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Simulation and simulacrum as ways of being in the world

Ese gran simulacro (fragmento)

Cada vez que nos dan clases de amnesia

como si nunca hubieran existido
los combustibles ojos del alma
me convenzo de que mi regin
no es la farndula de otros
En el fondo el olvido es un gran simulacro
nadie sabe ni puede/ aunque quiera/ olvidar
un gran simulacro repleto de fantasmas
esos romeros que peregrinaran por el olvido
como si fuese El Camino de Santiago
Mario Benedetti

Simulation and simulacrum as ways of being in the world

Introduction
The substance of our society is not substantial but composed of images of things, of ideas
of things and of false things. It is a culture of representation, a culture of simulations and
simulacra. Scott Rettbergur in Fiction in Light of Postmodernism (1991) says: In a world
where there is very little metaphysical belief to cling to, the simulacra become something
that people can define themselves , and their sense of reality, against . Simulation is the
imitation of the real, simulacrum is the multiplication of a model that has no original; it is
pretence of truth. In this world, simulation is not a fact of contemporary existence, it is a
comfort. According to Baudrillard (1981), society has become so reliant on models that
the contact with the real model has been lost, reality merely imitates models, models for the
real. This loss of distinction between reality and the representation of the real is attributed
to a number of phenomena namely: Media culture, the consumer society, multinational
capitalism, urbanization, language and ideology, the loss of history as a referential. In this
scenario , the search for truth has adopted the forms of simulation and simulacra and in
spite of the fact that Baudrillard refers to the Postmodern society, here, it will be evidenced
that simulation as a way of conforming to the social is what Holden Caufield in Salingers
The Catcher in the Rye fights against and that the conformity to an exponential world of
images ( Baudrillard,194) is what Jack Gladney in De Lillos White Noise represents.
The rejection to simulation as an answer to the counterculture of the 60s and simulacra as
a postmodern way of life in the 80s are the axis around which Holden Caufield and Jack
Gladneys lives revolve. Holden lives surrounded by simulation, the simulations his schoolmates and teachers and parents represent. Jack Gladney lives simulacra of his own and
thrives on them. His job, his wife, his fellow-workers, his children also live in simulacra.
These characters their resistance to or their adherence to the social demands of the cultures
they are immersed in, mark that the need to belong forces human beings either to resist or
to adapt. Adaptation implies the abandonment of the self in pursuit of the social adjustment

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that the social requires and the simulation is the way out to be accepted, to belong, on the
other hand, the confrontation of the self to the model of life that the social imposes implies
the retreat into the marginal; simulation implies the masking of what one is for fear of not
facing up to the expectations of the others. Confrontation, rejection, means living off the
social. Simulacrum, is another way of escaping reality of belonging. Holden Caufield is
against simulation, then he becomes a social dropout ; Gladney is simulacrum he is
socially adjusted. Both are eager to find the meaning of life, Holden by contesting the
simulation Gladney by being the simulacrum itself.
According to Goodman (1960:15), in a society where commodities rule: Young people are
not socialized because the process goes against human nature. That is why growing up
becomes hard. Our society is deficient in many aspects : Lacking in mans work, Lacking
in honest public speech, lacking in the opportunity to be useful, it corrupts ingenious
patriotism, it discourages religion, because of this, the individual loses a coherent sense of
self. ( Bell:22) Holden finds it very difficult to portray the image of the teenager that the
others want to see, the young boy who has all what society lacks, he is against the cultural
status of his parents, the educational system that his teachers and his school represent.
Holden is an antihero , a boy who sees the simulated lives of those around him, the ones
who pretend to have all that society needs , and seeks for a future of his own by resisting
simulations. He knows that the young are should be those who act, who make things
happen, who take the risks( Roszack,T.1970:1) yet, he is not ready to look up to to what
the adults expect from him for these adults and young that are part of his life live in
constant simulation. Simulations are ideas of life that people imitate for the sake of
conforming to representations that are socially validated , models that affiliate people to
ways of being in the world that stand for visions of the what is required from them , these
lives of I-am-as-if- save them from alienation for the other sees in these simulations what
society as a whole has agreed on and validated as the perfect model of a young boy, the
perfect model of an adult. When the social draws upon imperatives such as the demand for
efficiency the youth feel threatened and therefore seek refuge either in conformity by
consciously simulating a life that will never be theirs or resist , like Holden, and struggle
from the marginal place of the others, the ones who embody failure because they are not
representative of the idea of a good life that society holds as exemplar of what every youth
should aspire to . Jack Gladney, conversely, goes a step further from simulation , his life is
his building up of his own simulacra. De Lillo makes his White Noise character cross into
a space in which the signs of the real have been substituted.
The literary works The Catcher in the Rye and White Noise relate to Baudrillards idea of
transition: The transition from signs which dissimulate something to signs which
dissimulate that there is nothing, marks the decisive turning point. The first implies a
theology of truth and secrecy (to which the norm of ideology still belongs), here the
characters dissimulate something: to be good students, to be good teachers, to be good

