Simulatons

Jean Baudrillard - Simulatons. Semiotext[e], 1983. 159 lk

Simulaakrumeid tutvustati meile põgusalt semiootika sissejuhatuse viimases loengus (ja millegi pärast on see ka üks paariteistkümnest eksamiküsimustestest). Meelde jäi vaid see, kuidas Salupere mõtiskles valjult Baudrillardi ja Matrixi suhte üle. Wiki ütleb, et Baudrillard tunnistas Matrixi oma töö väärititõlgendamiseks.
Raamat sisaldab kahte simulaakrumi-teemalist esseed: The Precession of Simulacra ja The Orders of Simulacra. Mulle on jäänud mulje, et selleteemalisi esseid on veel raamatuteks köidetud ja imestada siin midagi ei ole - Baudrillardi lähenemine on novel (uudne?) ja piisavalt keeruline, et norida selle kallal on raske.
Tekst on tuubil täis sõnu, mida kohtan esimest, teist või alles kolmandat korda. Näiteks aegis on tuttav sõna, aga selle täpne tähendus pole mul meeles; stucco tähendus on mulle võõras. Mida ma oodata ei osanud, oli selle teose poliitiline meelestatus. See peab ikkagi paika, et prantsuse akadeemia on keevaliselt marksistlik. Ka siin arutleb Baudrillard majandussuhteid, kui ta midagi peale nende üldse arutabki. Suures plaanis võtab ta semiootiliselt lahti Lääne majandusliku elu renessansist alates. Kas kõige selle eesmärk oligi vaid jõuda lõppsõnadeni "kunst on surnud", või on simulaakrumite teemadel ka mingisugune praktilisem rakendus, jäägu teistkordse lugemise jaoks. See on kahtlemata selline teos, mida tuleb korduvalt lugeda, et arusaamiseni jõuda. Seniks jätan siia paar (enda jaoks) olulisemat tsitaati ja ütlen esimese lugemise kohta, et kõige enam meeldisid mulle Sebeoki ja Leibnizi mainimised; esimeselt tõi ta tsitaadi, milles Sebeok pajatab kommunikatsiooniteadusest - kuidas geenid ja informatsioon on seotud; ja Leibnizi mainitakse digitaalsuse kontekstis (binaarsusega olen ma praegu veel paremini tuttav kui semiootikaga). Tsitaate:

Three orders of appearance, parallel to the mutilations of the law of value, have followed one another since the Renaissance:
- Counterfeit is the dominant scheme of the "classical" period, from the Renaissance to the industrial revolution;
- Production is the dominant scheme of the industrial era;
- Simulations is the reigning scheme of the current phase that is controlled by the code.
The first order of simulacrum is based on the natural law of value, that of the second order on the commercial law of value, that of the third order on the structural law of value.

The "advanced democratic" systems are stabilized on the formula of bipartitude altenation. The monopoly in fact remains that of a homogenous political class, from left to right, but it must not be exercised as such. The one-party totalitarian regime is an unstable form - it defuses the political scene, it no longer assures the feed-back of public opinion, the minimal flux in the integrated circuit which constitutes the transistorized political machine. Alternation, on the other hand, is the end of the end of representation, so solicitation is maximal, by dint of simple formal constraint, when you are approaching most nearly a perfect comptetitive equation between the two parties. This is logical. Democracy realizes the law of equivalence in the political order. This law is accomplished in the back-and-forth movement of the two terms which reactivates their equivalence but allows, by the minute difference, a public consensus to be formed and the cycle of representation to be closed. Operational theatre, where the only play staged anymore is the fulginous reflection of political Reason. The "free choice" of individuals, which is the credo of democracy, leads in fact precisely to the opposite: the vote becomes functionally obligatory: if it is not legally, it is by statistical constraint, the structure of alternation, reinforced by the polls. The vote becomes functionally aleatory: when democracy attains an advanced formal stage, it distributes itself around equal quotients (50/50). The vote comes to resemble a Brownian movement of particles or the calculation of probabilities. It is as if everyone voted by chance, or monkeys voted.