Popular Culture Review 30.2
ca . Summarizing Baudrillard ’ s position about the essence of power in an age of consumer capitalism , Emil André Røyrvik and Marianne Blom Brodersen elucidate , “ In the postmodern society of simulation and hyperreality , Baudrillard contends that capitalism is organized around sign-values . The modern logic of production has ended , the referent as well as depth , essence and any ‘ outside ’ have all disappeared and societies are organized around the play of images , signs , codes and models ” ( 639 ). Proposing a similar interpretation of Baudrillard ’ s theoretical framework for understanding the pivotal role of simulated paradises in contemporary capitalism as Røyrvik and Brodersen , Douglas Kellner underscores , “ We live in ‘ hyperreality ’ of simulations in which images , spectacles and the play of signs ( or simulacra ) replace the logic of production and class conflict as key constituents of contemporary societies ” ( 129 ). Morin ’ s “ complex theory ” and Baudrillard ’ s reworking of symbolic exchange implore the postmodern subject to be skeptical about the signs that we internalize on a daily basis . Both philosophers attempt to dig beneath the surface of the hyperreal façade concealing the hegemonic purpose of these ubiquitous images in an effort to expose what they consider to be the latest and most oppressive type of social control ever conceived .
In his seminal essay Pour une critique de l�economie politique du signe , Baudrillard decries , “ la production systématique de signes , les systèmes de valeur pour brouiller la lutte des classes et mystifier les gens ” ( 131 ). The philosopher further clarifies , “ la classe dominante assure sa domination et perpétue par un code , une fiction de parité [ ... ] au profit de la classe dominante ” ( Pour une critique de l�economie politique du signe 139 ). In these passages and all throughout his prolific œuvre , it is evident that Baudrillard shares many of the same philosophical convictions as Morin concerning the struc-
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