem, which has not found himself McLuhan. After all, outside of this neutralization of all contents one would hope that the media will still function in their form, and the real could be transformed under the influence of the media as a form.

If all the content will be abolished and will remain, perhaps even revolutionary and subversive value of using the media as such. Therefore - and this is something that in its limit value is Formula McLuhan - is not only the implosion of messages in the media, but, in the same motion occurs implosion media in real implosion media and real-in a kind of hyper nebula, in which more than indistinguishable identification and proper action of the media.

Even "traditional" status of the media themselves, characteristic of modern times, called into question. Formula McLuhan: Media - this message is a key formula simulation era (the media is the message - the sender is the addressee, isolation of all poles - the end of a promising and panopticheskogo space - these are the alpha and omega of our modernity), the formula itself should be considered in its ultimate expression, ie: after all the contents and messages evaporate in the media, the media themselves will disappear as such

. In essence, this is due to post media become signs of authenticity, this is it gives them a certain media, the status of a distinct communication medium. Without communication media themselves fall into the uncertainty inherent in all our systems of analysis and evaluation. Only a model, the effect of which is a direct, immediately generates a message, media and "real».

Finally, the "media - this message" does not only mean the end of the message, but also the end of the media. No more media in the literal sense of the word (I mean, first of all, electronic media), that is, instances that would mediate between one reality and another, between one state and the other real. Neither the content nor the form.

Actually, this is what means implosion. Vzaimopogloschenie poles, short-circuit between the poles of every differential system of meaning, erasing distinct borders and oppositions, including the opposition between the media and the real - and, consequently, the inability of any mediated expression of one or the other depending on the dialectical one another

. CIRCULAR all media effects. Consequently, the inability to sense a value of unilateral vector extending from one pole to another. It should be before the end of this critical review, but the original situation: the only thing that remains to us

. It is useless to dream of a revolution through content in vain to dream of a revolution through the form, because the media now constitute a real and single nebula whose truth can not be deciphered.

The fact that the implosion of the contents, meaning absorption, extinction media themselves, the resorption of any dialectic of communication in total circulation model, the implosion of the social in the masses may seem disastrous and desperate. However, it looks like only in the light of idealism, which completely dominates our view of information. We all dwell in a frenzied idealism of meaning and communication, communication through the idealism of meaning, and in this perspective we just lurking sense of catastrophe.

However, it should be understood that the term "disaster" is "catastrophic" end value and destruction only if the linear accumulation of vision, entailing perfection, which imposes on us the system.

The term etymologically means only "inversion", "folding cycle", which leads to what might be called the "event horizon," the horizon of meaning, beyond which it is impossible to go: on the other side there is nothing that would make value for us - but enough to get out of this ultimatum make sense that she is no longer a disaster is the last day of reckoning, as she works in our modern imaginary

. Beyond the horizon of meaning - fascination, which is the result of neutralization and the implosion of meaning. Beyond the horizon of social - mass, are the result of neutralization and social implosion

. The main thing now - to evaluate this double challenge - meaning the challenge posed by the masses and silence (which is not a passive resistance) - meaning the challenge that comes from the media and hypnosis. All attempts marginal and alternative, to resurrect some particle of sense, look in comparison with that as secondary.

It is obvious that in this complicated connection of the masses and the media lies a paradox: either the media neutralize meaning and produce "a shapeless» [informe] or an informed [informee] weight, or is it the mass of successfully resisting media, rejecting or absorbing unanswered all messages that are produced?

Earlier, in "Requiem for the media," I analyzed and described by the media as an institution irreversivnoy models of communication without response. Today? This lack of response can be understood not as a strategy of power, but as a counter-strategy of the masses directed against the authorities. What's in this case?

Whether the media is on the side of power, manipulating the masses, or are they on the side of the masses and are engaged in the liquidation of meaning, creating not without pleasure abuse him? Do mass media is introduced into the state of hypnosis, or is it the mass media forced to turn into a meaningless spectacle?

