Jean Baudrillard Courtesy of Times Online

Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007)

Baudrillard was the first in his family to attend college. He taught German for ten years, during which he acquired a PhD in sociology.  Baurillard was a known marxist but focused on consumption and its effect on the formation of society rather than production.  He is best known for exploring how technological communication and media shape society.

Terms

• Simulation - an entire situation being falsified
• Simulacra - an imitation of an object
• Hyperreal - where virtual reality and physical reality interact and the image has outstripped the original
• Electronic War - computer warfare, the opposing sides' technologies compete with each other.  This is notable because war is not conducted from a distance, showing mankind's disconnection through technology e.g. radar jammers

• Structuralism - In the case where a system exists within a knowledge field, one can theoretically get inside, crack the code of the system, and consequently understand it. For example, in psychoanalysis, once we are able to understand the unconscious, we can then understand how the human brain works. 

• Post-structuralism - Because the system is state-dependent, one would have to be inside the system in order to understand it. Any meaning of the system is derived from the system itself.  The meaning is felxible, and there is no perfect key to unlock everything.  This includes the idea of cybernetics, the study of communication processes, control mechanisms, and feedback.  Baudrillard's work is considered Post-Structuralist.

Main Points

Baudrillard identifies three time periods for the evolution of simulacra: 

1. First, there was a clear relation between the true object and the substitute.
2. The Industrial Revolution made it possible to mass produce images.  With this proliferation of simulacra, the copies started to take priority and overwhelmed the real images.  
3. In our current situation the simulacra precedes the original.  The image is now the bearer of meaning more so than the object. In the Gulf War there was a sense of the image proceding the war.  Baudrillard argues that the image was more important than the war itself.

Baudrillard is not saying that the events of the Gulf War did not occur.  He argues that the Gulf War was not technically a war in the traditional sense of the word for several reasons: 

• Because the opposing sides were not evenly matched, there were no grounds or joint space on wich a war could really happen--it would just be a bloodbath. 
• Having large scale weapons is a major factor in avoiding wars according to Baudrillard's theory. Deterrence assured that no nuclear weapons would be used.  Previously, the American government was more likely to build up weapon stock that was superior to our opponent's in order to use it on them.  Now, in the hyper-real, weapons are being constructed to deter the necessity to use them. With mutually assured destruction for all parties involved, the virtual threat of the opposition waging war is enough of a deterrent against using the weapons.
• Hostages have replaced the soldiers.  Those in control of hostages have leverage that they use to advance their side without the use of a physical battle.  The portrayal of hostages in media was a new deterred way of fighting war.  

A CNN image of the Gulf war. Courtesy of TVARK

The "Gulf War" was a title made up by CNN, which marketed the war as it was happening.  Society was fed an image of the war that was a virtual reality of what actually occured on the ground; there were no dead people in the images, only missile and smart bombs being launched.  This "clean war" was not what really happened, revealed by the large Iraqi body count. 

The Gulf War was also an electronic war and the first information war.  Computer viral warfare was utilized for the first time.  We infected the Iraqi security system with viruses. Thus, the war became a distanced "tele-war," per se.

Passages

• "Non-war is characterized by that degenrate form of war which includes hostage manipulation and negotioation.  Hostages and blackmail are the purest products of deterrence.  The hostage has taken the place of the warrior.  He has become the principle actor, the simulacral protagonist, or rather, in his pure inaction, the protagoniser of non-war.  The warriors bury themselves in the desert leaving only hostages to occupy the stage, including all of us as information hostages on the world media stage." Page 24

The Gulf War was the first war with a televised hostage situation.  The strategic value of the hostage is in the visual representation of the hostage to someone else.  This image aids in deterrence. 

• "The fact that the production of decoys has become an important branch of the war industry, just as the production of placebos has become an important branch of the medical industry and forgery a flourishing branch of the art industry - not to mention the fact that information has become a privilaged branch of industry as such - all of this is a sign that we have entered a deceptive world in which an entire culture labours assiduously at its counterfeit.  This also means that it no longer harbours any illusion about itself." Page 42

Baudrillard discusses how a shift of importance from truth to the decoy has occured in society and how this shift shaped our world into an admittedly deceptive one.  This also emphasizes Baudrillard's point that the war is not a war because there is no actual fighting, just bombing of decoys. 

• "Nevertheless, from this point onwards the promotional advantages are fabulous.  Defeate or not, Saddam is assured of an unforgettable and charismatic label.  Victorious or not, American armaments will have acquired an unequalled technological label.  And the sumptuary expenditure in material is already equivilant to that of a real war, even if it has not taken place." Page 30

Baudrillard compares the Gulf War to a sort of international advertisement campaign where the countries involved are able to proliferate themselves as powerful and technologically advanced countries.  This process ends up costing as much as a real war would without the body count.  Once again Baudrillard is able to relate this idea back to his main theme, deterrance.  The idea was that no country truly wants to be at war.  Consequently, the best way to avoid the situation would be to make yourself appear invulnerable.  Baudrillard acknowledges the success of the United States in achieving this effect, making themselves seem larger than life and undefeatable when faced with war.

• "Their war-processors, their raderas, their lasers and their screens render the passage to war as futile and impossible as the use of a word-processor renders futile and impossible the passage to the act of writing, because it removes from it in advance any dramatic uncertainty."  pg. 34 

The Gulf War is not a war because we have run so many simulations and virtual wars that few care to notice the real conflict taking place.  The simulation takes place first and steals the significance of the real event. 

Links

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1483898.ece

This link direct you to Baudrillard's obituary.  Even though we did not get to discuss his life in any depth in class it is interesting to note the vast subject material his work explored.  During his writing career he "experiment with different styles of writing that included poetry, aphorism and journal, and to break away from the idea of writing with pure academic objectivity," and later moved to an exploration of photography after his withdrawl from academia.  

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/gulf.war/facts/gulfwar/

I think what is most interesting about this fact sheet is the number of casualties:

"U.S. casualties: 148 battle deaths, 145 nonbattle deaths"

Perhaps this is a testament to the idea of "virtual death." The low number of casualties indicates that different methods--aside from the usual slaughtering of humans--must have been used in this war.

"Enemy prisoners of war captured: U.S. forces released 71,204 to Saudi control."

As you can see, there is an extremely higher number of hostages being gathered, as opposed to being killed. These facts are a clear indication that war is taking a step in a different direction--that the value of hostages is much higher than the value of human life.

http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082-256789.html

An article summarizing an interview with the modern day soldier--a man who "[fights] the bad guys with packets, as opposed to 120mm SABOT rounds". He is educated in security systems, how to emulate one, and most importantly, how to hack into one. The project is called "The Honeynet Project," and basically his group sets traps for antagonistic forces to fall into.