Reality and the Culture of Simulation (1)

Understanding the Context of the Spectacle of the Real

Reality is the context for everything we do in life. Think of it as a relationship that gives us constant feedback. We can drive a car, use a computer, or learn a language because reality gives us a response to learning to understand and to trust.

On the other hand, reality is hidden from us. All the means that we use to determine what is real are intended to obscure it. Photographs, movies, billboards, and the screens of our computers and smartphones do not present reality to us. Instead, we are given a hyperreality. It is a simulation of reality designed to magnify and obscure reality so that we become subjects to the spectacle of hyperreality.

Many years ago, I heard a radio interview of a professor of mass communication speak about a fundamental change that advertisers made in their approach to consumers. Advertisers thought that shaming people into buying products was the right approach. Then a shift took place as they began to sell the idea that we deserved the product. McDonald’s became famous by telling us that “You deserve a break today.” Is it any wonder that a half-century later that we live in a culture where people feel they are entitled to every benefit possible, even the exclusion of work.

This entitlement mindset is not based upon a hierarchy of merit. You don’t earn entitlement. You are endowed with it. Even when the hard edge of genuine reality hits, people deny that they are responsible for their hardship. They expect some person or institution to step in and take care of their unfortunate circumstances. Ultimately, this produces a dependent class of citizens.

The Image and Death of the Real

Many theorists look at this combination of simulation, hyperreality, and social conditioning as the death of reality. Jean Baudrillard conceived of this as The Murder of the Real.*

“For reality is but a concept, or a principle, and by reality I mean the whole system of values connected with this principle. The Real as such implies an origin, an end, a past and a future, a chain of causes and effects, a continuity and a rationality. No real without these elements, without an objective configuration of discourse. And its disappearing is the dislocation of this whole constellation.”

The question of the real had been a topic of curiosity for me since my college days. During the fall of my senior year, I took an American Studies seminar course titled, Identity and Consciousness in the Modern World. Four students and our prof sat around a table for three hours every week talking about the kind of topics I am now writing about. No course requirements except to produce a project and presentation.

My project took the starting point of the notion that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” See how the image on the screen can take many forms with many different connotations? My project was about static images on billboards. Now billboards have been digitized, and the sequence of images cannot be reduced to a thousand words, much less words at all.

I did my research while on a trip with a group of friends to Boston for Thanksgiving. I took pictures of billboards in cities and along the highways. The difference was telling. In the city, the billboards were image-based. Pictures of beautiful people in tranquil countryside with the name of the product they were selling.

The classic advert The Marlboro Man is this kind of image-based billboard. Out on the highway, the billboards said, “Gas. Next Exit.” My conclusion was that a picture may be worth a thousand words, but a word is worth one word at highway speeds. Images convey a host of ideas. On the highway, the simpler the message, the better the communication.

This curiosity about the real in modern life eventually led me to write an essay called The Spectacle of the Real.

“Living in the world of the image and the spectacle is a world where reality is an appearance and beyond our capacity to determine what is this real, true, and the way things actually are. This is a hyper-real world that turns reality on its head.

The dilemma we face is not directly with the spectacular or simulated realities. Rather it is not having a ground upon which to distinguish between the real and the hyper-real. Some people may choose to believe in the reality of the hyper-real world, which leads further into the world of spectacle and its consumer-driven nature. But reality has a way of confronting such an artificial world with economic collapses, environmental catastrophes, and the experience of disease, brokenness, and loss.”

To recover reality is not to challenge the simulacrums of our time. But rather seek to understand the larger context in which these simulations/spectacles function.

Baudrillard writing a dozen years earlier amplifies this thought about the spectacle.

“Let us be clear about this: if the Real is disappearing, it is not because of a lack of it – on the contrary, there is too much of it. It is the excess of reality that puts an end to reality just as the excess of information puts an end to information, or the excess of communication puts an end to communication. … The last and most radical analysis of this problematic was achieved by Guy Debord and the Situationists, with their concept of spectacle and spectacular alienation. For Debord there was still a chance of disalienation, a chance for the subject to recover his or her autonomy and sovereignty. But now this radical Situationist critique is over. By shifting to a virtual world, we go beyond alienation, into a state of radical deprivation of the Other, or indeed of any otherness, alterity, or negativity. We move into a world where everything that exists only as idea, dream, fantasy, utopia will be eradicated, because it will immediately be realized, operationalized. Nothing will survive as an idea or a concept. You will not even have time enough to imagine. Events, real events, will not even have time to take place. Everything will be preceded by its virtual realization. We are dealing with an attempt to construct an entirely positive world, a perfect world, expurgated of every illusion, of every sort of evil and negativity, exempt from death itself. This pure, absolute reality, this unconditional realization of the world – this is what I call the Perfect Crime.”

