Jean Baudrillard and the notion of modernity and media

Jean Baudrillard is one of the most controversial postmodernist and poststructuralist thinkers whose novel ideas have gained lots of concerns. His social, political and cultural ideas have moved the notion of postmodernism into a new realm. Baudrillard’s key concepts such as “simulacra and simulation” and “hyperreality” have been discussed in Simulacra and Simulation (1994). He also deals with the concept of the end of history and power relations in The Illusion of the End and Forget Foucault. Baudrillard has also scrutinized Marxist doctrine and “sign value” in The System of Objects. First part of this chapter deals with fundamentals of postmodernism and how it differs from modernism and the second part owes itself to Baudrillard’s theories including simulacra, hyperreality, sign value, power relations and the end of history.

Baudrillard has strongly been influenced by Marx and started his work by his thesis named The System of Objects (1968) which deals with the function of commodity in consuming societies and aims to reconcile Marxism with postmodernism. As William Merrin states Baudrillard describes the existence and operation of the immense signifying system that constitutes our contemporary western cultural experience (10). However, Baudrillard took a giant step in 1973 and wrote The Mirror of Production in which he points to Marxists’ shortcomings in explaining social mechanism and comments on characteristics of current era by employing semiotics.

One of the important elements which Baudrillard deals with it is the sign value. No matter how much valuable the item is or what material is used to produce it, sign value is attached to as a matter of prestige in a capitalist society. In The Mirror of Production, Baudrillard highlights the idea that although Marx mentioned production and consumption of the product as two fundamental elements in a capitalist society, there is a social and cultural significance in consuming the product in modern era which he calls sign value. As he mentions, “It is a matter of the passage of all values to exchange sign value, under the hegemony of the code” (121).
In the 1980s, Baudrillard started to consider and discuss the nature of reality and the effect of technology on it. In Simulacra and Simulation (1981), he discusses the concepts of simulacra, simulation and hyperreal which were highly challenging at that time. Kienscherf affirms that Baudrillard became (in)famous for his controversial claim that we are living in an age of simulation and hyperreality (13).

As Baudrillard explicates it, hyperreality is significantly akin to the notion of simulacrum which is a copy without any relation to its original. He believes that in the postmodern era, information technology and cybernetics have produced so many simulations due to whose dominance in our life that we cannot distinguish the original from the copy. Proffering four sorts of simulated image, he asserts that hyperreality is the last kind of simulation in which the sign is no longer related to any external reality. The process of sign exchange in this kind of simulation continues without any reference to reality, and hence generates hyperreality. The suffix “hyper” indicates that the simulated images claim to be more important than reality per se. This reverse chain of signified and signifiers goes against the Kantian notion of concept and noumenon in which reality did exist.

Another notion which Baudrillard has set forth is that of the end of history. In The Illusion of The End (1992) which can be considered a sharp response to Fukuyama’s The End of History and The Last Man (1992), Baudrillard asserts that globalization has ended the linear progression of history; however, it is not the climax of history’s progress, but the termination of the ideology of historical progress. He argues that “the end of history is also the end of the dustbin of history. There are no longer any dustbins even for disposing of old ideologies, old regimes, and old values” (The Illusion of The End 26).

