Subject: Re: Simulacrum and the Supplement (for Jim)
Omlor@aol.com
Date: Mon Oct 08 2001 - 15:31:47 GMT
Hi Jim,
You ask about the simulacrum and its relationship to the supplement. It
seems to me that the simulacrum, as Baudrillard formulates and makes use of
it, may have developed in part out of the chapter in *Grammatology* on "That
Dangerous Supplement" and even from some of the later work in *Dissemination*
on supplementarity (especially in "The Double Session") by Derrida.
But then two things happen.
In Baudrillard, the concept takes on an almost geographical and cultural
component that posits itself, at least surreptitiously, in addition to
language and the rigorous problematics of differance (thus its use in
*America* and *Cool Memories,* for instance, in terms of a cultural landscape
and history). This marks a clear opposition to the notion in the original
Derridean framework. The second thing that happens is that Derrida also, in
his own work, thoroughly rewrites the notion of supplementarity in terms of
the more complicated problematic logics of the gift and the ghost and this
removes from it its original restricted economy and thereby further distances
it from Baudrillard's first, second, and third orders of simulation, which
are clearly still progressive.
That's the short answer.
For more, we should retire to private e-mail, I'm sure.
Meanwhile, today's Bio # 15 remains hanging on the board (with only # 8 by
its side).
All the best to all readers,
-- John
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