Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard was a French Sociologist, Philosopher,
cultural theorist and a political commentator. He has been credited for his
work which has frequently been associated with postmodernism
His most notable work consist of theories such as Simulacra and Simulations,
Hyper Reality, Symbolic Exchange and System of Objects.
His main ideas and concepts have been used to understand the
effect of living in a postmodern environment on our perceptions of reality. He
argues that we have lost contact with ‘real’ in various ways that we have
nothing left but a continuing fascination with its disappearance.
In link with his theory of symbolic exchange, Baudrillard
saw traditional human communication and relations and meaning making as ‘symbolic
exchange’ and saw replacement of this by the contemporary media as dangerous.
Furthermore, he states that our entire reality is a semiotic production and
simulation.
Simulation clearly means the process in which a
representation of something comes to replace the thing which is actually being
represented. The representation then becomes more important than the ‘real
thing’. Baudrillard also claims that our current society has replaced all
reality and meaning with symbols and signs and that human experience is a
simulation of reality.
Simulacra’s definition is the repetition of another thing, object, person and
any static object. Baudrillard's uses these meanings to explain that today’s
reality is not real and that we all live in something called a hyper reality. Baudrillard’s
definition of hyper reality is ‘the simulation of something that never really
existed’. A pure example of simulacra stated by Baudrillard is Disneyland. This
is a perfect example for understanding how reality works in the postmodern
world. It is a place which is at the same time a real, physical space but also
a fictional, representational world.
Hyper reality is the division of between the ‘real’ and
simulation has collapsed, therefore an illusion of an object is no longer possible
because the real object is no longer there. The audience is left feeling depressed as they
have a life which doesn’t live up to the artificial reality. He suggested that the media can now create
such idealistic representations of reality that outperform actual reality.
Some critical opinion about him or his theories include; He
has been often criticised for his bleak interpretation of postmodern culture. He
has also been referred to not postmodern or ‘too’ postmodern. Anther theorist linked into Postmodern, Featherstone
is critical towards Baudrillard’s approach to consumptions and states that the foundations
of such critique of mass culture on the part of intellectuals like Baudrillard.
Jean Francis
Lyotard
Jean Francis Lyotard is known for discussing the theory of
the ‘end of meta-narratives’. He was a French philosopher and literary
theorist. He is very well known for his opinion towards postmodernism after the
late 1970’s and the analysis of the impact of post-modernity on the human
condition.
His works is characterised by a persistent opposition to
universals, meta-narratives and generality. He is severely critical of many of
the Universalists claims of the enlightenment and several of his works serve to
undermine the fundamental principles that generate these broad claims.
He proposes an extreme simplification of the ‘postmodern’ as
a fundamental principle that generate these broad claims. These meta-narratives
and grand narratives are grand, large-scale theories and philosophies of the
world, such as the progress of history and the possibility of absolute freedom.
Lyotard claims that he rejects the concept of
meta-narratives as he opposed the idea that everything is knowable by science
and that science posed a higher kind of knowledge. Furthermore he argues that
the theory of the meta-narrative was never neutral and thus leading to scientists
having no more direct access to the truth tan philosophers and historians.
He also notes that the narratives made by scientists are
only exploring the limits of the systems. Documents include research papers and
hypotheses.
