Baudrillard Reading

    When we were first assigned this article, Wendy said, "You will think this guy is on drugs." I understood the moment I read the first sentence. I read it at least four times before accepting that it was too deep for my shallow brain to process, so I moved on. Fortunately for me, I was able to take some meaning from the rest of the article. Baudrillard's main point is to discuss what is real; whether simulations are real, and if so, whether they are more real than reality. Baudrillard uses several examples to explain his opinions; the one that resonated most with me was the reality of a one true God. Baudrillard questions which is more real: God or His image. The Iconoclasts feared that allowing people to have a tangible image of God would make him less powerful, or maybe less feared by all. Their obsession with destroying any image of God actually makes the image the greater focus and gives it more power than the belief. Baudrillard goes on to question whether God is not simply a simulacrum, meaning He is reduced to the images that represent Him; this takes away the power held by God, as He is now simply an image or idea.
     Growing up, my parents never took me to church. They told me once or twice that if I wanted to go, they'd take me. Like any eleven year old, I looked at them like they were insane and probably went back to my Playstation or something. This meant that I grew up relatively uneducated in the world of Christianity. I knew about Jesus and Christmas and all of the things you pick up from Christmas music or TV, but I never knew any of the specifics. I'm not an athiest, nor am I a believer. I like to think of myself as an unbiased party, relatively uneducated on both sides and therefore unable to form my own solid opinion. This is why the religion segment of this reading was so interesting to me. I have seen firsthand the power in belief in this superior being; what's a more hot button issue than religion? So, for Baudrillard to say that God's image may be what really holds the power, it kind of makes religion obsolete. You run your life based on what you think this image wants you to do, you worship this image, but not any real God. While I'm not saying that there is or isn't a God, I thought this was a really interesting point to make. Overall, the message I got from this reading was that there is a fine line between what is real and what is simulated; maybe our simulations are more real than our reality. Or maybe this reading was one big confusing mass of words to test whether or not we would make things up on what we learned. Either way, parts were interesting, and other parts were confusing, but it was a decent read.

Reading:
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/simulacra-and-simulations/