Simulacra and Simulation

[browngirl]

While surfing Wikipedia I found that Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard was required reading for the cast of The Matrix. In reading about the book I found its ideas sounded congruent to some things I've been thinking about. A lot of people, from what I can tell, think that human societies exist (how do I put this?) outside of the people within them, that they have a natural law that determines their shape, and therefore that they are the shape they are because they're meant to be that way, and efforts to change them are fruitless and/or likely to be deleterious. I disagree. (Can you tell I have always wanted to slap Candide until he cries?) I think that societies are formed by the people within them, that if we all decide to change society we can. We have --- my life as a not-wealthy Black woman is very different than it would have been a half century or a century ago, largely because vast numbers of Americans changed their beliefs, their attitudes, and their laws, thus changing the society we live in.

[I've come to think that] Society is as much a buffer between its inhabitants and reality as it is an actual reality, if you see what I mean, and it seems that this book is about that concept among others. So I thought I'd write about that and see if anyone who reads my journal has read the book and wants to tell me more about it.

(As if my to-read pile weren't big enough.... and yet this does sound intriguing and educational.)

Comments

[dafydd.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.... Throw this (http://dafydd.livejournal.com/485253.html) into the mix, and see what comes out. spiritualmonkey is the friend to whom I commented, and he links to that original post in the comments.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Interesting post, with an interesting description of your upbringing. As for my response, wcg said everything I found myself thinking, and more besides.

[badgerthorazine.livejournal.com]

oooh. I think I want to read that. :-) Given my 29-book backlog from Boskone, that's surprising. ;-D

It makes a hell of a buffer, so much so that I don't know when/whether it works at all anymore, sometimes.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

It makes a hell of a buffer, so much so that I don't know when/whether it works at all anymore, sometimes.

*nod* Not least because in some ways it forms its own reality...