Polemical Conclusion
In the Culture of the Counterfeit
Critics have often identifi ed current Western culture as a culture
of the image. We live, it’s been said, in a culture of simulation. Guy
Debord may have been the fi rst to recognize this situation when he
conceived The Society of the Spectacle, but by now the perception is
pervasive. Jean Baudrillard, among others, has insisted upon it for
the past three de cades at least. The idea that our society is geared
to simulacra is anything but a new one, though few seem ready to
ask and answer a simple question: Simulacra, precisely, of what?
The answer that arises here is that current pop u lar culture (as
much adored now by the elite as it is by the populace in general) is
largely a culture that simulates Soul. What passes for current- day
culture is often the fabrication of the Soul States. An enormous,
complex, and stunning technological force, which might be put to
use to feed the world or to rid it of disease, is instead devoted to
something else. It is devoted to entertainment—to delivering expe-
riences that fabricate States of Soul. This technology of simulation
was not available in Freud’s time: his escapist patient might read
wish- fulfi lling novels; he might attend a movie or two; he might go
off to a play. Mostly he had to live with the disjunctions that
middle- class life can bring. He had to live with his distance from