Photography or documentaries will always be taken as some form of reality, but I would suggest it is impossible to capture the world ‘as it is’ (reality being the absolute truth). As I was reading the Gulf War Did Not Take Place by Baudrillard, who in my opinion is as much of a genius as he is a pest, I began to think about how we perceive information in any form.
“Information has a profound function of deception.” this quote in particular is what sparked my thinking.
This is simply the nature (or danger?) of information! If something is presented in a convincing manner, like “reality media”, then it is simply perceived as real even though it need not be remotely true. We can then assume that living in this ‘photoshopped’ age tends to produce a more deceived public, rather than a skeptical one. The slide show by Time magazine is an elegant illustration of this problem.
On a personal note, I find that as I look back into the history of thought I see a paradox taking shape. As we we understand more it becomes shockingly clear that nothing is clear. This has culminated in the madness of relativism and post-modern thought. If I am skeptical of photos and documentaries then I am no more skeptical of what I myself perceive to be reality. Baudrillard illustrates where we stand as modern man. His quote, “What I am, I don’t know, I am the simulacrum of myself” is profound, or maybe profoundly absurd. I believe the issue with “reality media” to be a microcosm of the larger debacle taking place. For now, we will have to continue trusting “reality media”, though I/we may not necessarily believe it true.
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I agree, Gavin, that it can be difficult to tell whether Baudrillard is being profound or absurd. You seem to share his skeptical outlook, and believe that essentially this is a sign of the times (or 'Zeitgeist'). If this is so, where do we go from here (an appropriately large and absurd question)? Should we simply regard everything as false, lying, farcical, etc? This is how some react to thinkers like Baudrillard, and it's easy to understand why they would. Do we just throw up our hands? We are powerless, everything is a lie, etc, etc?
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