Baudrillard simulators. Jean Baudrillard: Simulacra and the Destruction of Meaning in the Media

Western religion, culture, and conscientiousness have always believed in representation: that a sign can express a hidden meaning, that it can serve replacement sense, that there is something that makes this replacement possible, guarantees its adequacy - this, of course, is God. But what if God himself can be simulated, i.e. reduced to signs certifying its existence? Then the whole system loses its foothold; it turns into a gigantic likeness, into a simulacrum - not that it is completely devoid of connections with reality, but a simulacrum that now refers not to external reality, but to itself - arises vicious circle no referent and no boundaries.

This is the case with simulation insofar as it is opposed to representation. The initial principle of representation is the equivalence of a sign and reality (even if this equivalence is a complete utopia, it is still a basic axiom). On the contrary, simulation proceeds from the utopian nature of the principle of equivalence, from the radical negation of the sign as a value; the simulation sees in the sign a reversal of meaning and a death sentence for the referent. If the representation tries to absorb the simulation by treating it as a false representation, then the simulation envelops the whole building of representation, seeing in itself only an external similarity.

The image goes through the following sequence of phases:

1. It reflects reality.

2. It masks and distorts reality.

3. It masks the absence of reality.

4. He has nothing to do with reality: he turns into his own likeness.

In the first case, the image looks like a blessing: the representation has the character of a sacrament. In the second, the image appears as evil: it has the character of a crime. In the third case, he only pretends to have an appearance: the character of witchcraft. In the fourth, one cannot speak of appearance at all, since the image acquires the character of a simulation.

The transition from signs that mask something to signs that hide the fact that there is nothing behind them is a decisive turn. The former imply a theology of truth and mystery (to which the notion of ideology also belongs). The latter usher in an era of resemblances and simulations in which there is no longer any God or doomsday to separate truth from falsehood, reality from its artificial resurrection, because everything has already died and has already risen.

When reality ceases to be what it was, nostalgia takes on a new meaning. Origin myths and signs of reality proliferate; there is a growing number of second-hand truths, worn-out objectivity, false authenticity. There is a growing longing for authentic, living experience; the figurative replaces the missing object and content. And there is a panic production of genuine, above-and parallel to material production. This is how simulation manifests itself in our current phase: in the form of strategies of the real, the unreal, and the hyperreal, of which the strategy of containment is the universal substitute.

BAUDRILLARD Major works: "The System of Things" (1968), "Toward a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign" (1972), "The Mirror of Production" (1975), "Symbolic Exchange and Death" (1976), "In the Shadow of the Silent Majority" (1978) , "On Seduction" (1979), "Simulacra and Simulations" (1981), "Fatal Strategies" (1983),

"SIMULACRAS AND SIMULATION" "SIMULACRAS AND SIMULATION" is Baudrillard's work ("Simulacres et simulation". Paris, 1981), which, on the one hand, is an attempt to generalize his previous theoretical developments, and on the other hand, the author's reflections on contemporary cultural and

SIMULATION SIMULATION - the concept of postmodern philosophy, fixing the phenomenon of total semiotization of being up to the acquisition of the sign sphere of the status of the only and self-sufficient reality. In this aspect, postmodernism develops the idea laid down by modernism

Baudrillard and simulacra The work of some thinkers is often associated with some plot or concept, which in this case becomes a familiar calling card or brand label, label or even a trademark. Of course, it was not Baudrillard who invented

SIMULACRA AND SCIENCE FICTION There are three orders of simulacra: - Simulacra natural, naturalistic, based on image, imitation and forgery, harmonious, optimistic and aimed at the restitution or ideal institution of nature in the image of God; -

Jean Baudrillard Phantoms of Modernity Foreword Jean Baudrillard is one of those rare philosophers who defend their views not only on the pages of books or in scientific discussions, but also in real battles. He actively participated in the revolutionary events of 1968

The intellectual "guru" of postmodernism, who once opened our eyes to the "unreality of what is happening." “We live in a world of simulacra,” he said, confirming this with a pile of examples: labor is no longer productive, it rather carries social function(“everyone should be in business”), representative authorities no longer represent anyone, now it is not the basis that determines the superstructure, but vice versa. So, according to Baudrillard, we have lost touch with reality and entered the era of hyperreality - an era in which the picture is more important than the content, and the connection between objects, phenomena and their signs is broken (for the concept of the film "The Matrix" we just have to thank Baudrillard, although he was convinced that his ideas had been distorted).

Jean Baudrillard assigns a significant role to the media in this process: in his opinion, the modern insane flow of information creates great amount copies and simulacra that ultimately destroy reality. Moreover, Baudrillard notes, the more information becomes, the less sense, although, logically, everything should be the other way around. An entire chapter of his book Simulacra and Simulations (1981) is devoted to the analysis of this particular problem. So, Monocler offers to read and understand why there is a total inflation of information and what to do about it.