2.2. Baudrillard as a Postmodernist Thinker

Postmodernism began to appear in the late 20th century, but its roots are embedded in modernism. To understand it fully, it is better to delve into the core of modernism. Reacting against modern industrial societies, people’s tendencies to live in cities, World War I and debunking the positivist inclinations of the Enlightenment are the most important factors in the formation of modernism. It vividly fights against realism; and pays more attention to modern aspects of life and rejects traditions. As Eysteinsson discusses, “modernism signals a dialectical opposition to what is not functionally modern, namely tradition” (8).While modernity emphasizes reason and knowledge, it falls short of paying attention to individualism. Industrial revolution had the tendency to treat humans as herds to have more homogeneous market. The modernist reevaluation of all values has pioneered by Nietzsche who had already parted with the ideology of herd morality and sought to find a new way to interpret the world. Nietzsche’s new concepts such as seeing the science as a mere descriptor rather than explainer besides the revolutionary thoughts of Marx and Freud have given birth to the modernist ideology. All three of them challenge long-held meta and grand narratives in Western history and morality.
Modernism began to lose its power during mid-twentieth and turned into tradition itself. Charles Jencks in his book, the Language of postmodern Architectures made this phrase widespread in 1975. The term was used in 90s to elaborate the art and cultural or even political status of new world. The prefix “post” here does not necessarily mean after and postmodernism cannot be considered as only after modernism. Jean François Lyotard in his book, Notes on the Meaning of Post asserted that the term “post” can have three different meaning: the first one is that it is time-bounded. By first definition, it seems that postmodernism proceeds modernism in same direction. Postmodernism, however, cannot be considered as a next step toward history progression since its fundamentals are totally different from what we consider as modern. The second meaning of “post” can be considered as a fracture or break from what came earlier: modernism. According to this definition, postmodernism does not deal with development or means to slake human’s needs. It rather breathes in a void and aimless atmosphere which has zero tolerance against any kind of criticism. The third definition includes a non-historical reading of postmodernism. By this, postmodernism still moves in modernism project. As Leotard pointed out “postmodernism undoubtedly is one part of modernism. A work of art can only be modern that only if it first becomes postmodern. If understood correctly, postmodernism is not at the end of modernism… it is the rebirth of modernism” (The Postmodern Condition 79).Postmodernism has driven the world into a new realm. The main important factor is the way both ideology look at the matter. As Wood mentions, “ postmodernism is a knowing modernism, a self-reflexive modernism…instead of lamenting the loss of the past, the fragmentation of existence and the collapse of selfhood, postmodernism embraces the characteristics as a new form of social existence and behavior” (8).

One of the most important aspects of postmodernism is pluralism. Since the very truth is problematic and those long held point of references such as meta narratives are no longer valid in postmodernism, multitude of attitudes toward truth are acceptable, but here attitudes should be emphasized and not the truth. Postmodernism immanent notion of relativizing put more emphasis on indeterminacy and fragmentation. In modernism, however, under the cloud of those uncertainties and doubts, there lied a well-founded system of totality and order. Gorski in his book Civil Society, Pluralism and Universalism pointed to the fact that “postmodernism flirts with mass culture and produces a chaotic, useless void, a cultural pulp of liberty, pluralism and tolerance in caricature” (178).This true orgy of multivoicedness and decentralization which defy any kind of unanimity remind us of Bakhtin’s carnivalization where no strong opinions can be heard. Ihab Hassan believes that what Bakhtin calls novel or carnival — that is, antisystem — might stand for postmodernism itself, or at least for its lucid and subversive elements which promise renewal (509).

The common ground between Baudrillard and postmodernism is the concept of “image”. The social effect of image is undeniable and every day we consume simulated images through internet, television and different media. These images are tools of power which deviate us from our real image and give us new ones. In capitalist world, image per se can be considered as consuming goods. Baudrillard deals with this concept in his book The Mirror of Production where he boldly calls the end of modernism and pointed to the sign value of the objects and stated that images have equal or sometimes more value than the product itself, hence, the business of images are more profitable. In postmodernist world, any realistic event turns into a play or a simulated image. Baudrillard in Golf War Did Not Take Place pointed to this fact that the rules of war are changed in a way that they are totally different from past war experiences. They are merely reduced to TV screens and images in media channels. “Everything is therefore transposed into the virtual, and we are confronted with a virtual apocalypse, a hegemony ultimately much more dangerous than real apocalypse” (Golf War Did Not Take Place 27).
Baudrillard also deals with the concept of simulating images in social texture and pointed to the fact that in postmodern era, the political hierarchy is not the main concern any more, the hegemony starts with cultural and social penetration and as Strathern mentions this cultural invasion is “surrounded by wider social, economic and political values that are embedded in the global movement of postmodernism” (148). Baudrillard in his book Simulacra and Simulations refers to the fact that these simulations are designed according to no external realities (2). These rootless, non-referential, unattainable simulations give us new identities and they are designed for specific purposes such as imperialistic or capitalist goals.

