Being-Towards-Death and the Simulacrum of Death

One of the essential achievements of Being and Time is the setting-aside of the metaphysical conception of death. Within that conception lie not merely the theological idea of death, understood as entry into another life, but also its humanist conception, which regards death as an alien simple-presence, or as being linked in a purely extrinsic way with human life. Heidegger writes, “Death is a way to be, which Dasein takes over as soon as it is.”1 What the naturalistic definition signifies, understanding death as decease, is not only extremely reductive, but also of a piece with a conception of existence grasped as simple-presence – that is to say, as excluding any being-possible, and hence metaphysical in its derivation. The theological conception of death as entry into eternity is based on a metaphysical theory of man conceived in the image of God;2 similarly, the humanistic conception of death understood as decease (that is to say, analyzed from the anthropological, psychological, or biological standpoint) is based on an equally metaphysical theory of man – of man conceived as constant permanence or as constant simple-presence.3 Death cannot be wrested away from metaphysics unless man is too or, in other words, unless possibility is implicit in the concept of being-there (Dasein). According to Heidegger, it is in this way that death becomes the most proper, most authentic possibility of Dasein.Like Heidegger, Baudrillard brings out the basic solidarity between the theological and humanist viewpoints, their common concern being to keep life and death tidily separated: “Life is life, and death is always death.”4 Theology and humanism both conceive life as an identity entirely unrelated to death, as an absolute positivity that must at all costs be distinguished from nothingness: both aspire to abolish death, the one through the eternity of the spirit, the other through the indefinite development of the scientific process. Underlying each is a concept of time linked to political economy and modeled on the idea of unlimited accumulation.Theology and humanism may be regarded as the theoretical formulation of an extremely common form of everyday behavior which consists in not thinking about death, in acting as though it did not exist, and in providing a “constant tranquillization” (ständige Beruhigung) about it.5 For Heidegger, alienation (Entfremdung) consists precisely in this fight from death which pushes Dasein into a fallacious self-confusion that is sometimes misinterpreted as “perfection” or “concrete life.” The parading of an indifferent tranquility in the face of the fact (Tatsache) that one dies constitutes “evasive concealment” (verhüllendes Ausweichen) towards Dasein's being-towards-the-end. It obliterates the fact (Faktum) “that each person's Dasein has effectively always been dying.” Dasein's feeing from the encounter with itself, with its most specific potentiality – that is to say, the encounter with death – is strictly linked to the affective condition of anxiety. Unlike fear, anxiety does not involve a threat from some determinate entity in the world, but remains totally undetermined: “That in the face of which anxiety is anxious is Being-in-the-world itself,”6 namely “the nothing and nowhere” that characterize it phenomenally. Anxiety is linked to the fact of feeling estranged or uncanny (unheimlich), of “not-being-at-home” (Nicht-zuhause-sein). This Unheimlichkeit or uncanniness harasses Dasein and threatens it, if only implicitly: everydayness is constantly engaged in acts of diversion in the attempt to eliminate it. But that fight turns out to be futile: “Anxiety can arise in the most innocuous Situations”;7it constitutes the basic affective situation of everyday life.Baudrillard in turn discovers that a rejection of death lies at the basis of Western everydayness: “little by little, the dead cease to exist. They are thrown out of the group's symbolic circulation.”8 Contemporary daily life rigorously proscribes death: the fact of being dead “is not normal”; it is an inconceivable anomaly. Unlike primitive cultures, which are established on the basis of an intense relation of symbolic reversibility between life and death, modern Western civilization pronounces a virtual prohibition on death, excluding it from the sphere of its experience. This pretension to eradicate the experience of death is linked to the effort of material production and accumulation on the part of the capitalist economy. This is why it is in modern society that death becomes death drive insofar, precisely, as it is repressed, rejected, and kept in the Unconscious. Baudrillard thus provides a historical-social interpretation of the Freudian concept of the death drive, which removes this from the metaphysical context in which psychoanalysis