Baudrillard, Symbolic Exchange, and Reality
Recently, I have begun reading Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation. I will do my best to summarize some of Baudrillard's ideas with a little Tim Dees flavor.
Baudrillard's philosophy grows out of the soil of capitalism. In capitalism we see the birth of money, and money spells the end of intrinsic value. A new car has vastly more intrinsic value than 20,000 green pieces of paper; however, the consumer will make this transaction, because he understands that the money has symbolic value. This is called symbolic exchange.
The trouble with symbolic exchange is that it is not just a system, it is a way of thinking. As people become progressively more comfortable with symbolic exchange, everything becomes symbolic. A purse no longer merely holds personal items, it holds layers of symbolic meaning. It can be used to make generalizations about the person's status, gender, sexuality, personality, age, and employment. For instance, if one sees a small, cylindrical Louis Vuitton purse, one can assume that its holder is a wealthy woman younger than 50.
In a pre-symbolic world, meaning and truth were clear. In a post-symbolic world, meaning and truth are marketed. Ancient farmers selected plows based on which plow did the best job of plowing. Functionality was the primary concern, and functionality was easy to quantify. In contrast, today we select cars based on what they say about us, and this statement is established through marketing.
Marketing was the subject of a recent Frontline episode. In that episode, one marketer was discussing his technique. The key to marketing, he said, is finding out what statement the consumer is making by buying the product. When one has established the intended statement, one can begin to find the "code" for that product. For SUVs, the statement was domination, and the code was enormous size, tinted windows, and imposing grilles. And in a world of symbolic exchange, all that makes sense.
In a pre-symbolic world, however, you cannot help but be struck by the gross impracticality and inefficiency of SUVs. As our world becomes more saturated by marketing, it becomes harder to see truth. The pervasiveness of symbolic exchange, Baudrillard contends, creates what he calls a "hyper-reality." In hyper-reality everything is more real than in actual reality. You see this watching movies. The snap of a Chuck Norris kick connecting with a henchman's face sounds believable, while a normal face-kick sounds bizarrely silent. In every way, movies create a new reality: girls are prettier, blood is bloodier, and danger is, well, more dangerous.
So what's the danger here? The danger is that the symbols trump reality. Hyper-reality displaces actual reality. Marketing replaces truth. And this has happened in many spheres of our lives.
There's an urgent, specific call to Christians embedded in all this cultural criticism. When Christians talk about cultural relevancy, they are sometimes just talking about how to market the gospel. Unhappy with the reality of the gospel, they try to push it into hyper-reality, and they communicate the gospel using techniques derived from marketing. The problem is that the gospel does not compress itself into 30-second commercials. And there are no "easy payments", or "no strings attached", or "satisfaction guaranteed." And when we try to market Christianity that way, we get Christians who simply don't understand the gospel. As Bonhoeffer said, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. " You can't put that in a commercial.
Baudrillard's philosophy grows out of the soil of capitalism. In capitalism we see the birth of money, and money spells the end of intrinsic value. A new car has vastly more intrinsic value than 20,000 green pieces of paper; however, the consumer will make this transaction, because he understands that the money has symbolic value. This is called symbolic exchange.
The trouble with symbolic exchange is that it is not just a system, it is a way of thinking. As people become progressively more comfortable with symbolic exchange, everything becomes symbolic. A purse no longer merely holds personal items, it holds layers of symbolic meaning. It can be used to make generalizations about the person's status, gender, sexuality, personality, age, and employment. For instance, if one sees a small, cylindrical Louis Vuitton purse, one can assume that its holder is a wealthy woman younger than 50.
In a pre-symbolic world, meaning and truth were clear. In a post-symbolic world, meaning and truth are marketed. Ancient farmers selected plows based on which plow did the best job of plowing. Functionality was the primary concern, and functionality was easy to quantify. In contrast, today we select cars based on what they say about us, and this statement is established through marketing.
Marketing was the subject of a recent Frontline episode. In that episode, one marketer was discussing his technique. The key to marketing, he said, is finding out what statement the consumer is making by buying the product. When one has established the intended statement, one can begin to find the "code" for that product. For SUVs, the statement was domination, and the code was enormous size, tinted windows, and imposing grilles. And in a world of symbolic exchange, all that makes sense.
In a pre-symbolic world, however, you cannot help but be struck by the gross impracticality and inefficiency of SUVs. As our world becomes more saturated by marketing, it becomes harder to see truth. The pervasiveness of symbolic exchange, Baudrillard contends, creates what he calls a "hyper-reality." In hyper-reality everything is more real than in actual reality. You see this watching movies. The snap of a Chuck Norris kick connecting with a henchman's face sounds believable, while a normal face-kick sounds bizarrely silent. In every way, movies create a new reality: girls are prettier, blood is bloodier, and danger is, well, more dangerous.
So what's the danger here? The danger is that the symbols trump reality. Hyper-reality displaces actual reality. Marketing replaces truth. And this has happened in many spheres of our lives.
There's an urgent, specific call to Christians embedded in all this cultural criticism. When Christians talk about cultural relevancy, they are sometimes just talking about how to market the gospel. Unhappy with the reality of the gospel, they try to push it into hyper-reality, and they communicate the gospel using techniques derived from marketing. The problem is that the gospel does not compress itself into 30-second commercials. And there are no "easy payments", or "no strings attached", or "satisfaction guaranteed." And when we try to market Christianity that way, we get Christians who simply don't understand the gospel. As Bonhoeffer said, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. " You can't put that in a commercial.
posted by Tim Dees at 10:34 PM
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