Reading: Baudrillard “The Procession of Simulacra and The Desert of the Real”
We primarily discussed these two authors together because of their similar views on the reality in which people live. The most influential quotation from Baudrillard that we discussed during class for me was "to dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has. To simulate is to feign to have what one doesn't have. One implies a presence, the other an absence." First, the more familiar term is "simulate" or to express ownership when you do not own something. An example of simulation, the disguising of absence, is when people who lack ownership of money spend what little they have on items that express their wealth. The second term is less familiar because we do not often see dissimulation in our society, or the act of disowning our possessions. This condition "implies a presence" because, for example, people who are wealthy will lower their appearance to make it seem as though they have less. There are many reasons for simulation or dissimulation, but they are all based on the gaze of culture and the other.
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