If modernism kept distance from rational world, postmodernism wages a full scale battle against it. Postmodern is a state in which Western enlightenment projects have faced dead-end. Baudrillard believed that capitalism is a product of pure rationalism in Western world and it controls many different issues such as sexual identity, gender equality, educational system, etc. in his book, Systems of the Objects, Baudrillard tried to justify his Marxist beliefs in postmodern time. In 1973, however, he took a giant step into post Marxism and asserted that this ideology cannot explain new social development in postmodern era and dealt with the notion of sign value in addition to the system of production and consumption in capitalistic society. He maintained that it is impossible to scrutinize capitalism in economic and political context alone. Due to the ever growing notion of simulation, capitalism has sneaked into cultural texture of society. Capitalism, therefore, has a new identity which needs to be studied according to the current time: postmodernism.

2.3. Baudrillard’s Theories
As a socialist and postmodernist thinker, Baudrillard has scrutinized many different subjects such as capitalism, technological advancement, culture, media, terrorism and globalization. In fact, what he wrote shouldn’t be approached separately. Rather, it should be seen as different chapter for one single book. Baudrillard’s overall approaches can be summarized in his attempt to redefine, reshape and justify the contour of his time. The most important thing he deals with is the notion of technology and its effect on human society and culture. He carefully debunks this mentality that technology is a neutral tool which can be used in many different ways. As one important effect of technology, he scrutinizes the simulation of reality and hyperreality as well and shed some light on the difference between reality and artifice. In his book, Symbolic Exchange and Death, Baudrillard defines reality as “that of which it is possible to provide an equivalent reproduction” (73). Artifice, however, is what precedes the reality. He also witnessed playing God in biological advancement and cloning animals at the heart of postmodernism and pointed to the fact that what happens to human race if the border between man and robot vanishes. Modern virtual and augmented reality apparatus such as Google glass have proved that post humanism with high-end technologies has started to emerge. He also deals with media as a part of technology and questions how much media content is akin to reality and how they deliberately tempt us to consume more in capitalistic society.

2.3.1. Simulacra and Simulation
As Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, all objective truths and reality have also been vanished. Baudrillard deals with this issue that how reality is constructed and simulated in modern and technology torn world and what are its social and cultural effects. In his book Simulacra and Simulation, Baudrillard emphasized on the fact that the hierarchy between reality and image has been doctored in postmodernism and now it seems that the map precedes the territory (3). Smith in his book, reading simulacra pointed to this fact that “post modernity…is often charged with giving up on reality and leaving us awash in computer-generated and media-constructed hyperreal” (1). As the matter of definition, simulacra deal with representation of images. It gives us a new look into seeing events or things. Simulation, on the other hand, is a model to show how something works; its emphasis is on the process and not the result. Simulation according to Baudrillard undergoes four steps until it totally replaces reality for good. In the first phase, the image represents the reality and the appearance remains intact. the second phase in the principal request of simulacra, which he takes up with the pre-modern period, the picture is a reasonable fake of the genuine; in the second level of simulacra, which Baudrillard compares with the mechanical transformation of the nineteenth century, the refinements between the picture and the representation start to separate in view of large scale manufacturing and the multiplication of duplicates. Such creation distorts and covers a hidden reality by mirroring it so well, (e.g. in photography); in any case, there is still a conviction that, through scrutinize or powerful political activity, one can even now get to the shrouded truth of the genuine; in the third phase of simulacra, which is connected with the postmodern age, we are faced with pure simulacra; which means the representation goes before and decides the concept and contour of genuine. There is no more any refinement amongst reality and its representation; there is just the simulacrum.