The spectacle nature of this hyperreality cannot be critiqued as a competing interpretation of reality. It has deposed reality altogether. It is an all-consuming culture. It would seem that we are not even given a choice, as between Yes and No. We are enveloped in a total culture of simulation that transforms our perception of everything.

This culture is formed by four patterns of hyperreality. There are the simulations that replace reality. There is the seduction of the image that transforms our perception of what is real. There is the nurture of a religious-like consciousness of belief in the truth of what the spectacle represents. And there is the control function where those in power control the means of communication and information sharing insuring that the spectacle’s presentation of reality is the only valid one.

This pattern occurs in a linear, developmental progression. Each pattern builds upon the ones before it.

We live in a simulated world.

We are seduced to believe a certain way about who we are.

We develop a false consciousness that becomes our perception of the world.

As a result, we are controlled by the triggering of each strategy.

Let me describe each pattern briefly

Four Patterns of the Culture of Simulation

Simulation

Everything that is presented to us as a simulation means that reality is not available to us. We experience this simulation as a series of spectacles. The simulations are managed, moderated, and mediated through the vehicles of the media. This simulated world distracts us from reality as it envelopes us in conflicts and crises that demand our attention and engagement.

French theorist Jean Baudrillard, in Simulacra and Simulation**, describes how the simulation of the real was something different.

“To dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign to have what one doesn't have. One implies a presence, the other an absence. But it is more complicated than that because simulating is not pretending. "Whoever fakes an illness can simply stay in bed and make everyone believe he is ill. Whoever simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms" (Littre'). Therefore, pretending or dissimulating, leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the "true" and the "false," the "real" and the "imaginary." Is the simulator sick or not, given that he produces "true" symptoms?”(emphasis mine)

In The Spectacle of the Real, I follow Baudrillard’s description with this analysis.

“This is the game of appearances. In one instance, it is like the child pretending not to have the pilfered cookie that is in his pocket. Dissimulation is the lie that we learn as children where we hide what we have. It is a denial of reality, based on what everyone knows is true.

Simulation, on the other hand, is an imitation of the real.  Some simulators, like those that train pilots, are meant to mirror the real world as closely as possible. Other simulations are intended for the exact opposite, to create an alternative reality.”

As a result, the culture of simulation hides its true or real intentions. It is the beginning point of the subjection of us as persons to the control of the simulation.

Seduction

The seduction of hyperreality is the power of the image to frame our perception of the world. You can see this power in the 10-12 second TikTok videos. These videos do more to frame our reference to the world than a thousand books and hundreds of hours of classroom lectures. It is the power of the image that lures us into a world of a simulated reality. Beyond our experience, we come to believe that we can become anything we want, just as long as reality doesn’t interfere. What we are seduced to believe is a story, capturing our identity, defining our personhood.

Seduction operates in the same way that pornography does. The purpose of sexual pornography’s intent is to seduce us into believing that we are foremost sexual beings. It is an intoxicating world of personal expression. It seduces us to imagine how we might perform believing that technique is intimacy. To understand the reality of this world, watch the interviews that Mark Laita does with sex workers at his YouTube site, Soft White Underbelly.

The purpose of pornography is to define ourselves as sexual beings. The characterization can be applied to other forms of simulation. The social dynamic of politics is as powerful a form of pornography as any porn site. Religion, spirituality, psychology, and self-development all follow the same method of using images to define human personhood. Every category of culture has its form of pornography. To see it is to see how powerful the seduction of the simulation is and the seriousness of its effect upon our individual sense of identity

Consciousness

Consciousness is a very broad and multi-dimensional term. It incorporates the cultures of the East and the West, religion, and science. I’m using it here based on how I observe people over the course of my lifetime. As an ordained minister, I see the consciousness derived from the culture of simulation more clearly. In a world where religion has been marginalized, the religious impulse in people is expressed in a desire for a consciousness that provides access to a world of transcendent meaning.