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parents; the second inaugurates an age of simulacra and simulation, in which there is no
longer any God to recognize his own, nor any last judgment to separate truth from false, the
real from its artificial resurrection, since everything is already dead and risen in
advance.(2007.After God. Mark C. Taylor,222). Simulacra here completely blur the
borders between reality and simulacrum, Jack Gladney is a simulacrum, and his department
at university is a simulacrum.

Simulations and Simulacra

Simulators try to make the real, all the real, coincide with their simulation models. No
more mirror of being and appearances, of the real and its concept; no more imaginary
coextensivity: rather, genetic miniaturization is the dimension of simulation. The real is
produced from miniaturized units, from matrices, memory banks and command
models(170) To simulate is to feign to have what one hasn't. But the matter is more
complicated, since to simulate is not simply to feign: Someone who feigns an illness can
simply go to bed and pretend he is ill. Someone who simulates an illness produces in
himself some of the symptoms" (Littre: 171). Whereas simulation threatens the difference
between "true" and "false", between "real" and "imaginary". Holdens school- mates, his
parents, simulate, Jack Gladney constructs simulacra. Simulation and simulacra
constitute the answer to escape from the pain of being alive in a world that lives up to
models of being that are hard to follow, when the models become unattainable and the
need to belong , vital, human beings find in the construction of simulations and
simulacra or in the resistance to them the way out to face life.
According to Baudrillard, in Simulation and the Hyperreal (2000) there is a first level of
simulation : the obvious copy of reality, the pretence of being the copy of what one is not.
Phoney is the word that Holden uses to describe everything that is not true, everything
that embodies a sense of pretence, of appearance. The poster that advertises his school is
phoney and constitutes a simulation that feigns the real idea of the school, the school does
not have what the ad has, the real is masked and the reality principle, what the school is, is
left intact: They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some hot-shot
guy on a horse jumping over a fence. Like as if all you ever did at Pencey was play polo all
the time. I never even once saw a horse anywhere near the place.(Catcher p2).Stradlater,
Holdens room-mate is the example of one who simulates: simulation threatens the
difference between "true" and "false", between "real" and "imaginary", there is an absence
implied here,: there is an absence implied here, the principle of reality is modified, the copy
is so good that it blurs the boundaries between reality and representation: [ Stradlater]was
always asking you to do him a big favour. You take a very handsome guy or a guy that
thinks he is a really hot-shot, and they are always asking you to do them a big favour. Just

