Simulacrum
Simulacrum- "a likeness, a resemblance, a sham"
I think that we have become a people of simulacrum. Many of the soldiers I have met compare their experiences of combat to movies like "Blackhawk Down". We live in a world of representations. William Gibson has brought this up from time to time, with the notion that humans create a super-reality for themselves. The idea of the superlative in motion, a thing refined past any resemblance to its progenitor. It takes some time for the American in me to quiet its desire to see things as superlatives, or archetypes. Having no real experience of life outside my own familiar surroundings, I tend to ascribe to my experiences some pre-conceived attribute in order to try and make sense of it. The real learning comes with the sublimation of the simulacrum by the real. Preconceptions fade in the continued presence of the real. The immediacy of the experience defies the abstraction. Fuad replaces Oliver Twist. South Africans become more complicated.
I think that we have become a people of simulacrum. Many of the soldiers I have met compare their experiences of combat to movies like "Blackhawk Down". We live in a world of representations. William Gibson has brought this up from time to time, with the notion that humans create a super-reality for themselves. The idea of the superlative in motion, a thing refined past any resemblance to its progenitor. It takes some time for the American in me to quiet its desire to see things as superlatives, or archetypes. Having no real experience of life outside my own familiar surroundings, I tend to ascribe to my experiences some pre-conceived attribute in order to try and make sense of it. The real learning comes with the sublimation of the simulacrum by the real. Preconceptions fade in the continued presence of the real. The immediacy of the experience defies the abstraction. Fuad replaces Oliver Twist. South Africans become more complicated.
5 Comments:
ok, i'll bite: What about South Africans?
Hey Brother
The is your friendly neighborhood Sailor boy. Its good to know that you are still alive. Anyway, I see your point and agree, somewhat, with it. One paradigm however, in examining your point is communication. Are the soldiers you're referring to using a Simulacrum or are they using a common frame of reference to communicate their Idea. The other point I'd like to address is that we all joined for different reasons, when we signed up. We all also had a perception of this way of life before we joined. You joined imagining a dream, and reality shifts the paradigm. So at the end of our contract we stay or re-up, basing out decisions on the reality we see through experience. The Simulacrum is no longer valid, but the frame of reference that built the dream still may be. I haven't seen what you've seen, I can only imagine it as something like the old and new war films, and I have some experience. How would I describe that to someone that is clueless? I guess I'd have to use BlackHawk Down.
To Virtu2K1:
A point well taken. We communicate to each other in terms of archetypes, but I wonder if that communication doesn't reinforce the skewing of our reality. I often heard from my colleagues when they got home from the sandbox that they had no desire to talk to civilians about their combat experiences, because no-one would understand the truth, taking from the descriptions offered some other perspective. By the way, nice of you to get in touch. email me at Icarrus_fell@hotmail.com and I'll give you my real email address. I've lots to tell you.
Hey Joey,
Very good discusion material. I do, however, think that you have to remember in the regaling of tales from such a high stress enviroment, is that the reality of the moment, even in the moment, is colored and sometimes skew by the emotions of the moment. Human beings in this day and age, in the US, do not live in such a life and death struggle to make the act of warfare a concept easy to digest once in it. The more charged the fears, anxiety, and pressure in a given event, will change one persons "reality" to the next, even in the same exact circumstances. All of us deal with things in different ways, and these coping techniques often change the way we accept and process what's going on around us. With todays generation, seeing alot of movies like Black Hawk down, that may be there way of dealing with it. Relating an experiance in terms of a movie can kind of soften the sting of fact it really happened. It's interesting to note, also, that in an addendum to the original book, Black Hawk Down, Mark Bowden notes that many of the veterans of the Battle of Bakarra Market, felt like they were in a movie, and related the experiance thusly. Your point is though very well taken.
On this subject, what can you have to say?
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