Jean Baudrillard’s theory of the hyperreal borrows from Arthur Schopenhauer’s idea that suffering is caused by the fact that communication is impossible. There will always be subjectivity laced and injected into words; each individual will forever hold separate and incompatible interpretations of what is true.
Baudrillard claims that the only way to overcome this boundary is to return to symbolic methods. For example, he references an indigenous tradition of gift exchange: each gift is more meaningful than the previous one, and the participants exchange gifts that hold increasing meaning to no foreseeable end. The point is not the gifts itself but the intent and symbol of presenting something with more meaning than before, thus transcending the question of whether the gift actually has more meaning—it simply does because that is the point of the tradition.
Unfortunately, Baudrillard concludes that modern society, in all its mass media and fake news, is unsalvageable: citizens of authoritarian states unwaveringly believe in government propaganda and brainwashing tactics. To them, that is the truth. If I told you that my name was Sarah, you’d believe me, and that would be your truth even though that’s not the actual truth because my name is Sherry. Of course, the world isn’t as objectively true or false as my name; that’s how Hitler was able to convince a good portion of Germany that somehow Jews were the cause of all their problems and how Chinese emperors convinced their people that constantly being on the brink of starvation was, indeed, a satisfactory and fulfilling life. What is true and untrue has been so manipulated by subjectivity that nothing can be true anymore. The world is doomed, Baudrillard said. We should all just give up at this point.
He’s a bit of a cynic—and also very sexist—so it’s hard to actually take much of his theories to heart. In fact, I think the subjectivity of the world is quite interesting. After all, it’s precisely this subjectivity that makes art so interesting and poetry so consumable; it’s this subjectivity that allows for the human mind to flourish, for emotion to be more than a fleeting feeling, for debate. And since it’s debate that opened the gate to philosophy in the first place—Baudrillard, Foucault, Kant, the list goes on—among other unique experiences (late-night talks on the floors of hotel gyms, general emotional turmoil, etc., etc.), I suppose there is a chance subjectivity is a good thing, and I suppose the world maybe isn’t doomed.
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