One of the most under covered and unmentioned postmodern philosophers in America is Jean Baudrillard. This is generally for good reason – to most people he looked like a ‘crazy’ for claiming that the Gulf War actually never occurred. However, Baudrillard’s philosophy is a treasure trove of information that, unlike many postmodern critiques of society, holds quite a bit of truth. I have been reading through some of his works (America, Simulacra and Simulation) and I’m waiting on another to arrive (Simulations). I plan on writing an in depth explanation, analysis, and critique of Baudrillard at some point in the future, but for now I would rather point out some rather interesting points.
Baudrillard claims that there is no such thing as reality in the modern world – at least, reality cannot be known – because everything is a simulation. Anytime we approach a subject our ideas of that subject have been shaped by previous media stimuli. An example of this is (that he uses) is: can you really visit New York City without first having visited multiple New York Cities through media simulation? A person that has watched various movies about New York City is going to have a completely different experience of the city from someone who has never heard of the place and was just dropped in.