IMPLOSITION OF MEANING IN THE MEDIA

We are in a world where there is more and more information and less and less meaning. In this regard, three hypotheses are possible:

Either information produces meaning (negentropy factor), but is unable to compensate for the severe loss of meaning in all areas. Attempts to re-inject it, through all more Media, messages and content are futile: the loss, absorption of meaning is faster than its re-injection. In this case, one should turn to the productive basis to replace the failing media. That is, to the whole ideology of freedom of speech, of the media, divided into countless separate units of broadcasting, or to the ideology of "anti-media" (radio pirates, etc.).

Or information has nothing to do with signification at all. It is something completely different, an operational model of a different order, external to meaning and its circulation. Such, in particular, is the hypothesis of K. Shannon, according to which the sphere of information, a purely instrumental, technical environment, does not imply any final meaning and therefore should also not participate in a value judgment. It is a kind of code, such as a genetic one: it is what it is, it functions as it functions, and the meaning is something else that appears, so to speak, after the fact, as in Monod in "Chance and Necessity ". In this case, there would simply be no significant relationship between the inflation of information and the deflation of meaning.

Or, on the contrary, there is a strong and necessary correlation between these two phenomena to the extent that information directly destroys or neutralizes meaning and signification. Thus, it turns out that the loss of meaning is directly related to the corrupting, discouraging effect of information, the media and the media.

This is the most interesting hypothesis, but it goes against the conventional wisdom. Socialization is universally measured in terms of receptivity to media messages. Desocialized, and in fact asocial is the one who is not sufficiently receptive to the media. Information everywhere is believed to contribute to the accelerated circulation of meaning and create a surplus value of meaning similar to that which takes place in the economy and is obtained as a result of the accelerated circulation of capital. Information is seen as the creator of communication, and despite the huge non-productive costs, there is a general consensus that we are still dealing with the growth of meaning, which is redistributed in all spaces of the social - just as there is a consensus that the material production, despite failures and irrationality, still leads to an increase in welfare and social harmony. We are all part of this enduring myth. This is the alpha and omega of our modernity, without which the credibility of our social organization would be undermined. And yet, the fact is that it is undermined, and for this very reason: where we think information makes sense, the opposite happens.

Information devours its own content. It devours communication and the social. And this happens for two reasons:

1. Instead of creating communication, information exhausts its power in staging communication. Instead of producing meaning, it exhausts its power in staging meaning. Before us is a very familiar giant simulation process. Unprepared interviews, phone calls from viewers and listeners, all kinds of interactivity, verbal blackmail: "This concerns you, the event is you, etc." More and more information is being invaded by this kind of phantom content, this homeopathic inoculation, this dream of awakening communication. A circular scheme in which what the audience desires is played out on the stage, the anti-theater of communication, which, as you know, is always only a reuse through the negation of the traditional institution, an integrated negative scheme. An enormous energy directed at keeping the simulacrum at a distance in order to avoid a sudden dissimulation that would present us with the obvious reality of a radical loss of meaning.

It is useless to find out whether the loss of communication leads to this escalation within the simulacrum, or whether it is the simulacrum that first appears here for the purpose of apotropy, in order to prevent in advance any possibility of communication (the precession of the model that puts an end to the real). It is useless to find out what is originally, neither one nor the other, because it is a cyclical process - a process of simulation, a process of the hyperreal. Hyperreality of communication and meaning. More real than the real itself - that's how it is abolished.

Thus, not only communication, but also the social function in a closed cycle, like a temptation to which the power of myth is applied. Trust, belief in information, joins this tautological proof that the system provides about itself, duplicating in signs an elusive reality.

However, it can be assumed that this belief is as ambiguous as the belief that accompanies myths in archaic societies. They believed and did not believe in them. No one is tormented by doubts: "I know for sure, and yet ...". This kind of reverse simulation occurs in the masses, in each of us, in response to the simulation of meaning and communication in which this system encloses us. In response to the tautological nature of the system, the ambivalence of the masses arises; in response to apotropy, discontent or a still enigmatic belief arises. The myth continues to exist, but one should not think that people believe in it: this is precisely the trap for critical thought, which can only work on the assumption of the naivety and stupidity of the masses.

2. In addition to this, by excessive staging of communication, the media strenuously achieve with information an irresistible destructuring of the irrevocable social.

This is how information decomposes meaning, decomposes the social, turns them into a kind of nebula, doomed not to the growth of the new, but, on the contrary, to total entropy.

Thus, the mass media are not the movers of socialization, but quite the contrary, the implosion of the social in the masses. And this is only a macroscopic expansion of the implosion of meaning at the microscopic level of the sign. This implosion should be analyzed on the basis of McLuhan's "medium is the message" formula (the means of communication is the message), the possible conclusions from which are far from being exhausted.