Mogadishu-Stammheim: the media themselves are converted into a means of moral condemnation of terrorism and exploitation of fear for political purposes, but, at the same time, in the most perfect ambiguity, they spread inhuman charm of a terrorist attack, they themselves are terrorists, because they themselves are susceptible to this charm (eternal moral dilemma cf. Umberto Eco: how to avoid the topic of terrorism and how to find the correct way to use the media - if it does not exist)

.. Media are the meaning and kontrsmysl, they are manipulated in all directions at once, this process no one can control them - means internal to the simulation system, and simulation, which destroys the system, which fully corresponds to the Mobius strip and the logic of the ring - they exactly the same with her. It there is no alternative, or logical solutions. Only logical and catastrophic aggravation of the resolution.

With one amendment. We are face to face with this system in a split position and insoluble "double bind" - just as the children alone with the demands of the adult world. They are required at the same time to become self-reliant, responsible, free and conscious subjects, and be submissive, inert, obedient, which corresponds to an object (note Double bind - with English lang double bind, the double bond;. The concept of playing a key role in the theory of schizophrenia, Mr... . Bateson.

In fact, double bind is a paradoxical injunction, which eventually leads to the madness: "I order you not to carry out my orders." An example of this behavior is the fact, as a mother in words your child asks about the expression of love, but at the same time with the help of gestures requires the child to keep some distance from it. This leads to the fact that any action the child will be regarded as invalid, in the future it may be difficult to somehow resolve this situation).

The child resists in all directions and on the conflicting requirements also meets a double strategy. It claims to be the object he opposes all possible disobedience, rebellion, emancipation, in short, are the real subject of the claim. Claim to be the subject he is as hard and effectively contrasts the resistance inherent in the object, that is quite the opposite: infantilism, giperkonformizm, complete dependence, passivity, stupidity

. Neither of the two strategies is no more objective value than the other. Сопротивление субъекта сегодня однобоко ценится выше и рассматривается как положительное — так же, как в политической сфере лишь поведение, направленное на освобождение, эмансипацию, самовыражение, становление в качестве политического субъекта, считается достойным и субверсивным. Это означает игнорирование влияния, такого же и, безусловно, гораздо более значительного, поведения объекта, отказ от позиции субъекта и осознания — именно таково поведение масс, — которые мы предаем забвению под пренебрежительным термином отчуждения и пассивности.

Поведение, направленное на освобождение, отвечает одному из аспектов системы, постоянному ультиматуму, который выдвигается нам с тем, чтобы представить нас в качестве чистых объектов, но он отнюдь не отвечает другому требованию, которое заключается в том, чтобы мы становились субъектами, чтобы мы освобождались, чтобы мы самовыражались любой ценой, чтобы мы голосовали, вырабатывали, принимали решение, говорили, принимали участие, участвовали в игре, — этот вид шантажа и ультиматума, используемый против нас так же серьезен, как первый, еще более серьезен, без сомнения, в наше время.

В отношении системы, чьим аргументом является притеснение и подавление, стратегическое сопротивление представляет собой освободительные притязания субъекта. Но это отражает, скорее, предшествующую фазу системы, и даже если мы все еще находимся с ней в состоянии афронта, то это уже не является стратегической областью: актуальным аргументом системы является максимизация слова, максимизация производства смысла.

А значит, и стратегическое сопротивление — это отказ от смысла и от слова – или же гиперконформистская симуляция самих механизмов системы, также представляющая собой форму отказа и неприятия. Это стратегия масс и она равнозначна тому, чтобы вернуть системе ее собственную логику через ее удвоение, и смысл, словно отражение в зеркале — не поглотив его. Эта стратегия (если еще можно говорить о стратегии) преобладает сегодня, ведь она вытекает из преобладающей фазы системы.

Ошибиться с выбором стратегии — это серьезно. Все те движения, которые делают ставку лишь на освобождение, эмансипацию, возрождение субъекта истории, группы, слова, на сознательность (точнее бессознательность) субъектов и масс, не видят того, что они находятся в русле системы, чьим императивом сегодня является как раз перепроизводство и регенерация смысла и слова.

Жан Бодрийяр «Симулякры и симуляции», 1981 г.