The function of consciousness in this pattern of simulation is to frame one’s identity as a personal belief system. In this sense, consciousness is lived out in spiritual practices and disciplines. Listen to people speak about their spirituality, for example, it is often spoken of as separate from any institutional source. This spiritual consciousness operates within the boundary of the simulation.

If this consciousness represents a true understanding of a transcendent reality, then it must break the container of the simulation. It is similar to Neo’s choice in The Matrix between the Blue pill and the Red pill

The problem is that the simulation is a disconnect from reality. It can be said that the seducing of a person to believe a certain way about themselves is a kind of lie. As I believe we know, every lie requires more lies to support it and sustain it. This is why for many people their spirituality has created a false consciousness. What they believe about themselves and the world leads them into a state of uncertainty and fear. As a result, without an awareness of reality, we become subject to the simulation and its seduction and consciousness.

Control

Ultimately, the four patterns of simulation are designed to control each of us. Every spectacle presented to us every hour of every day is a moment of control over our self-perception. The spectacle is a reinforcing mechanism of the simulation. It is like a grand stimulus-response experiment. The spectacle is the stimulus. Our consciousness is the response. As a result, we are always under the control of the masters of the simulation. Ironically, they too are subject to the same patterns of simulation. There is now no one in control of the simulation. It is a culture that is self-replicating. Where simulation seems benign and welcoming, we allow it to invade our lives. Where the simulation brings hardship, we seek to retreat from it. In both senses, we are under its control.

As dire and apocalyptic as this seems, reality is always present. Every person, who is being seduced by some version of the simulation that encompasses the world, has within themselves the capacity to step back and take a look at what is going on. You may feel a certain way that seems out of character with your surroundings. What you feel is the world that awaits your choosing. We have been programmed to respond to simulations with compliance. And yet, reality lurks in the shadows.

Where Do We Find Reality?

While the above description characterizes the loss of reality, I also do not believe that reality is actually lost. Instead, I believe we are dealing with a loss of awareness of our agency as human beings. This is what the culture of simulation wants to foster, the loss of our human capacity to think for ourselves and act on behalf of others.

Harry Frankfort in his essay Freedom of the Will and The Concept of a Person describes how human beings are different from other animals.

“Many animals appear to have the capacity for what I shall call "first-order desires" or "desires of the-first order," which are simply desires to do or not to do one thing or another. No animal other than man, however, appears to have the capacity for reflective self-evaluation that is manifested in the formation of second-order desires. ***

This difference is like when we realize that we are hungry. We decide to eat. An animal will eat what is available. We go to the refrigerator and decide what we would like to eat right now. Do we fix a hot dog with some sauerkraut, an omelet, or pretzels and beer? We decide based upon a wide range of considerations that never fully surfaces. Our second-order decisions operate where intuition and self-awareness meet.

This second order-desire distinguishes our capacity for free choice. This free choice doesn’t take place in a vacuum. It happens in the context of the intersection of reality with simulation. Our choice can transcend the culture of simulation. We can choose to reject the simulation. We can choose to detoxify ourselves from a marginalized self-identity. We can choose to free ourselves from claustrophobic self-consciousness. We can choose to exercise our freedom as persons to choose not to be controlled by a culture of simulation. This freedom doesn’t come easily, but it can be realized.

What then do we do to discover the freedom of our human agency? What do we do to reclaim reality for our lives and for our world? What does that even look like in “real” life?

In my next column, I will describe a corresponding framework of reality that offers an alternative to the simulation – seduction – consciousness – control culture that dominants our world

*  Jean Baudrillard, The Murder of the Real from The Vital Illusion, Columbia University Press, 2000.

** Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, The University of Michigan Press, 1994.

***  Harry G. Frankfurt, Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 68, No. 1. (Jan. 14, 1971), pp. 5-20.

Reality and The Culture of Simulation

1 Understanding the Context of the Spectacle of the Real

2 The Difference in Context between the Simulation and Direct Experience

3 Learning to Observe and Understand Cultures

4 Reclaiming Reality

5 The Spectacle of the Real comes to Uvalde, Texas. What should leaders do?

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