Becoming Real in an Age of Shameless Lies

Abstract

This article first examines the relationship between the postmodern deconstruction of representation and recent post-truth politics. It discusses to what extent the “hyper-reality of simulacra” (Baudrillard) has become an instrument of power in recent auto-cratic policies. In return, it explores an alternative way of thinking of “the real.” The basic thesis is that the real has its own force. Therefore, it is able to represent itself, that is, to reject certain signs as well as to demand them. However, the concept of representation proposed here does not fall back on the separation of subject and object typical for classical representation theory. Accordingly, the real is not to be understood as an objective counterpart to which we direct ourselves. Rather, it is a continuous founding process, more precisely, a surplus movement that lets us and all beings be. By genetically flowing through all things, it allows them to show themselves from themselves, thus counteracting the distortions tied to their appearing like a bad but unavoidable coun-terweight.