A reading: Simulacrum and simulacra (Notes)

1.The desert of the real
The essay begins with a rather cryptic metaphor; that of the map and the territory. A map so detailed it lays down on the territory and as the empire whose the map belonged to falls to ruin and the territory becomes a desert, the map decays, becoming part of the territory. It isn't part of the desert, but it is perceived as. In our world, (a world of the hyperreal) the map becomes more important than the territory- it precedes it. It isn't the map that is decaying, it's reality! Our desert isn't the desert of the empire, but "the desert of the real" [the Matrix!]

2. Something Changed
But something about the relationship between the map and territory is gone; in present day, there isn't even a difference between the two. There used to be something that separated the two, now simulators make all the real "coincide with their simulations". Simulations are now hyperreal; more real than real. The simulation of the map can be reproduced over and over. The map and the territory don't coexist, mirror each other or create a contrast between real and abstract. The territory is taken, miniaturized and reproduced in mass. The original loses meaning. It doesn't have to be reproduced- now we can produce from copies, substitute the real with "a perfect descriptive machine that provides all the signs of the real", but that isn't even a copy of the real.

3. Something Threatening
There is something worse about simulation. It doesn't simply pretend to be the original. A person can pretend to be ill; they'd only be masking their health, they're not really ill. But simulating illness means presenting physical symptoms of illness, not just faking them. How can that be treated then? Modern medicine can only treat illnesses that are real, and psychology treats those that are not physical.

4. The simulation masks nothing at all.
There is something threatening about simulation; the threat that what it is simulating is not real, or there at all. Religion forbids for the reproduction or images of a deity. "l forbade any simulacrum in the temples because the divinity that breathes life into nature cannot be represented" The image of God is said to be unable to be represented. But it is, and those who go on a rage to destroy those images are afraid of a "destructive truth" that simulations of God represent nothing. "knowing also that it is dangerous to unmask images! since they dissimulate the fact that there is nothing behind them."

5. There are different types of simulations
Those that reflect the real, those that hide the real, those that hide that there is no real, and those that are just pure simulations. Didney Worl is eeeevil. It presents itself as imaginary to hide that outside of it is not reality, but more simulation ohhhhhh, all of the U.S and L.A is hyperreal. It makes you believe that childishness belongs inside of it and is absent outside, when in reality it exists everywhere. You're adults both inside and outside, and children both inside and outside of Disney world.

6. Watergate; the cynical version
Basically, watergate scandal and disneyland are the same... Watergate is just a way of rejuvenating moral and political principle by enunciating scandal and paying homage to the law. It succeeded in making itself a scandal, and masking the fact that there is no difference between facts and the denunciation of facts. Wow.