locates it. Moreover, both link everydayness – secretly dominated and threatened by death – with the affective situation of anxiety and the experience of “not-being-at-home.” However, their analyses diverge profoundly in the answer they give to the question of who, in fact, carries out this twofold activity of diversion from, and repression of, death. The itinerary traced out by Heidegger in Being and Time runs from inauthenticity, from the impersonal, worldly das Man, to the authentic being-able-to-be of conscience (Gewissen) through Being-towards-death.11 The itinerary identified by Baudrillard, runs, on the other hand, from the identity of the subject and of consciousness to their dissolution in a multiplicity of social dimensions, a dissolution that takes place through the symbolic experience of death. Being-in-the-world, which for Heidegger is linked to the forgetting of the possibility of death and of being-able-to-be-oneself constitutes for Baudrillard, by contrast, the point of arrival of a regained intimacy with death; conversely, the being thrown back on oneself that is implied in Heideggerian Being-towards-death remains, for Baudrillard, of a piece with the repression of death.In reality, we are speaking here of two totally different dimensions of death: Being-towards-death and death as simulacrum. Being-towards-death is anticipation (Vorlaufen) of death: for Heidegger, Being-there means “being-towards-the-end.” Death is not an as yet unactualized simple-presence, but a threatening immanence that constitutes Dasein at its existential level. It is the ownmost possibility of Dasein, non-relational, not to be outstripped, certain and yet indefinite: this is why its anticipation brings Dasein face to face with the possibility of “being itself ... in an impassioned freedom towards death – a freedom which has been released from the Illusions of the ‘they’ and which is factical, certain of itself, and anxious.”12 Dasein, as such, is called upon to assume its authenticity in the resoluteness (Entschlossenheit) of Being-guilty and of being-towards-the-end. The idea of guilt in Heidegger has nothing to do with the violation of a law or a duty, but refers to the essential nullity of Dasein. Resoluteness means precisely, “a way of reticently projecting oneself upon one's ownmost Being-guilty, and exacting anxiety of oneself”;13 it is thereby anticipatory resoluteness in the face of death, which makes it the lord of existence. It is only by such an anticipatory resoluteness in the face of death that Dasein assumes its dimension of totality or, as Heidegger formulates it, its dimension as authentic “potentiality-for-Being-a-whole.”14The conception of death as simulacrum is diametrically opposed to this Heideggerian conception. It implies a simulation of death, a “symbolic death” that is enacted in the rite of initiation. This practice, extremely common in primitive societies, consists in “the establishment of an exchange where there had been only a raw fact: from natural, random, irreversible death, we pass to a death that is both given and received and hence reversible in social exchange.”15 Initiation is, precisely, a simulated death, which marks children's entry into society and transforms them into genuine social beings. Hence, contrary to contemporary society, based on the repression of death, primitive cultures based their sociality on death or, in other words, on the establishment of a symbolic exchange between life and death. The essential consequence of this perspective is that death is regarded as a starting point: it is not the impending potentiality for Dasein, but its past, its foundation, its past reality. Given this, by its essential nullity, social existence is innocent; the aim of initiation consists, in reality, in expiating the original crime that is birth: it eradicates the “separate advent of birth,” the claim to have an autonomous, independent, subjective identity. The sociality based on the simulation of death is thereby irresponsible: it is at the opposite pole from the individual initiative and professional ethics on the basis of which modern capitalism arose and developed. The Being-nothing and being-no-one that are achieved by initiatory death, grant permission, in their own way, for a strange experience of the totality that consists in being-able-to-be-anything, in a state of availability that is open to all the games of social life.While at one in their rejection of metaphysics, humanism and banal everydayness, Heidegger and Baudrillard propose two opposing conceptions of death, conceptions that have their roots in radically antithetical cultural contexts. Heideggerian Being-towards-death may be regarded as a refection at the ontological level of an ontic experience of death, typical of Lutheran and Jansenist spirituality: Heidegger refers explicitly to