Simulacrum (plural: simulacra), from the Latin simulare, “to make like, to put on an appearance of”, originally meaning a material object representing something (such as a cult image representing a deity, or a painted still-life of a bowl of fruit). By the 1800s it developed a sense of a “mere” image, an empty form devoid of spirit, and descended to connote a specious or fallow representation.

But I agree it doesn’t necessarily have to be a lesser-image. I see it a bit like the way Plato would see material things as opposed to forms; that an object which is a simulacrum is less than the thing it is a simulacrum of. This doesn’t mean the simulacra are not genuine in some way, but they’re not genuine in this particular way. A good illustration might be the way that a photograph is not the object it is a photograph of, but that doesn’t mean it’s not genuine in some other way, it’s a genuine photograph (much like your mona lisa above).

I agree with you uniqueness point, it’s interesting how advertising can simultaneously provide products that are both unique and normal at the same time.

As for JB’s point, I don’t think the different points happen at the same time, I think (3) comes after (2), perhaps the “basic reality” disappears after the perversion? His ideas never seem to have mnuch substance for me.

I really like the tourism idea, and can certainly sympathise with it. Another interesting observation along the same theme is that when you see something like the Eiffel Tower or the Niagara Falls (for example) you have already seen so many pictures/videos of these things that in the flesh they can feel just like another image. In some ways you can never truly get through to the actual thing itself because your idea is so distorted by all the previous images you have seen.

Anything we create is an image, in some way, but it also enjoys a reality of its own. We ourselves are (in a sense) images of our parents and their parents before them. This doesn’t make us a simulacrum bearing “no relation to any reality whatever”; neither are we substantively “less than” our forebears. So, being a “reflection of a basic reality” doesn’t necessitate perversion (2) or negate reality (4).

I also wonder how JB’s third point can follow from his second. How can an image “mask and pervert a basic reality” while at the same time there is an “absence of a basic reality”? Or is the “basic reality” lost in the progression? Loss of reality is different from an absence of one.

I do think that true simulacra—meaning simulated, false, or contrived images of reality—are abundant in our culture and do cost us our autonomy. Walker Percy has an interesting book called, “The Message in the Bottle”. It’s an exploration of language, but he has a chapter entitled, “The Loss of the Creature”, in which he talks about loss of autonomy or, as he calls it, loss of sovereignty. He uses tourism as an example, arguing that seeing the Grand Canyon by way of, say, a tourist bus, is not genuinely seeing it at all. “The sightseer may be aware that something is wrong. He may simply be bored; or he may be conscious of the difficulty: that the great thing yawning at his feet somehow eludes him. The harder he looks at it the less he can see.” Percy then has the sightseer leaving the beaten track, camping in the back country. “He arises before dawn and approaches the South Rim through a wild terrain where there are no trails and no railed in look out points. In other words, he sees the canyon by avoiding all the facilities for seeing the canyon. If the benevolent Park Service…thinks he has a good idea and places the following notice…’Consult ranger for information on getting off the beaten track’–the end result will only be the closing of another access to the canyon.”

Tourism facilities are simulacra, in that they contrive to give a “genuine experience” of a thing, but genuine experiences are not contrived. And the tourist relinquishes his sovereign ability to experience a thing by submitting to seeing it in a way prescribed by someone else. I don’t know how many times I’ve stopped at a “scenic overlook”, but the only one I remember is the one with no overlook and a dead end trail. We knew in which direction Lake Michigan lay, so we wound our way through the forest for hours until we came out on top of a sand dune, overlooking the lake. We were so high that eagles were flying directly above our heads and we could see the curve of the horizon. It’s right up there as one of the best experiences of my life.

the successive phases of the image;

1 it is the reflection of a basic reality
2 it masks and perverts a basic reality
3 it masks the absence of a basic reality
4 it bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum.

I enjoy your blog. Would you clarify for me the definition of simulacra you’re using in this post and in your blog in general? I ask because the tone of your post seems to disparage simulacra, as a lesser form of existence, i.e., less than genuine; a fake. It is true that this is one definition of the word, but the second is merely “an image or representation”—a nuance without the negative undertones. Is it only the first definition you’re using here? And, I guess, secondly, would you agree with my assertion regarding the second definition or would you argue that any image or likeness is inherently inauthentic? Must a thing be entirely “original” to be genuine?

In the line of the Dove video: I recently needed a hair cut (I’ve been hacking at my own hair for two years and decided to submit to a professional in anticipation of a friend’s wedding). I looked around on the web, hoping to find curly-hair styling ideas. Everything that didn’t advertise with the names and photos of celebrities—“Get Minnie Driver’s Hair!”—was full of information about “what’s hot” in Hollywood or in the fashion industry. I kept thinking, “I don’t want anybody else’s hair, I just want to know what works well with mine.”

The reason we go through all this “make up” is complicated, I expect. Two things come to mind, directly, though they are really opposite sides of the same idea. We make ourselves up in the manner society mandates because we (in part, rightfully) find our identity in being human, in being part of the larger community of people. We want to “fit in”, to be a part of the group. At the same time, we sense that we are unique individuals, the likes of whom this planet has never seen. The desire to express our “uniqueness” prompts us to dress/act/style ourselves in a way that gets us “noticed” by others. Our simultaneous urge to be found acceptable and to identify with everyone else causes us to consistently choose popular styles; so our choices end up being anything but unique.