Baudrillard

Baudrillard's idea of the hyperreal was one of the most interesting concepts we explored this fall. Baudrillard believed that there were four types of reproduction: 

1) Reflection of "reality"; 2) Perversion of reality; 3) Pretense of reality; 4) Simulacrum. 

I haven't quite digested the full significance of these ideas but I'll share some of the thoughts that have been floating through my mind these past weeks. 

As a good Jesuit educated fellow, I spent some time studying St. Thomas Aquinas.  Aquinas explored three types of law: eternal law, natural law and civil law (man-made law). The ruler of a community dictates civil law to insure the well ordered functioning of his community. The just ruler determines these laws through the use of his reason by which he puts himself in tune with Natural Law. In other words, just human law is a reflection (Baudrillard's 1st type of reproduction) of reality. Unjust law on the other hand, is a perversion (Baurdillard's 2nd type of reproduction) of reality. This distinction between human law and natural law had a profound influence on Martin Luther King Jr. But what is natural law? Everything in nature, according to Aquinas, reflects the Eternal Law - i.e. the order by which God directs them through their nature. Things derive their proper acts and ends according to the law that is written into their nature. A tree trees. A bird birds. Human beings are unique the the world in that we alone have reason and free will. In short, Natural Law, as it applies to human beings, is itself a reflection of the Eternal Law. 

Eternal Law > Natural Law > Human Law

What is most important here is that for the ancients and medieval, reality was always a reflection or a reproduction of something "more" real. One could almost say that the reality of the real was grounded on the belief that ultimate reality existed somewhere else. 

In the modern era, the developments of science and philosophy threw this world view into question. Thinkers began looking for new "originals" from which to safeguard reality. Again, in the realm of law, all sorts of "state of nature" theories develop. With Thomas Hobbes, the natural state of mankind is one of perpetual warfare. The role of the ruler is not therefore to make laws in accord with man's nature but rather to protect mankind from its own violent tendencies. For Rousseau, the natural state of man was one of blessed freedom and natural compassion. He believed that the society within which he lived was a perversion of this natural goodness. Although both thinkers have radically different ideas about what is "natural," both continue to appeal to some underlying original.  

In Baudrilliard, we see a totally different conception of reality. The simulacrum is not a copy of the real but becomes the truth in its own right. In other words, simulacra are copies of things that had no reality to begin with. 

A question that I have not quite figured out concerns the meaning of reality. If the reality of "the real" depends on its derivative quality, and if the formal "originals" (i.e. God, various "states of nature," etc) never existed, then what are we even talking about when you use the world reality?