Out of Simulacra: Said's Out of Place and Baudrillard's Theory of the Simulacra

Here is the blog entry I wanted to post last week on Baudrillard’s theory of the simulacra and its relationship to Edward Said’s Out of Place. It’s a pretty complicated concept, and so if it is difficult to understand it, never fear, I understand. I’ll start with the example Baudrillard gives to convey his theory:

“If we were able to take as the finest allegory of simulation the Borges tale where the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up exactly covering the territory (but where the decline of the Empire sees this map become frayed and finally ruined, a few shreds still discernable in the deserts—the metaphysical beauty of this ruined abstraction, bearing witness to an imperial pride and rotting like a carcass, returning to the substance of the soil, rather as an ageing double ends up being confused with the real thing)—then this fable has come full circle for us, and now has nothing but the discreet charm of second-order simulacra.
“Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality; a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory—THE PRECESSION OF SIMULACRA—it is the map that engenders the territory, and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map.” (Storey 389).
Okay, this is heavy, I know. But I’ll break it down as best I can to explain a relationship. Here, Baudrillard is explaining how originals are constantly under the scrutiny of change or replacement. By way of making a map of a territory, and how through the tests of time that territory depicted on the map undergoes change just as the map itself is frayed and rotted to the point of becoming a changed object. The map still exists as a moment in time, but is considered an obsolete representation of the current point in time in which it has survived. Aspects of the map are still concrete, such as the historical reverence it can bring, but it is only relatable to the territory if referred to initially. The map of the current territory is referred to after the territory in question is mentioned: that is, when I say India, a map of the current nation of India pops into mind, but not any other map of said nation is referred to. However, if a preceding map of the nation is referred to, it has to be identified as India as it is a faint simulation of the former boundaries of India. It is a matter of current perceptions and relationships between almost anything. It can be said for literature; a simple example would be the constant revised editions of encyclopedias, dictionaries, canons, etc. It can be said for popular culture; pop culture constantly takes bits and pieces of past culture (music, fashion, politics, ideals) and turns it into something that fits the current state of mind, sometimes completely disregarding the past culture entirely (remember when Vanilla Ice sampled David Bowie & Queen’s “Under Pressure” in his song “Ice Ice Baby”? And he said, “No, its completely different. My song has the ‘ting’ between the beat.” Umm, what?)

Got all that? I hope so. Now onto Edward Said’s memoir. I will use his sense of self to relate to the simulacra. He is displaced nationally in every place he has been to. He is American and yet is not. He is Palestinian, and yet he is not. He is “Edward” and yet he is Edward. He is a double, yet a single human being. He is the territory that Baudrillaird exemplifies. Every perception of his being is the map, constantly frayed and torn amongst other people’s view of him as a citizen of… well, where ever he wants. It is his search to fit in that ties himself to those perceptions of him to his actual self. He is aan abstract, and refers to himself as such in the midst of his familial relationships: the “Edward”/Edward complex. “Edward” is an abstraction of himself that he embodies in regards to his parents and family, and Edward is his true self, only occupied by his own perceptions of being Out of Place. Also, that feeling is a manifestation of an abstract, as he is concretely in a place, within a space on this planet. He exists, but his sense of divided self makes him feel like he is displaced. He himself is a territory upon a territory, undergoing such scrutiny from outside forces that makes an abstract idea form within that person, making them different and just as susceptible to change as any other thing on this planet. I know that is a broad statement, but in this day and age, what is not undergoing change in some way? Nothing is safe from preservation, and in a vain way we are trying to “preserve” certain aspects of ourselves, of outside things. This preservation that Edward/”Edward” is trying to engage in is just that what he does within his own name; putting it in quotes when he is amongst family and outside persons, and leaving the named unquoted when thinking within himself. It has an adverse affect as he does change himself, as his perceptions of himself are changed when he is met with other people.

Source: Baudrillard, Jean. “The Precession of Simulacra”. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader. Ed. John Storey. 3rd ed. Harlow-Pearson—Prentice Hall. 2006. 389. Print.