It means that all contents of meaning are absorbed by the single dominant form of media. The media alone is an event, regardless of the content, conformist or subversive. A serious problem for any counter-information, radio pirates, anti-media, etc.

However, there is an even more serious problem that McLuhan himself did not discover. After all, outside of this neutralization of all content, one could hope that the media would still function in their form, and that the real could be transformed under the influence of media as a form. If all content is abolished, perhaps there will still be a revolutionary and subversive value in using media as such. Consequently - and this is what McLuhan's formula leads to in its ultimate meaning - there is not only an implosion of the message in the media, but, in the same movement, there is an implosion of the media in the real, an implosion of the media and the real into a kind of hyperreal a nebulousness in which the definition and proper action of the media are no longer distinguishable.

Even the “traditional” status of the media themselves, characteristic of modernity, has been called into question. McLuhan's formula: media is a message, which is the key formula of the simulation era (media is a message - the sender is the addressee, the closure of all poles - the end of perspective and panoptical space - these are the alpha and omega of our modernity), this formula itself must be considered in its ultimate expression, that is: after all content and messages have evaporated into the media, the media themselves will disappear as such. In fact, it is also thanks to the message that the media acquire signs of authenticity, it is it that gives the media their definite, distinct status as a medium of communication. Without a message, the media themselves fall into the uncertainty inherent in all our systems of analysis and evaluation. Only a model, whose action is immediate, generates at once the message, the media, and the “real”.

Finally, "media is a message" means not only the end of the message, but also the end of the media. There is no more media in the literal sense of the word (I mean, first of all, electronic media), that is, an instance that would be an intermediary between one reality and another, between one state of the real and another. Neither in content nor in form. Actually, this is what implosion means. Mutual absorption of the poles, short circuit between the poles of any differential system of meaning, the erasure of clear boundaries and oppositions, including the opposition between the media and the real - hence, the impossibility of any indirect expression of one by the other or the dialectical dependence of one on the other. Circularity of all media effects. Consequently, the impossibility of meaning in the meaning of a one-way vector going from one pole to another. It is necessary to fully analyze this critical but original situation: this is the only thing left for us.

It is useless to dream of a revolution through content, it is futile to dream of a revolution through form, because the media and the real are now a single nebula, the truth of which cannot be deciphered.

The fact of this implosion of contents, the absorption of meaning, the disappearance of the media themselves, the resorption of any dialectic of communication in the total circulation of the model, the implosion of the social in the masses may seem catastrophic and desperate. However, this only appears so in the light of the idealism that completely dominates our understanding of information. We all live in a violent idealism of meaning and communication, in an idealism of communication through meaning, and in this perspective, it is precisely the catastrophe of meaning that lies in wait for us.

However, it should be understood that the term "catastrophe" has a "catastrophic" meaning of end and annihilation only in the linear vision of accumulation, entailing completeness, which the system imposes on us. The term itself, etymologically, means nothing more than a “reversal”, “folding the cycle”, which leads to what could be called the “event horizon”, to a horizon of meaning beyond which it is impossible to go: on the other side there is nothing that would have meaning for us - but it is enough to get out of this ultimatum of meaning, so that the catastrophe itself is no longer the last day of reckoning, as which it functions in our modern imaginary.

Beyond the horizon of meaning is a fascination resulting from the neutralization and implosion of meaning. Beyond the horizon of the social are the masses, which are the result of the neutralization and implosion of the social.

The main thing today is to appreciate this double challenge - the challenge of meaning thrown by the masses and their silence (which is not passive resistance at all) - the challenge of meaning that comes from the media and their hypnosis. All attempts, marginal and alternative, to resurrect some particle of meaning, look in comparison with this as secondary.

It is quite obvious that there is a paradox in this complex combination of masses and media: is it the media that neutralizes the meaning and produces a “formless” or informed mass, or is it the masses that successfully resist the media, rejecting or absorbing without response all the messages that they produce? Earlier, in Requiem for Mass Media, I analyzed and described the media as an institution of an irreversible model of communication without a response. Today? This lack of response can no longer be understood as a strategy of power, but as a counter-strategy of the masses themselves, directed against power. What in that case?

Are the media on the side of the authorities, manipulating the masses, or are they on the side of the masses and are engaged in the elimination of meaning, creating violence against it, not without a share of pleasure? Do the media put the masses into a state of hypnosis, or is it the masses that make the media turn into a meaningless spectacle? Mogadishu-Stammheim: The media turn themselves into a means of moral condemnation of terrorism and the exploitation of fear for political purposes, but at the same time, in the most ambiguous way, they spread the inhuman charm of the terrorist attack, they themselves are terrorists, since they themselves are subject to this charm (the eternal moral dilemma, cf. Umberto Eco: how to avoid the topic of terrorism, how to find The right way use of the media - if it does not exist). The media carry meaning and counter-meaning, they manipulate in all directions at once, no one can control this process, they are means of simulation internal to the system, and simulation that destroys the system, which fully corresponds to the Möbius strip and the logic of the ring - they are in accuracy matches it. There is no alternative or logical solution to this. Only logical exacerbation and catastrophic resolution.

