Plato, Baudrillard, and the Simulacra
An Original Platonic Dialogue
Balmy afternoon in a lavish New York apartment. PHAEDRA and JULIEN, two recent lovers, emerge from a far-off bedroom into the dining room. A round chrome table with three padded dining chairs stands at the center. PHAEDRA gravitates towards a bookcase in the back of the room before returning with a pamphlet that has been acting as a bookmark in her copy of The Essays of Oscar Wilde. JULIEN sits down at the table with a bulky hardcover tome bearing the name The Complete Dialogues of Plato. He leafs through the old book before asking PHAEDRA to bring him his copy of Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation. PHAEDRA obliges and meets him at the table.
PHAEDRA: Did I mention that Diana called today and invited us both up to the Cloisters?1
JULIEN: Mmm, darling, do you know what Baudrillard says about the Cloisters?
PHAEDRA: Absolutely not, nor do I really care. Frankly, the last time I picked that book off of your bookshelf, I nearly gave myself a heart attack. I can’t tell at all why you immerse yourself in this postmodern discourse, as you call it, but I do know for certain that I much rather fancy traditional Western metaphysics untainted by your nihilistic neologisms.
JULIEN: Baudrillard is, like your beloved Plato, the paradigm of Western metaphysics. That’s a Platonic word, were you aware? Παράδειγμα.2
PHAEDRA: Are you trying to convince me you learned Ancient Greek overnight as well?
JULIEN: That wouldn’t be a far cry from the truth, no, depending on what your truth may be. Plato has one, of course, a perfect truth, the ἀλήθεια3 of which all philosopher-kings should theoretically be in possession… But ask yourself, darling, what if Plato’s truth is not the truth at all? Why must it be that we have never questioned his authority, that there does exist a better reality beyond the cave? What if I, an autonomous denizen of this philosophical pothole, am content living with my rotating shadows that give my life a purpose?
PHAEDRA: You’re not autonomous, though; in the scenario of the cave, you’re strapped down—you have no other choice, and you won’t know what’s better until you free yourself of your chains; only then will your eyes be opened to reality in its—
JULIEN: No, but suppose I lifted myself up, the filthy naked caveman I’ve become, found myself a pair of trousers, ventured towards and past the seeping sunlight to discover this profound epistemology that Plato’s fed us in his dialogue—and what if I was not at all exalted by the truth but disappointed?
PHAEDRA: Your disappointment would be temporary. You would come to love it after a period of adjustment. Plato describes that as well: at first, the prisoner, blinded by the sun, is disoriented. He’s had his whole worldview destabilised—of course he’s going to be afraid of the whole contraption, but then his eyes adjust, and he knows that he’s just discovered something wonderful…
JULIEN: Darling, suppose my wonderful is not your wonderful.
PHAEDRA: Then I would tell you that you’re not lending yourself properly to all the Forms, that you are not fit to be philosopher-king.
JULIEN: No, but that’s the bloody point, I am. I am because I’ve dared to see things differently. I’ve seen the world, and now I can assert that what I’ve lived with inside the cave was infinitely more real than what I’ve found outside of it because what dwells inside the cave is my understanding of reality—and there’s nothing wrong simply with admitting that, sometimes, what is perceived as real from an arbitrary model of societal discourse that we’ve borrowed from the Platonists is not reality in itself. Admit that I am your reality—you have lent your ears to the melody of Julien and thus, in your admiration of the simulacra that I represent in your mind, you have apprehended the possibility of seizing this reality—but if this reality had always existed, and you were never made aware of it until you saw an artistic reproduction—the postmodern personification of your literary tendencies—then can’t we say that it was the simulacra that you fell in love with and are only duping yourself into thinking that there exists something beyond your Julien because of an arbitrary παράδειγμα that you stole from Plato—can’t we say that the simulacra is your superior reality?
PHAEDRA: What—just because I am talking to you? Because you think you are not—I don’t quite see the point of all this. Just because you don’t have it in you to be philosopher-king doesn’t mean that Plato was wrong…
JULIEN: No, but can’t you see… there is no wrong in the postmodern tradition! Otherwise, you wouldn't be here, talking to me?
PHAEDRA: Then, perhaps, I prefer to remain in the Platonic paradigm.
JULIEN: No, that can’t be. The moment you gave yourself up to me was the moment you destroyed all other prospects for yourself but that of the simulacra and simulation. Listen, I’ve been writing an article about just this, the Platonic concept of the truth, and if you’ll only bear with me, I suppose I can spell it out for your “untainted” ears.
PHAEDRA: I’m listening.