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because they are crazy about themselves, they think youre crazy about them too, and that
youre just dying to them a favour. How bout writing a composition for me for
English?. .. It was very ironical, it really was. Im the one whos flunking out the
goddam place, and youre asking me to write a goddam composition. I said. Stradlater
embodies the simulation of the good student and his looks are those of the good guy: He
was mostly the kind of a handsome guy that if your parents saw his picture in your Year
Book, theyd right away say: Whos this boy?(4). His simulation perfectly duplicates
the model of the good student . He simulates and there is an absence of the real in his
simulation because he does not acknowledge his own limitations: He wanted you to think
that the only reason he was lousy at writing compositions was because he stuck all the
commas in the wrong place.(4) Stradlaters simulation coincides with his teachersmodel
of the good student, order always opts for the real. In a state of uncertainty, It always
prefers this assumption.( Baudrillard:181) He is feigning to have what he has not, to be
what he is not yet, this feigning is proof of his adjustment to the society: We call
iteducation, the life of the mind, the pursuit of the truth. But it is a matter of
machine-tooling the young to the needs of our various baroque bureaucreacies: corporate,
military, trade union, educational. (Roszak:16). Stradlaters simulation is a simulation of
the second order according to Baudrillard a copy so good that it blurs the boundaries
between reality and representation, that is why Holden rejects the idea of being one more
Stradlater who seems to predict the absurd future of the youth of his time. In his rejection to
his mate and to the ones who conform, he regards Stradlater as the representation of the
young men who conform to the dominant society and become for the most part apathetic,
disappointed, cynical and wasted. (Goodman,P.:35)
The real in The Catcher in the Rye:
The museum in The Catcher in the Rye is the simulation of the real, a presence of the
absent: The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right
where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that
Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their
way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers
and they're pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving
that same blanket. Nobody's be different. The only thing that would be different would be
you.(127). The resurrection of the past, the seudo stability that the museum represents for
Holden relates to Baudrillards concept of simulation as a strategy of the real, of deterrence:
When the real is no longer what it used to be, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. There is
a proliferation of myths of origin and signs of reality; of second-hand truth, objectivity and
authenticity. There is an escalation of the true, of the lived experience; a resurrection of the
figurative where the object and substance have disappeared. And there is a panic-stricken
production of the real and the referential, above and parallel to the panic of material
production. This is how simulation appears in the phase that concerns us: a strategy of the

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real, neo-real and hyperreal, whose universal double is a strategy of
deterrence.(Baudrillard:257)
The museum is the place of the simulation, a representation of the absence, but it is stable
for it holds the representation of the unchanginess of the idea of the past that is secure for it
does not exist anymore, it resurrects the figurative and cannot be feigned because it is a
strategy of deterrence, for Holden this place is nostalgic. no equivalence with the real is
possible, it cancels out the difference, whereas simulation is a third-order simulacrum,
beyond true and false, beyond equivalences, beyond the rational distinctions upon which
function the entire social stratum: Certain things they should stay the way they are. You
ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I
know thats impossible, but its too bad anyway.(122)
Holden needs a visible past, a visible myth of origin. We require a visible past, a visible
continuum, a visible myth of origin which reassures us about our end.(Baudrillard, J:10)
Culture dreams of an order: The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything,
always stayed right where it was. Nobody d move. You could go there a hundred times,
and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be
on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water holeThe only thing
that would be different would be you. (122) Holdens resistance to adjust and adapt to the
society of his time finds its root in his negation to accept change in his intent to keep
memories intact. He finds security in unchanginess: Thats one nice thing about
carrousels, they always play the same songs(210), by contrast, he is reluctant to change
and feels completely out and misplaced in the society of pretence his school-mates, his
parents and teachers live. His failed intent of living away from the simulations that these
people embody, cause his alienation. Baudrillard says: We live in a universe strangely
similar to the original. Things are already purged of their death, better that when they were
alive, more cheerful, and more authentic in the light of their model.(11) Holden is able to
perceive the simulations and fights against them. He seems to understand what Goodman
implies when he says: Our present organized system of society does not want men. They
are not safe. They do not suit.(36) Here it will be important to include: they do not
conform, they resist , they do not simulate, they cannot cope with the idea of seemingly
being and they reject the models even if this rejection would mean alienation from
whatever mainstream means.