Media is undoubtedly the culprit in killing the reality. In Requiem for Media, Baudrillard explains the strong role of media in shaping the gestalt of postmodernism. Unlike McLuhan who approaches media technologically, Baudrillard deals with social aspect of media as a strong transformer. “The media” Baudrillard declares “are not co-efficient, but effectors of ideology…the media are not even, somewhere else or potentially, neutral or non-ideological” (For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign 3). Thus, to Baudrillard, media is not a mere passive tool which has no effect(s) on our social interaction. It rather is a propelling force which shapes and distorts the crowd’s perceptions. Every moment, we consume simulated images broadcasted by media channels which deviate us from our real identity and give us new ones. Lifestyles, perception of beauty, sex and citizens’ beliefs are under the direct images which are shown by mass and social media. It is even true for those unthinkable, one-for-lifetime experiences such as death. In very realistic VR games and Oculus Rift equipment, the simulation of death can be experienced quite realistically. The media saturated society perceives the world through the spectrum of social media platforms.

The notion of power and control is inherent in media. Media has always been a rather nonreciprocal tool which doesn’t support any notion of discourse. Thus, Baudrillard in Requiem for Media studies the effect of media and maintains that media is speech without response (5). In Web 2.0 which allows people to collaborate and share information with others online runs on the same scenario. This freedom to cooperation is another way for media to understand people’s taste in order to give them more misleading simulated images. Targeted advertisements are one of a kind which is built upon people’s feedbacks. Thus, according to Baudrillard, the nature of media in postmodern world has the power position in which “one who can give and cannot be paid” (Requiem for Media 6).

Another aspect of media and simulated images are in the realm of politics. Arab spring in 2011 and the toppling of many countries’ dictators were triggered by social media platforms and, recently, ISIS terrorist group has fully understood the power of networks such as Facebook and Twitter in order to justify their hideous acts. Media has the power to highlight or debunk incidents according to its political orientation. Most of our channels of incoming information are through media tools; therefore, masses tend to believe what media depicts as a gospel truth. As Axford and Huggins argue “ what is asserted here is that politics no longer exists as a reality taking place outside the media” (New Media and Politics 85). Many people believe that media is a conduit to pure reality. The thing, however, is that media shows hyperreality, an entity which is not related to reality whatsoever. Media possess many opposite forces like what is seen in postmodernism which has collage shaped core. Media, according to Baudrillard, “carry meaning and counter meaning, they manipulate in all directions at once, nothing can control this process, they are the vehicle for the simulation internal to the system and the simulation that destroys the system …there is no alternative to this, no logical resolution” (Simulacra and Simulation 82).
Language can also be a great inhibitor in reaching reality. Saussure believed that there is an arbitrary relationship between signifier and signified. Baudrillard, however, maintained that in postmodernism the relation between signifier and signified is collapsed in a way that the former precedes the latter. In Saussurean ideology, the relation between signified and signifier is inseparable. On the other hand, Baudrillard believed that signs turned into simulacrum where there is no relationship between signified and signifiers and maintains that there is nothing genuine in the language. It is likewise symbolism. The words that we talk are not identified with reality. Words are identified with different words yet never to reality. The relationship amongst words and the truth is a myth. “If you say, I love you, then you have already fallen in love with language, which is already a form of break up and infidelity” (Cool memories 153).
Baudrillard also approaches divinity from hyperreality point of view. He referred to the Christian symbol as the main type of heavenly nature simulacrum; the religious symbol does not refer to godliness, but rather a model of divinity. In that sense, Jesus with a beard and long hair which we are acquainted with in our Western history is not real, but rather only a simulacrum of godlikeness, a hyperreal holiness. Baudrillard even asserted that Disneyland is the scaled down religious pleasure in American culture. Baudrillard portrays this sort of procedure, where the simulacrum of history is by all accounts more genuine than history itself, as “retro” history, a type of hyper-genuine history. Religion history can in this sense be considered basically hyperreal, in that genuine history vanishes in the shadow of its own simulacrum. From baudrillard’s perspective, hyperreal religions would be basically individualistic on the grounds that the basic to submit to a model no longer exist. Baudrillard also discusses it in Simulacra and Simulation:

But what if God himself can be simulated, that is to say can be reduced to signs that constitute faith? Then the whole system becomes weightless, it is no longer anything but a gigantic simulacrum — not unreal, but simulacrum, that is to say never exchanged for the real, but exchanged for itself, in an uninterrupted circuit without reference or circumference (6).