With one amendment. We are face to face with this system in a bifurcated and unresolvable position of a "double bind" - just like children are face to face with the demands of the adult world. They are required to simultaneously become independent, responsible, free and conscious subjects and be submissive, inert, obedient, which corresponds to the object ( note Double bind - from English. lang. double message, double bond; a concept that plays a key role in G. Bateson's theory of schizophrenia. In fact, double bind is a paradoxical prescription that eventually leads to insanity: "I order you not to follow my orders." An example of such behavior is a mother verbally asking her child to express love, but at the same time using gestures, she requires the child to keep some distance from her. This leads to the fact that any action of the child will be regarded as incorrect, and in the future it may be difficult for him to somehow resolve this situation.). The child resists on all fronts and also responds to conflicting demands with a double strategy. He opposes the requirement to be an object with all possible variants of disobedience, rebellion, emancipation, in a word, the real claims of the subject. To the requirement to be a subject, he just as stubbornly and effectively opposes the resistance inherent in the object, that is, quite the opposite: infantilism, hyperconformity, complete dependence, passivity, idiocy. Neither of the two strategies has more objective value than the other. The resistance of the subject today is one-sidedly valued higher and is regarded as positive - just as in political sphere only behavior aimed at liberation, emancipation, self-expression, becoming a political subject is considered worthy and subversive. This means ignoring the influence of the same and certainly much more significant behavior of the object, the rejection of the position of the subject and awareness - this is the behavior of the masses - which we consign to oblivion under the disparaging term of alienation and passivity.

Simulation from the Latin simulatio - pretense, visibility. Simulation aims to convince the observer of the reality of what is not in reality.

Simulacra are a "copy" that does not have an original in reality. A simulacrum is a pseudo-thing, an image without an original, a representation of something that does not actually exist.

Explore this topic in detail allows the book of Jean Baudrillard "Simulacra and Simulation", which was published in 1981. After reviewing the work, I realized that it strikingly reflects what is happening now in the world. We live in a simulation society. It will be interesting to read and reflect on the arguments of the philosopher.

The idea of ​​the book lies in the fact that hyperreality, formed by a thin procession of simulacra, has become much dearer and closer to us than real reality in all areas of life. The author states the fact of ubiquitous simulation. And he confirms his correctness with examples from various areas of society.

We encounter simulation all the time. Thus, according to Baudrillard, universities simulate education. Teachers pretend to give knowledge, and students pretend to learn. Hospitals feign concern for the health of society. After all, if people really wanted to be healthy, they would take care of it themselves, preventing diseases. Simulation goes everywhere. Instead of walking down the street with their feet, people drive themselves to fitness rooms and walk on treadmills there. Most of the work today has become a pure kind of simulation. They have lost their meaning. The purpose of such work is to occupy people, to waste their energy. And it is even impossible to understand for what and why. Is it so?

Further, the author moves on to another favorite territory of simulation - the territory of religion. What does a deity become when it appears in icons, when it multiplies in simulacra? Does it remain the highest instance, only relatively fixed in the images of visual theology? Or does it evaporate in simulacra, which themselves show their power, which enchant—the glamor of icons replaces the pure and supersensible Idea of ​​God? Actually, from a premonition of this power of simulacra, this ability to erase God from the understanding of people and this destructive, murderous truth that they declare by themselves - that, in essence, God never existed, that only his simulacrum has always existed, or even God himself has always was only his personal simulacrum - and there was a call from the iconoclasts to get rid of the icons.

The modern age, like any new stage in the development of society, has marked itself with a variety of changes. The age of minimalistic morality has come, independent of any prescriptions, the plurality of truth, which negatively affected the established worldview of a person, the system of moral rules of society. The expression of simulation has universally affected various areas of human existence, religion, psychoanalysis, the politics of medicine, and more. While there is a transition from "signs that hide something to signs that hide that there is nothing." The latter form an era of simulacra and simulation. With the advent of the era of simulation, the modification of reality into hyperreality, the concept of so-called nostalgia appears, the value of the original myths and signs of reality, as well as objectivity and truth, “increases”. An integral characteristic modern society, which is commonly called informational, is a powerful development of computer technology. A person today deals not only with the natural and artificially created cultural environment, but also with the virtual environment, which predetermines the emergence of qualitatively new relationships with the surrounding reality, in particular, the problem of the relationship between reality and its symbolic reflection. J. Baudrillard social system considers it as a derivative of the sign system. Simulacrum is a unit of sign system. The simulacrum is defined by the author, firstly, as a false likeness, a copy that hides the absence of the original and therefore creates evil, and, secondly, as an imaginary illusion, an image of an ideologized consciousness. Defining a simulacrum as a false copy, J. Baudrillard considers the history of society as a process of settlement social reality false objects.