Holden's fixation on the ducks, on the real against the dissimulation, the simulation and the
simulacra of his surrounding world is a verifiable proof of the real, of things that stay the
same, for frozen lakes get repeated and the ducks keep coming back, this cycle constitutes
an illusion of life Holden clings to in spite of his constant search for knowing what happens
to the ducks in the process. He knows that the cycle will repeat itself. There is no

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simulation in nature: You know those ducks in the lagoon right near Central Park South?
That little lake? By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it
gets all frozen over?(81). So, right in the middle of his own frozen lake and witnessing his
invisibility in a system he does not fit he tries to find and answer in things that get repeated,
his certainty about the renewal of nature gives some comfort to his mind if ducks come
back, and then there is a possibility for him. His hope relates to the real, never to the
simulations.
Simulacra in White Noise

By the 80s the models against which to conform, the models that propose the belonging to
are simulacred, illusion rules and the real is no longer possible for the duplication and
multiplication of the real have taken so many deferrences that truth has become mediated
and the comparison to the original because of the mediations have become blurred . The
real is artificially held together by the imitations and duplications that images constitute.
This blurring is what De Lillos in his White Noise construes and what Baudrillard
explains in his Simulacra and Simulations. The main character, Jack Gladney is after his
own construal of identity : All men must have identities or they start seeing themselves as
women and soon lose their self-image, and soon nobody knows what they are themselves
or what anyone else is.(119)Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver (1967). So , in his need to
build up an identity , he constitutes what Baudrillard names a simulacrum.

Jack Gladney is his own simulacra: I am chairman of the department of Hitler studies at
the College-on-the Hill. I invented Hitler studies in North America in March of 1968.(9)
His construal of his own identity stems from feigning to be what he is not, he builds a
whole department around Hitlers life and work and he is conscious of the fact that his
creation is an invention his survival kit and way of life. In a world increasingly
submerged in marketing imagery and media stimuli Gladney has become the living image
of Hitler:Youve established a wonderful thing here with Hitler. You created it, you
nurtured it, you made it your own. Nobody on the faculty of any college or university in
this part of the country can so much as utter the word Hitler without a nod in your direction,
literally or metaphorically. This is the center, the unquestioned source. He is now your
Hitler, Gladneys Hitler.Youve evolved an entire system around this figure, a structure
with countless substructures and interrelated fields of study, a history within
history .(11).There is a constant need to find identity in a media-obsessed age driven by
images, and appearances , here ,technology (TV)allows for endless duplication. Jack is the
resulting product of his own image, he duplicates a Hitler that has already been duplicated

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by history and creates a phase of an image that bears no relation to truth. According to
Baudrillard there are four phases in an image: 1- it is the reflection of a basic reality, 2- It
masks and perverts a basic reality, 3-It masks the absence of a basic reality, 4-It bears no
relation to any reality whatever: It is s its own pure simulacrum. Jack Gladney is his own
simulacrum: a teacher pretending to be a Hitler that is not Hitler: Our society is
composed of ideas of things. We embrace the simulacrum and thrive on it.( Braudillard,J.)
Jack Gladney feels that Hitler has given him something to grow into and develop
toward((17) and in doing so he embraces his own simulacrum, his own alternative of
himself to mask the real and become significant: I am the false character that follows the
name around.(17)

Replication rules in a world that is image mediated, the replication is a representation that
stems from the principle of equivalence, simulation stems from the Utopia of the
principle of equivalence. Representation absorbs simulation as a false representation.
Simulation envelops representation as simulacrum. ( Baudrillard:6) TV becomes the
narcotic undertow and eerie diseased brain-sucking power(16) , the source of a White
Noise that dumbs the senses : TV is a problem only if youve forgotten how to look and
listen.(50) Waves and radiation, he said Ive come to understand that the medium is a
primal force in the American home. Sealed-off, timeless, self-contained, self-re ferring. Its
like a myth being born right there in our living room, like something we know in a
dreamlike and preconscious way.(51) De Lillo s simulations in White Noise find a source
of simulation in the senses and in the how the senses perceive reality: Peoples eyes, ears,
brains and nervous systems have grown weary. Its a simple case of misuse.(67). In the
TV set the outer torment lurks, causing fears and secret desires.(85). According to Mc
Luhan, (1964): A culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a
means of control, It is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and
practical fact, the medium is the message.(15) He makes a point of the fact that The
effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios
or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.(27) In White Noise
examples of the altering of perception are more than frequent: look at the windshield, Is
that rain or isnt it?, Im only telling you what they said. Just because its on the radio
doesnt mean we have to suspend belief in the evidence of our senses.(232). what is more
Murray, Jack Gladneys friend affirms: Theres no past, present or future outside our
mind.(236) Media is the source of knowledge, the source of power and the source of truth,
yet, these truths are the replications and the duplications of the real. The real has been
displaced and simulations have taken over and the medium is the message. Murray says:
Waves and radiation, Ive come to understand that the medium is a primal force in the
American home. Sealed-off, timeless, self-contained, self-referring, its like a myth being

