Real and Fake

I had no idea about just what kind of things are being copied these days - nor about the volume of fakes circling the world in shipping containers. Learning of this reminded me of a Deleuze and Krauss passage, which I reread to find just how accurately it foreshadowed this glut of 'simulacra' clogging the ocean. Of course, they were writing to 'overthrow Plato'. But my latest approach to this theory has been to see it as sci-fi: recognising a present trend and then exaggerating it to paint that picture of what would happen if things keep going - unobstructed - along their course: theory is, then, if I may be permitted a reductionist stroke, like an oversized 1980s photograph that has been blown up (not thinking of Cortázar). Remember the novelty? A zooming in, a distortion through the oversized. Us, but not us.
Anyway, here is the passage - first with the definition of "copy" vs. "simulacrum", then the passage itself. Does it not remind you of the profusion of fakes?
After that, this week's links.

Copies are secondhand possessors, well-grounded claimants, authorized by resemblance. Simulacra are like false claimants, built on a dissimilitude, implying a perversion, an essential turning away. It is in this sense that Plato divides the domain of the image-idols in two: on the one hand the iconic copies (likenesses), on the other the phantasmatic simulacra (semblances). (...)
In the overthrow of Platonism (...) The nonhierarchical work is a condensation of coexistences, a simultaneity of events. It is the triumph of the false claimant. (...) But the false claimant cannot be said to be false in relation to a supposedly true model, any more than simulation can be termed an appearance, an illusion. Simulation is the phantasm itself, that is, the effect of the operations of the simulacrum as machinery, Dionysiac machine. It is a matter of the false as power, Pseudos, in Nietzsche's sense when he speaks of the highest power of the false. The simulacrum, in rising to the surface, causes the Same and the Like, the model and the copy, to fall under the power of the false (phantasm). It renders the notion of hierarchy impossible in relation to the idea of the order of participation, the fixity of distribution, and the determination of value. It sets up the world of nomadic distributions and consecrated anarchy. Far from being a new foundation, it swallows up all foundations, it assures a universal collapse, but as a positive and joyous event, as de-founding (effondement).
Deleuze, Gilles and Rosalind Krauss. "Plato and the Simulacrum." October, Vol. 27 (Winter, 1983), pp. 45-56

Compare the passage with: Les nouveaux mercenaires du faux - Documentaire: Les faussaires ne se contentent plus d'imiter les sacs ou les polos de marque. Ils ont infiltré l'agroalimentaire avec des mayonnaises, des sodas ou des plats cuisinés d'origine douteuse. (The blurb doesn't quite capture the craziness of the overflowing of fakes it shows.)

B/Logrolling:

Two more documentaries, the first on Linky: Des milliers de Français refusent l’arrivée de ce nouveau compteur dans leur foyer, et certains affirment même vivre un enfer depuis son installation. Tous craignent que cet appareil "intelligent" ne collecte toutes leurs données personnelles… (A more interesting point, only brought up in passing, is how the electricity infrastructure was built before we all started to use the internet and plug in dozens of 'extra' gadgets.)

The second on "anti-consos": Les « décroissants » : consommer moins pour vivre mieux  Les sociologues les appellent les « décroissants », en France ils sont de plus en plus nombreux à refuser de consommer toujours plus. Ils refusent la spirale de la société de consommation.

For Wittgenstein, Philosophy Had to Be as Complicated as the Knots it Unties Making Sense of Nonsense, From Bertrand Russell to the Existentialists

The American Aristotle Charles Sanders Peirce was a brilliant philosopher, mathematician and scientist. His polymathic work should be better known 

I also wanted to write about Jeremy Brett's onstage poise and gesture, perfected in Sherlock Holmes. The way he moves is like measured dancing. How you would dance if you were not actually dancing but wanted to use your body for expression. Of course, this is taught in drama, but Brett worked on his style for decades, as suggested by this early musical, The Merry Widow (what a voice he has!) His individual flair is so far removed from today's normcore: I hear that Smoky the Bear may get a new motto (from "Only you can prevent wildfires" to something with a collective "we").