The main parameter of hyperreality, in which we are currently living, is the absence of differences between the imaginary and the real. Having shown the omnipotence of the simulacrum, the author proceeds to analyze this all-encompassing phenomenon. He highlights the phases of how the reflection of the real turned into a simulacrum. "The transition from signs that hide something to signs that hide that there is nothing behind them" - just shows the era of simulation.

Today, the real has become the alibi of the model in the world, which is run by the principle of simulation. And, strange as it may seem, it is the real that becomes our real utopia, but that utopia, which can no longer be realized, which can only be dreamed of as irretrievably lost. We have become incapable of imagining any other world. Now it is impossible to build the unreal on the basis of the real, the imaginary on the foundation of data about the real. The process will rather go in the opposite direction: it will contain simulations in the decentration of situations and models, in various attempts to appropriate the colors of the real, experienced everyday, in rethinking the real as fictional, and precisely because it has disappeared from our lives. There is no longer any reality or fantasy, they have been replaced by hyperreality.

The well-known chapter "On Nihilism" is a powerful final chord of the whole book. In essence, this is an announcement, where all the basic concepts are set out in short form. Baudrillard, who buried everything he could in order in the previous chapters, buries philosophy itself here: it was also crushed by simulation. In this regard, Baudrillard refuses to consider himself a philosopher and reports that he is "a terrorist in theory, like other terrorists with weapons in their hands." Therefore, the truth can no longer be discerned behind the simulacrum, its method is an intellectual terrorist attack. "Theoretical violence, not truth, is the only resource we have left." There is no way out of the simulation for humanity, the only solution is death, and ideally, a global cataclysm, the Apocalypse.

Jean Baudrillard in the book shows us the "unreality of what is happening." We live in a world of "simulacra" - he said, proving this with a mountain of examples. According to Baudrillard, we have lost the thread with reality and joined the era of hyperreality - an era in which wrapping is more important than content, and the connection between objects, phenomena and their meaning is broken.

It is difficult to read Baudrillard's book Simulacra and Simulation The author introduces several basic ideas from different angles, considers their manifestations in all spheres of life. Some of the examples described in the book are of a local nature and are understandable not to every reader, but only to a narrow circle of specialists. With the onset of the era of simulation, the transformation of reality into hyperreality, the phenomenon of nostalgia for the lost appears and intensifies, the value of the original myths and signs of reality, as well as truth and objectivity, increases a hundredfold. Defining the logic of simulacra as having nothing to do with the logic of facts and reasonable order, Baudrillard argues that events no longer have content or goals of their own and are endlessly "replaced" by one another. As a consequence, events cease to be significant and are only simulacra of these events.

After reading the book, one gets the impression that there is nothing real in the world at all. Going through one sphere after another modern life: economic, social, religious, political, cultural, scientific, the author bitterly concludes: an oversaturated system is doomed to implosion, an explosion directed not outward, but inward. To hide the consequences of this explosion (in fact, leading to death), the existing system again uses simulation, giving rise to countless simulacra. Apocalypse today is a process of meaninglessness, emasculation of reality. My personal opinion largely contradicts Baudrillard's statements. On many issues, I disagree with his opinion. Reality is consent, and in this sense it doesn’t matter for what reason, whether something actually happened or not, everything that was discussed or narrated is already in the past and it’s impossible to prove that it was one way or the other, but the current one there is no entity at all. The current is only our intention to consider reality as we imagine it. Moreover, a person simply likes what he likes, and in order for it to be “reality” for himself, it is not at all necessary that someone else likes it. Reality is that about which there is agreement. The greater the agreement, the greater the reality.

The book is read very freshly today, although it was written by Bordrillard more than thirty years ago. It is enough to turn on the TV, surf the Internet, listen to what people are talking about, and you will understand that, nevertheless, the Frenchman is somewhat right, although of course he exaggerated the colors for greater clarity. The author wants to argue, agree or object while reading the book, and then compare and analyze. These feelings once again prove that the book is interesting. It is not without reason that this book is opened at the beginning of the film by Neo in the movie The Matrix.

After reading the book, I thought about it and tried to understand the deeper meaning. The book is difficult, but worth reading.