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born right there in our living room, like something we know in a dreamlike and
preconscious way.(597)
De Lillo explores the ontological worlds the modes of existence of the selves. Baudrillards
idea of why screened imaging constitutes a safe zone of existence, a secure way of being in
the world is a possible answer: Screened imaging defers reality for it embodies the facts: 1That some things happen to the other: We can relax and enjoy these disasters We want
them, we need them, we depend on them. As long as they happen somewhere else.(66), 2That our lives are image mediated: Were not here to capture an image, were here to
maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it Jack? An accumulation
of nameless energies.(12) Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what
the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future.
Weve agreed to be part of a collective perception. This literally colors our vision.
They are taking pictures of taking pictures.(13), 3- That Language construes reality in a
representation of representations: Just because its on the radio doesnt mean we have to
suspend belief in the evidence of our senses.(22) Is there such a thing as now? Now
comes and goes as soon as you say it. How can I say its raining now if your so-called now
becomes then as soon as you say it?- You said there was no past, present or future.-Only
in our verbs. Thats the only place we find it.(24) ; , that the screen augments at the same
time that it annuls reality: For most people there are only two places in the world. Where
they live and their TV set. If a thing happens on TV we have every right to find it
fascinating, whatever it is.(66).This is what constitutes a re-representation of alien reality,
of differed times that make visible the possibility of viewing that which our eyes would
ever bear or resist: reality in close up.
Both literary works constitute ontological expressions of being in the world of how people
construe their identities in an effort to live according to principles of what life that
precedes them is , Holden and Jack are two of the many answers to the paradigms of the
systems of life they are immersed in. The Counter Culture of the 60s and the
Postmodernity of the 80s have turned them into examples of how literature speaks about
the way in which simulations and simulacra , their resistance against or their adherence
to provide models of being that precede the being in the world .
Why simulation and simulacra have become ways of life? According to Eagleton(1996:vii)
just because Postmodernity is an illusion that emphasizes on the characteristics of the time
and the time is suspicious of truth, identity and objectivity, it will be interesting to add that
human beings escape from the pain of feeling responsible for the creation of ways of being
in the world that hold up to no mirrored image. Creativity, originality and uniqueness do
not pay, the world has become too visual, too much dependant on duplications and
multiplications and the building up of a new image true to the self and socially compliant is
a job that no one is ready to hold on to for too long, resisting conformity is too much high a

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price, routinization has taken over, the Holdens that contest simulations have become
scarce and true simulacra together with the Jacks have taken over.
H. Mara del Pilar Martnez

Reference List
Baudrillard, Jean. The Evil Demon of Images and the Precession of Simulacra.194-199
Eagleton,Terry.The Illusions of Postmodernism .Oxford: Blackwell Publishing
Ltd.1996.Preface.
Goodman,Paul. Growing up Absurd.London:Sphere Books,1970.15-25
Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism. History, Theory, Fiction. New York &
London.: Routledge, 1988. 105-140
Mc Luhan, Marshall. Understanding Media. London: Sphere Books. 1964. 11-42
Rettbergur Scott . Fiction in Light of Postmodernism.1991.
http://retts.net/documents/americansimulacra.pdf.4/7/2015
Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture. London: Faber & Faber. 1970. 1-41