2.3. 1. 1. Sign Value
Baudrillard puts forward the notion of sign value in order to highlight the difference between use value and symbolic exchange. Sign value is defined as a prestigious value of the item instead of its use value. Symbolic exchange happens when products’ value undergo a transition between function and signification. Symbolic exchange is a kind of exchange which deals with social status. It is not after building equivalence between two exchanged items. It rather deals with signs and reality. Unlike simulation which is the exchange of sign with sign, symbolic exchange is the exchange of sign with reality.

As a post Marxist thinker, Baudrillard approached the system of production in new way. In fact, he endeavored to take a new leaf out of Marxist point of view and justifies this ideology in postmodern era. Baudrillard dealt with the fact that Marx emphasized on the exchange value of the product, i.e., the usage of that product or service. Baudrillard, however, believes that in postmodern time, the sign value of the product is also important. As Robert Miklitsch explains “The real movement of Baudrillard’s model derives neither from consumption nor production but simulation, the so called monopoly of codes” (89). Simply put, the product is reduced to its signification and this is the beginning of dealing with post Marxism. In his book Symbolic Exchange and Death, Baudrillard mentions that “[in postmodern era] nothing is produced, strictly speaking: everything is reduced [to signs]” (9). In another word, purchasing an item is a language which differentiates someone’s identity with others through signs. As Baudrillard asserts, “Every act of exchange is thus simultaneously an economic act and a transeconomic act of the production of differential sign value” (For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign 1).Based on political economy and class segregation, Marxism dealt with social processes; while in postmodernism, human delve into signs, cybernetics and flow of information which control every aspect of his life. Unlike Marx who limited his discussions to economic and financial circulations, Baudrillard studies cultural and class differences through abundance of significations in advertisement and media exposition. Consumption according to him is a “systematic act of the manipulation of signs” (Selected Writing 25).
The title of Baudrillard’s book Symbolic Exchange and Death refers to the concept of time in primitive tribes which was cyclical and life and death were not treated separately. In some of their rituals, the deceased had places among living participants. In these ritual ceremonies daily activities were halted and wasting was celebrated. The amount of product wastage showed the social rank of particular entities. Baudrillard used this to show over consumption of capitalist societies. Another feature of capitalist society is its linear approach toward profit where production goes against consumption. By this mentality, capitalist ideology has dividend world into opposite pairs such as life and death, value and non-value, wealth and poverty, etc.
In another book, The Mirror of Production, Baudrillard took a radical shift from Marxism and maintained that neither Marx nor Smith have dealt with postmodern fundamentals enough since they didn’t understand the strong role of signs. Marx has only approached the Capitalist system solely by use value and exchange value. They forgot to bring complexity of symbolic exchange in consumption. Baudrillard pointed to the fact that capitalism has distorted the notion of necessities and produced symbolic wealth instead of production per se to show its authority. Hence, Baudrillars maintains, “It is the matter of the passage of all values to exchange sign values, under the hegemony of the code” (The Mirror of Production 126). The use value of products is not the matter anymore, i.e. “they are not valued for capacity in use. Thus Marx’s use value is not a necessary foundation for understanding objects but it itself a creation of certain social condition” (Cuff 259). Capitalism, according to Baudrillard, has turned commodity into a fetishized product. Capitalism introduces information as a commodity and puts emphasis on exchange value rather than the use value. This is the true notion of simulation where signs exchange with other signs in spent happy societies and this chain never stops. In fact as Lane asserted, “Baudrillard builds his own idiosyncratic theories of consumption via a dovetailing of an updated critique of everyday life and Marx’s theories of production” (Jean Baudrillard 69).
2.3.2. Power Relations
“Power” is a term which doesn’t yield itself easily to any clear cut definitions. Nietzsche, Heidegger, Bourdieu, Weber and Baudrillard are among many thinkers who approached power from many different angles. Marx believed that power is related to economic and social classes and cannot be defined as individual oriented phenomenon. He argues that economic class dominance and production is the key to defining power. Jessop believes that “in capitalist social formation, the estate is considered to be particularly important in securing the conditions for economic class domination” (“Marxist Approaches to Power”). Baudrillard, however, maintained that the notion of power has been dramatically changed during postmodern time. Kellner argued that for Baudrillard, “power is so dispersed, pulverized and dematerialized that it is seemingly impossible to chart its trajectories, structures, relations and effects” (134). He dealt with power outside the realm of social or economic context by questioning its reality. Since it yields itself to simulation, Baudrillard believes that the diffusion of power happens in postmodern time.
In order to understand the concept of power better, building comparison between Baudrillard and Foucault’s point of view regarding power might be quite helpful. Both of them believed that power cannot reside solely in realm of economy or institutions such as jails or concentration camps, but it distributed profusely in society. Nevertheless, Baudrillard believed that power has been converted into codes and signs. He pointed to the fact that the time of simulation has put an end to power itself so “in a simulated situation, order cannot work and power breaks apart and becomes a simulation of power” (Simulacra and Simulation 21).Thus, power disappears and a halo of simulations left behind. Since it is simulated, power doesn’t have any production power as Foucault believed. In his book Forget Foucault, Baudrillard mentions that “when someone talks so much about power, it is because it can no longer found anywhere. The same goes for God: the stage in which he was everywhere come just before the one in which he was dead” (59).
Unlike Foucault who believed that power cannot be concentrated, Baudrillard stressed the fact that power has the potentiality to be piled up. He also pointed out that power in postmodernism is the slave of demand and supply chain which is adjusted by society and capitalist power. It is like any other products which are exchanged throughout the market. Baudrillard reiterates that the best manifestation of power is media and maintains that power comes to those who can manipulate masses’ mind by media or any other effective tools. What media does is either doctoring the truth by misleading the masses or unbalancing the reality. By fantasizing reality and simulation, power is emerged. In fact, it is a pseudo reality without any referential. Seductive technological tools such as internet generate oodles of signs which take our selves away and give us new identities. The goal of advertisement is nothing but converting us to codes and thanks to technology, digital platforms such as TV, radio and social networks became a sounding board to perform it. In fact, our social status can only be recognized by these codes and these signs can be exerted by totalitarian powers. Far from being a neutral force, technological advancement is a main process which contains and reflects ideological assumptions concerning the distribution of power in society.

