Since Baudrillard consistently describes representative absorption of simulacra in resuscitatory terms (‘a sympathetic nervous system’ [Baudrillard, 13]; ‘a sort of hormonal treatment through negativity and crisis…to escape…real death throes’ [Baudrillard, 19]; ‘a stimulant…to a dying system…fresh blood…revive it through the negative’ [24]), are we then to understand simulacral 'envelopings of the whole edifice of representation' as in some sense euthenasic, delivering ‘mortal blows’ [Baudrillard, 27], however successfully, to ideology and power? If we are to understand simulation in this way, is it a sort of 'moral' or 'political' - perhaps 'critical'? - imperative to unmask simulacra vigorously, and return doubt upon all simulacral institutions? Or is such activity self-defeating, since it feeds moribund representational systems the 'deaths' that they require to escape real death, and maybe not even desirable? Would Baudrillard prefer - to string in discussion from the Break? thread - to return certain simulacra to what might have been a 'pre-capitalist' age of taken-for-grantedness, or at this point is it best to pull the rug out from under everything?

--Guattari Hero