Bibliography:

1. B75 Baudrillard, J. Simulacres and simulation / Simulacres es simulation (1981, Russian translation 2013, translated by O.A. Pechenkin, 204s.
2. Pechenkina O. A. Ethics of simulacra by Jean Baudrillard ( http://cheloveknauka.com/etika-simulyakrov-zhana-bodriyyara) dissertation abstract on philosophy (2006)
3. Sokol A., Brickmont J. Intellectual Tricks, Criticism of Postmodern Philosophy (http://scepsis.net/library/id_1119.html) Per. from English by Anna Kostikova and Dmitry Kralechkin. Foreword by S.P. Kapitsa (2011)

Jean Baudrillard is the intellectual "guru" of postmodernism, who once opened our eyes to the "unreality of what is happening." “We live in a world of simulacra,” he said, confirming this with a bunch of examples: labor is no longer productive, it rather has a social function (“everyone should be in business”), representative authorities no longer represent anyone, now there is no basis defines a superstructure, and vice versa. So, according to Baudrillard, we have lost touch with reality and entered the era of hyperreality - an era in which the picture is more important than the content, and the connection between objects, phenomena and their signs is broken (for the concept of the film "The Matrix" we just have to thank Baudrillard, although he was convinced that his ideas had been distorted).

Jean Baudrillard assigns a significant role to the media in this process: in his opinion, the modern insane flow of information creates a huge number of copies and simulacra, which eventually destroy reality. Moreover, Baudrillard notes, the more information becomes, the less sense, although, logically, everything should be the other way around. An entire chapter of his book is devoted to the analysis of this problem. "Simulacra and Simulations"(1981). So, we read and understand why there is a total inflation of information and what to do about it.

On this topic

IMPLOSITION OF MEANING IN THE MEDIA

We are in a world where there is more and more information and less and less meaning. In this regard, three hypotheses are possible:

— Or information produces meaning (negentropy factor), but is unable to compensate for the severe loss of meaning in all areas. Attempts to re-inject it through an increasing number of media, messages and content are futile: the loss, absorption of meaning is faster than its re-injection. In this case, one should turn to the productive basis to replace the failing media. That is, to the whole ideology of freedom of speech, of the media, divided into countless separate units of broadcasting, or to the ideology of "anti-media" (radio pirates, etc.).

“Or information has nothing to do with signification at all. It is something completely different, an operational model of a different order, external to meaning and its circulation. Such, in particular, is the hypothesis of K. Shannon, according to which the sphere of information, a purely instrumental, technical environment, does not imply any final meaning and therefore should also not participate in a value judgment. It is a kind of code, such as a genetic one: it is what it is, it functions as it functions, and the meaning is something else that appears, so to speak, after the fact, as in Monod in "Chance and Necessity ". In this case, there would simply be no significant relationship between the inflation of information and the deflation of meaning.

Or, on the contrary, there is a strong and necessary correlation between these two phenomena to the extent that information directly destroys or neutralizes meaning and signification. Thus, it turns out that the loss of meaning is directly related to the corrupting, discouraging effect of information, the media and the media.

This is the most interesting hypothesis, but it goes against the conventional wisdom. Socialization is universally measured in terms of receptivity to media messages. Desocialized, and in fact asocial is the one who is not sufficiently receptive to the media. Information everywhere is believed to contribute to the accelerated circulation of meaning and create a surplus value of meaning similar to that which takes place in the economy and is obtained as a result of the accelerated circulation of capital. Information is seen as the creator of communication, and despite the huge non-productive costs, there is a general consensus that we are still dealing with the growth of meaning, which is redistributed in all spaces of the social - just as there is a consensus that the material production, despite failures and irrationality, still leads to an increase in welfare and social harmony. We are all part of this enduring myth. This is the alpha and omega of our modernity, without which the credibility of our social organization would be undermined. And yet, the fact is that it is undermined, and for this very reason: where we think information makes sense, the opposite happens.

Information devours its own content. It devours communication and the social. And this happens for two reasons:

1. Instead of creating communication, information exhausts its power in staging communication. Instead of producing meaning, it exhausts its power in staging meaning. Before us is a very familiar giant simulation process. Unprepared interviews, phone calls from viewers and listeners, all kinds of interactivity, verbal blackmail: “This concerns you, the event is you, etc.” More and more information is being invaded by this kind of phantom content, this homeopathic inoculation, this dream of awakening communication. A circular scheme in which what the audience desires is played out on the stage, the anti-theater of communication, which, as you know, is always only a reuse through the negation of the traditional institution, an integrated negative scheme. An enormous energy directed at keeping the simulacrum at a distance in order to avoid a sudden dissimulation that would present us with the obvious reality of a radical loss of meaning.

It is useless to find out whether the loss of communication leads to this escalation within the simulacrum, or whether it is the simulacrum that first appears here for the purpose of apotropy, in order to prevent in advance any possibility of communication (the precession of the model that puts an end to the real). It is useless to find out which is originally neither, because it is a cyclical process - a process of simulation, a process of the hyperreal. Hyperreality of communication and meaning. More real than the real itself, that's how it is abolished.