2.3.3. The End of History
It should be mentioned that even as history specialists relinquish meta narratives and different orders moving in the opposite direction of chronicled models of clarification, a recorded story is still unpretentiously in play, this time as a method for legitimating neoliberalism. In this model, given structure by Francis Fukuyama in his book The End of History and the Last Man, the end of history accepts some positions’ motto that there is no option. But where this postmodernist activists are demanding neoliberalism as the main agent political position, Fukuyama and the neoliberals of our day contend that every other option is closed down. For Fukuyama, Hegel’s concept of history as advancement arrives at an end after the breakdown of Communism and the overall reception of neoliberalism as a political ideology. Unlike Fukuyama who attributed a linear characteristic to the notion of time, Baudrillard studied history in reverse. He believes that all the West urges to do is to wipe all traces of the past and to reverse the milestones.
Jean Baudrillard, as well, maintains that history has arrived to its end with the breakdown of Communism, despite the fact that he sees it bringing about the weariness of meaning and the demise of human advancement as the result of globalization. Dispossessed of any course toward any substitutions or a future, Baudrillard puts forward this idea that history unavoidably begins tallying down toward the main residual reference point, the last moment of recorded cognizance, something like the fear of the two thousand years. When the moment arrives, history lapses and any feeling of succession are absolutely uncompleted. All Baudrillard discusses about is that it is not the history end; it, in fact, is the illusion of the end. He points to the fact that “The end of history is, alas, also the end of the dustbins of history. There are no longer any dustbins for disposing of old ideologies… Where are we going to throw Marxism, which actually invented the dustbins of history? …Conclusion: if there are no more dustbins of history, this is because History itself has become a dustbin” (The Illusion of The End 263).

