Reaction Essay #1

Simulacra and Simulations
(Jean Baudrillard)

When I first began reading this article I was surprised at how quickly the author jumped into complicated subjects such as the concept of “hyperreal.” I still do not entirely understand what this means. What I did get from this idea was that as things are duplicated in our society and around the world, as they often are today, they become unreal. Therefore as they separate farther and farther from reality they become "hyperreal." I think the author is trying to demonstrate that for something to be real it cannot be produced or reproduced. I can understand this in a symbolic way however in a literal sense it is hard for me to grasp. For example, if we are able to produce drugs containing chemicals, which cause reactions in people’s bodies, then the drugs as well as the reactions are real. They are not real in the sense of nature and natural occurrences but these substances and reactions are still just as real as anything nature has produced.

The section that discusses illness as well as medicine caught my attention because the author states that when someone simulates an illness they are producing an illness in themselves. When I think about this idea, it seems that the illness would still be real. After reading this section I began to think that perhaps when someone fakes something like an illness, it can cause the actual symptoms to occur. This reminds me of the placebo effect, where the subject thinks they are taking medication but in reality it is a simple sugar pill. What is really interesting is that the subject’s symptoms will often improve just because the subject believes they will.

I have never been to Disneyland so when the author discussed this it was hard for me to relate it to my experiences. When the author related Disneyland to a concentration camp, I thought that that was a little harsh. I can however see how Disneyland is a fake and a conformity forming as well as enforcing operation. What I understood from this section of reading was that Disneyland is all imaginary and therefore not real and its purpose is to conceal how unreal the United States has become. Since the theme park is so unreal, it makes the rest of the United States seem very real. I think the author is saying that the whole country has become very unreal because our society is based on conformity and thus on the reproduction of everything. In nature, everything is unique however in the United States very little is unique. Most things have been reproduced over and over again like everything we see in stores. There are multiples of almost everything we use and have today in this country.

Overall, this article was confusing to me. I liked a lot of the ideas about how fake the world is coming. I also found his points very interesting although some I found very hard to understand. I found some of his opinions way too strong and harsh but overall I agreed with a lot of his ideas.