Thus, not only communication, but also the social function in a closed cycle, like a temptation to which the power of myth is applied. Trust, belief in information, joins this tautological proof that the system provides about itself, duplicating in signs an elusive reality.

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However, it can be assumed that this belief is as ambiguous as the belief that accompanies myths in archaic societies. They believed and did not believe in them. No one is tormented by doubts: "I know for sure, and yet ...". This kind of reverse simulation occurs in the masses, in each of us, in response to the simulation of meaning and communication in which this system encloses us. In response to the tautological nature of the system, the ambivalence of the masses arises; in response to apotropy, discontent or a still enigmatic belief arises. The myth continues to exist, but one should not think that people believe in it: this is precisely the trap for critical thought, which can only work on the assumption of the naivety and stupidity of the masses.

2. In addition to this, by excessive staging of communication, the media strenuously achieve with information an irresistible destructuring of the irrevocable social.

This is how information decomposes meaning, decomposes the social, turns them into a kind of nebula, doomed not to the growth of the new, but, on the contrary, to total entropy.

Thus, the mass media are not the movers of socialization, but quite the contrary, the implosion of the social in the masses. And this is only a macroscopic expansion of the implosion of meaning at the microscopic level of the sign. This implosion should be analyzed on the basis of McLuhan's "medium is the message" formula (the means of communication is the message), the possible conclusions from which are far from being exhausted.

It means that all contents of meaning are absorbed by the single dominant form of media. The media alone is an event, regardless of the content, conformist or subversive. A serious problem for any counter-information, radio pirates, anti-media, etc. However, there is an even more serious problem that McLuhan himself did not discover. After all, outside of this neutralization of all content, one could hope that the media would still function in their form, and that the real could be transformed under the influence of media as a form. If all content is abolished, perhaps there will still be a revolutionary and subversive value in using media as such. Hence—and this is what McLuhan's formula leads to in its ultimate meaning—there is not only an implosion of the message in the media, but, in the same movement, there is an implosion of the media in the real, an implosion of the media and the real into a kind of hyperreal a nebulousness in which the definition and proper action of the media are no longer distinguishable.

Even the “traditional” status of the media themselves, characteristic of modernity, has been called into question. McLuhan's formula: media is a message, which is the key formula of the simulation era (media is a message - the sender is the addressee, the closure of all poles - the end of perspective and panoptical space - these are the alpha and omega of our modernity), this formula itself must be considered in its ultimate expression, that is: after all content and messages have evaporated into the media, the media themselves will disappear as such. In fact, it is also thanks to the message that the media acquire signs of authenticity, it is it that gives the media their definite, distinct status as a medium of communication. Without a message, the media themselves fall into the uncertainty inherent in all our systems of analysis and evaluation. Only a model, whose action is immediate, generates at once the message, the media, and the “real”.

Finally, "media is a message" means not only the end of the message, but also the end of the media. There is no more media in the literal sense of the word (I mean, first of all, electronic media), that is, an instance that would be an intermediary between one reality and another, between one state of the real and another. Neither in content nor in form. Actually, this is what implosion means. Mutual absorption of poles, a short circuit between the poles of any differential system of meaning, the erasure of clear boundaries and oppositions, including the opposition between the media and the real - hence the impossibility of any indirect expression of one by the other or the dialectical dependence of one on the other. Circularity of all media effects. Consequently, the impossibility of meaning in the meaning of a one-way vector going from one pole to another. It is necessary to fully analyze this critical but original situation: this is the only thing left for us.

It is useless to dream of a revolution through content, it is futile to dream of a revolution through form, because the media and the real are now a single nebula, the truth of which cannot be deciphered.

The fact of this implosion of contents, the absorption of meaning, the disappearance of the media themselves, the resorption of any dialectic of communication in the total circulation of the model, the implosion of the social in the masses may seem catastrophic and desperate. However, this only appears so in the light of the idealism that completely dominates our understanding of information. We all live in a violent idealism of meaning and communication, in an idealism of communication through meaning, and in this perspective, it is precisely the catastrophe of meaning that lies in wait for us.

However, it should be understood that the term "catastrophe" has a "catastrophic" meaning of end and annihilation only in the linear vision of accumulation, entailing completeness, which the system imposes on us. The term itself, etymologically, means nothing more than a “reversal”, “folding the cycle”, which leads to what could be called the “event horizon”, to a horizon of meaning beyond which it is impossible to go: on the other side there is nothing that would have meaning for us, but it is enough to get out of this ultimatum of meaning, so that the catastrophe itself is no longer the last day of reckoning, as which it functions in our modern imaginary.