In order to contemplate history and its end, we should comprehend the notion of past in postmodern time. Our new frame of mind toward the past is the result of an adjustment in memory. New advancements make it workable for us to dislodge our memory into the database. Information stockpiling production such as free online email administrations with high capacity, cloud storages and compact hard drives permit us to keep records of everything. Specific occasions get to be superfluous when it has been recorded in our email program or logbook and can be reviewed immediately. Much as Plato proposed that written work was at the same time a toxic substance and cure in permitting people to record data on paper as opposed to memorizing the event. Quick, reasonable capacity makes the past open to us even as it fixes our need to conceptualize it in our heads. Thus, nostalgia is not what it used to be in postmodern time and history becomes “nostalgia with lost referential” (Simulacra and Simulation 32). We no more need to recollect what the past resemble when we can see it in a multiplication of digital or virtual reality experience. Therefore, technology has altered the notion of the past in a way that it is not easy to understand it is perished. As Baudrillard mentions:
I set out from the idea that we shall not get back to history as it was before information and the media that the excess of history or the excess of eventfulness cancelled out the very possibility of historical action. It isn’t that there are more events, but the events itself is multiplied by its dissemination, by news and information (“Paroxysm” 7).
Another aspect of Baudrillard’s idea about the “end” is temporality. The notion of time is so fundamentally changed in postmodern time that we have moved from the concept of Time to the concept of simultaneous time. Apparently, nothing acknowledges to just live before, and nobody feels scared any more by the descriptive words “antediluvian,” “in reverse, “or “ancient”. Time, the past time of calamitous substitution, has all of a sudden changed into something that neither the West nor the East completely arranged to experience it: a huge time, the season of dwelling together. Everything has gotten to be contemporary. As Baudrillard analyzes country America status in his book with the same name, he points to the fact that “America is the original version of modernity. We are the dubbed or subtitled version. America ducks the question of origins; it cultivates no origin or mythical authenticity; it has no past and no founding truth and having known no primitive accumulation of time, it lives in a perpetual present” (76).
Baudrillard approaches the structure of linear time as having been forced on Western society by Christian notion of Final Judgment and the chronicled point of view to salvation. In any case, this straight verifiable viewpoint is a long way from the entire story. The Bible additionally describes flawlessness as its unique notion in the Garden of Eden and the development of sequential time and absolution as a consequence of its makeshift loss. Absolutely, the Christian perspective of history looks to end of time in the production of another paradise and another earth as the last remedy for the issue of sequential time. The Christ occasion has likewise put another point of view on this issue. Christianity shows that in the midst of sin there can be development, in the midst of death there can be life and in the midst of transience we can locate the immortality that was God’s unique blessing in Eden. As one of the main thinker of postmodernism, Baudrillard, however, demonstrates no familiarity with this sort of Christian acknowledged eschatology and maintained that this form of future forecast may not be relevant to our age. Human life today, for Baudrillard, is invested in a self-intensifying cycle of obsessive reproduction and obsessive consumption, a cycle motivated by a death drive so powerful and so utterly in denial of itself that its activities are relegated to automation.

2.4. Conclusion
In Baudrillard’s opinion, in the postmodern era, that society has turned out to be so dependent on models and maps that it is going to lose all its contact with reality. Reality itself, paradoxically, has simply started to mirror the model which rules over it. Baudrillard maintains that with regards to postmodern reproduction and simulacra, it is no more an issue of mimic, nor duplication, nor even parody; it is an issue of substituting reality with models. He does not just propose that postmodern society is manufactured, on the grounds that the idea of imitation still requires some feeling of reality against which to recognize the fake. His point, rather, is that due to technology and mass media, we have lost all capacity to comprehend the refinement amongst nature and manmade objects or concepts. To elucidate this point, he contends that there are four phases of simulacra through which gradually reality is replaced by hyperreality. In this hyperreal society, he argues, history gets eradicated and the notion of apocalypse is mere illusion due to the overabundance of hyperreal information and lack of meaning.