Editing Truth (section)

===Baudrillard (1929–2007)===
[[Jean Baudrillard]] considered truth to be largely simulated, that is pretending to have something, as opposed to dissimulation, pretending to not have something. He took his cue from [[iconoclasm|iconoclasts]] whom he claims knew that images of God demonstrated that God did not exist.<ref name = "Baudrillard">Jean Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan: Michigan University Press, 1994.</ref> Baudrillard wrote in "Precession of the Simulacra":
::The [[simulacrum]] is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true.
::—Ecclesiastes<ref>Baudrillard, Jean. [http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html "Simulacra and Simulations", in ''Selected Writings''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040209024621/http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html |date=2004-02-09 }}, ed. [[Mark Poster]], [[Stanford University Press]], 1988; 166 ''ff''</ref><ref>Baudrillard's attribution of this quote to [[Ecclesiastes]] is deliberately fictional. "Baudrillard attributes this quote to Ecclesiastes. However, the quote is a fabrication (see Jean Baudrillard. Cool Memories III, 1991–95. London: Verso, 1997). Editor's note: In Fragments: Conversations With François L'Yvonnet. New York: Routledge, 2004:11, Baudrillard acknowledges this 'Borges-like' fabrication." Cited in footnote #4 in Smith, Richard G., [https://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol2_1/smith.htm#_edn4 "Lights, Camera, Action: Baudrillard and the Performance of Representations"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425060347/https://www2.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol2_1/smith.htm#_edn4 |date=2018-04-25 }}, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, Volume 2, Number 1 (January 2005)</ref>

Some examples of [[simulacra]] that Baudrillard cited were: that prisons simulate the "truth" that society is free; scandals (e.g., [[Watergate scandal|Watergate]]) simulate that corruption is corrected; Disney simulates that the U.S. itself is an adult place. Though such examples seem extreme, such extremity is an important part of Baudrillard's theory. For a less extreme example, movies usually end with the bad being punished, humiliated, or otherwise failing, thus affirming for viewers the concept that the good end happily and the bad unhappily, a narrative which implies that the status quo and established power structures are largely legitimate.<ref name = "Baudrillard"/>