Beyond the horizon of meaning is a fascination resulting from the neutralization and implosion of meaning. Beyond the horizon of the social are the masses, which are the result of the neutralization and implosion of the social.

The main thing today is to appreciate this double challenge - the challenge of meaning thrown by the masses and their silence (which is not passive resistance at all) - the challenge of meaning that comes from the media and their hypnosis. All attempts, marginal and alternative, to resurrect some particle of meaning, look in comparison with this as secondary.

It is quite obvious that there is a paradox in this complex combination of masses and media: is it the media that neutralizes the meaning and produces a “formless” or informed mass, or is it the masses that successfully resist the media, rejecting or absorbing without response all the messages that they produce? Earlier, in Requiem for Mass Media, I analyzed and described the media as an institution of an irreversible model of communication without a response. Today? This lack of response can no longer be understood as a strategy of power, but as a counter-strategy of the masses themselves, directed against power. What in that case?

Are the media on the side of the authorities, manipulating the masses, or are they on the side of the masses and are engaged in the elimination of meaning, creating violence against it, not without a share of pleasure? Do the media put the masses into a state of hypnosis, or is it the masses that make the media turn into a meaningless spectacle? Mogadishu-Stammheim: The media turn themselves into a means of moral condemnation of terrorism and the exploitation of fear for political purposes, but at the same time, in the most ambiguous way, they spread the inhuman charm of the terrorist attack, they themselves are terrorists, since they themselves are subject to this charm (the eternal moral dilemma, cf. Umberto Eco: how to avoid the topic of terrorism, how to find the right way to use the media - if it does not exist). The media carry meaning and counter-meaning, they manipulate in all directions at once, no one can control this process, they are means of simulation internal to the system, and simulation that destroys the system, which fully corresponds to the Möbius strip and the logic of the ring - they are in accuracy matches it. There is no alternative or logical solution to this. Only logical exacerbation and catastrophic resolution.

With one amendment. We are face to face with this system in a bifurcated and unresolvable position of a "double bind" - just like children are face to face with the demands of the adult world. They are required to simultaneously become independent, responsible, free and conscious subjects and be submissive, inert, obedient, which corresponds to the object ⓘ Note. Double bind - from English. lang. double message, double bond; a concept that plays a key role in G. Bateson's theory of schizophrenia. In fact, double bind is a paradoxical prescription that eventually leads to insanity: "I order you not to follow my orders." An example of such behavior is a mother verbally asking her child to express love, but at the same time using gestures, she requires the child to keep some distance from her. This leads to the fact that any action of the child will be regarded as incorrect, and in the future it may be difficult for him to somehow resolve this situation.. The child resists on all fronts and also responds to conflicting demands with a double strategy. He opposes the requirement to be an object with all possible variants of disobedience, rebellion, emancipation, in a word, the real claims of the subject. To the requirement to be a subject, he just as stubbornly and effectively opposes the resistance inherent in the object, that is, quite the opposite: infantilism, hyperconformity, complete dependence, passivity, idiocy. Neither of the two strategies has more objective value than the other. The resistance of the subject today is one-sidedly valued higher and viewed as positive, just as in the political sphere, only behavior aimed at liberation, emancipation, self-expression, becoming a political subject is considered worthy and subversive. This means ignoring the influence of the same and certainly much more significant behavior of the object, the rejection of the position of the subject and awareness - this is the behavior of the masses - which we consign to oblivion under the disparaging term of alienation and passivity.

Behavior aimed at liberation answers one aspect of the system, the constant ultimatum that is given to us in order to present us as pure objects, but it does not at all meet the other requirement, which is that we become subjects, that we become liberated. so that we express ourselves at any cost, so that we vote, work out, decide, speak, take part, participate in the game - this type of blackmail and ultimatum used against us is as serious as the first, even more serious, no doubt, in Nowadays. In relation to a system whose argument is oppression and repression, strategic resistance is the emancipatory claim of the subject. But this reflects, rather, the previous phase of the system, and even if we are still in a state of confrontation with it, then this is no longer a strategic area: the actual argument of the system is the maximization of the word, the maximization of the production of meaning. This means that strategic resistance is a rejection of meaning and of the word - or a hyperconformist simulation of the very mechanisms of the system, which is also a form of rejection and rejection. This is a strategy of the masses and it is tantamount to returning to the system its own logic through its doubling, and meaning, like a reflection in a mirror - without absorbing it. This strategy (if you can still talk about strategy) prevails today, because it flows from the dominant phase of the system.

Making a mistake with the choice of strategy is serious. All those movements that rely only on the liberation, emancipation, revival of the subject of history, the group, the word, on the consciousness (more precisely, the unconsciousness) of the subjects and the masses, do not see that they are in line with the system, whose imperative today is just overproduction and regeneration of meaning and word.