[Leica] re: The Decisive Moment is gone

[john bohner <johnbohner@earthlink.net>]

This really is a very interesting thread.  May I offer some grist for the
mill?  Jean Baudrillard published a tome in the 1980's titled "Simulacra
and Simulation" which delt with aspects that the list has been discussing.
Baudrillard describes four phases of imagery.
1) It is a reflection of a profound reality   
2) It masks and denatures a profound reality
3) it masks the absence of a profound reality (it begins to create one of
its own)
4) It has no relation to any realilty whatsoever - it is its own pure
sumlacrum
You are free to hold your own opinion as to what stages we are in at any
one moment but I think much of what I see as "news" is level 3 bordering on 4.
I recommend Baudrillard's book and for your further contemplation it is a
key part of the intellectual underpinnings of the film "The Matrix" and can
be seen at the begining of the film just prior to Neo's following the
"white rabbit"

John Bohner

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