"The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none.

"The Simulacrum is true." - Ecclesiastes

Simulacrum:

1. An image or representation.
2. An unreal or vague semblance.

Take a look at a train station map: you have five, maybe six distinct train lines, the stops are labeled, sometimes a pretty blue river flows through the map to keep you grounded in geographical reality. In the case of most train station maps, there is some indication of direction, of North, of South, of an East and West.

On a normal map, too--say, an interstate road atlas--you'll find plenty of references, indications of reality. One-way roads, two-lane highways, bridges, rivers, oceans, directions--that sort of reality. A road map is fairly systematic. Map space corresponds to real space in a neat orderly fashion. Map space is an image or representation of real space.

This is also true, to a certain degree, with your train station map. Map space corresponds with real space, though not as systematically as your typical road atlas. Your typical train station map "North" corresponds, somewhat, with the North we think of as real. With a few imaginary leaps of your, er, imagination, the train station map might become an image, or representation of the real world.

But not really. In fact, these sorts of maps are more than representations of the real. They are hyperreal. They do not truly refer to the real world. They refer to themselves. They are images, or representations of that which has no original.

Here's a taste of Jean Baudrillard:

"Disneyland is a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulation. To begin with it is a play of illusions and phantasms: Pirates, the Frontier, Future World, etc. This imaginary world is supposed to be what makes the operation successful. But what draws the crowds is undoubtedly much more the social microcosm, the miniaturized and religious reveling in real America [...]. You park outside, queue up inside, and are totally abandoned at the exit [...]. The contrast with the absolute solitude of the parking lot - a veritable concentration camp - is total."

That's the trick. It doesn't matter in the slightest whether Disneyland is imaginary. What matters is that Disneyland is a representation of the imaginary! If Disneyland is imaginary, if Disneyland is for children, then the real world must be outside, adults must be outside. Disneyland represents the imaginary so we can pretend that our world is not.

Of course, it's not just train maps and Disneyland. A prison is a simulacrum. If the criminals are inside the prison, then the innocent must be outside. A school is a simulacrum. If learning takes place inside, then the ignorant must be outside.

And what about all the energy we put into creating, sustaining, and celebrating such simulacrum? How much juice does it take to light Atlantic City for a single night? Vegas? How much resource to keep Disneyland in the limelight? How much energy do we spend to make sure that we believe our world is real?

It's a creeping thing, the simulacrum, especially when it becomes more than real, when it becomes a representation of that which has no original. All the set rules of language, of time and space, become subjective, airy representations of ideas that have no "real" to back them. What drives the international community? Money, of course, which is clearly a representation of, of--

. . . a representation of something. It will come to me in a second.

Vaguely Related Posts:

1. The Power of the Mind (Even Yours)
2. The Angel of Progress
3. Waking and Dreaming, Thought and Sound
4. Fascination with Heavy Objects
5. Taboo's Meditation on Nostalgia and Exile

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