Luther and to that tradition that has always considered life as pure meditation on death.16 By contrast, the simulacrum of death of which Baudrillard speaks refers not merely to primitive societies, but also to that Jesuitic-baroque tradition that saw the simulated experience and the vision of death as the entry condition for the great theatre of life. Baudrillard reminds us, in this connection, of the solidity of baroque society, which is “capable of exhuming its dead, of mixing with them (de frayer avec eux) half-way between intimacy and spectacle, of bearing without fright or obscene curiosity ... the theatre of death.”17 These are two great traditions worthy of examination in some detail.It was in the late Middle Ages that the ontic experience underlying Being-towards-death emerged. Its birth coincides with the transition from a more ancient conception, according to which those who died in the bosom of the Church would all have been resurrected at the end of time, to the conception of an individual judgment that follows immediately upon the death of the individual.18 This new conception is broadly illustrated by the Artes moriendi of the latter half of the fifteenth century, short books devoted to the art of dying well, made up of meditations and prayers and accompanied by illustrations most often representing the scene of an individual's death throes and the angels and demons fighting over him for possession of his soul.19 However, the real entry into this dimension of Being-towards-death does not occur until the Artes moriendi of the last years of the century (1488–1500). These latter are intent not so much on guaranteeing salvation after death as on dictating standards to live by. In them, attention is shifted from the privileged, highly dramatic moment of death – and the extreme ordeal experienced by the dying person – to the area of everyday life, understood as contemplation of, and preparation for, death. He who wishes to live well must learn how to die well: the good life is simply the consequence of a good life lived in permanent expectation of death or, as Savonarola put it, lived “with the spectacles of death.” Jakob de Jüterbogk's Tractatus de arte bene moriendi presents death as the direct inspiration for a whole series of rules that have to be applied on a daily basis: he who lives in permanent contemplation of death will never be certain of his own fate and this will keep him tirelessly working in God's service. What emerge from the Artes moriendi are the most fundamental aspects of Heideggerian Being-towards-death: the privileging of anxiety, understood as the opening-up to authentic existence; meditation on death regarded as the moment when man becomes conscious of himself; the certainty that man is only ever “living on borrowed time,” is only ever a death delayed, a dead man walking; and, lastly, the acceptance of one's own radical culpability.It is in Luther, however, that all these themes come together in the most vigorous and fertile way. Anxiety (angustia) is regarded by him as the fundamental affective state of Christian life, forming the essential premise of the work of salvation:20 it is, in fact, closely linked to the human condition, which is essentially vitiated by original sin. This is why anxiety is not an accidental emotion, but stems from the definitive, irremediable loss of our original wholeness.For this reason, Luther's theology has been rightly described, by contrast with the “theology of glory” of Loyola and the Jesuits, as a “theology of the cross,”21 on account of the fundamental role played in it by pain and the sense of despair. Luther “teaches that suffering, the crosses we bear and death are the most precious treasures of he regards upon them as the means of the and that come from the and of The life of the Luther, is nothing but a death that at and in the it is the fact of being to die at any in a permanent encounter with these in a of devoted to this for in which Luther the extreme of a for death that daily refection on that freedom for death of which Heidegger speaks is at the existential in this of that is typical of Lutheran as it is this freedom man – that is to say, nothing that can ever – but the of any dimension of and one an that to the of and linked with more one him in the for Christian life. In Luther, as in Heidegger, this never takes the form of an or it simply up the nullity of the that is existence. For Luther, to claim for is to into to oneself does not to be but simply to and oneself at or, to how to in the of one's own though Heidegger is to his concept of conscience (Gewissen) from the theological its with Luther refers to by the all – and where both are – the concept has nothing to do with pure and with the definition of consciousness as of a In his on the Luther such an in his is good only if it is not conscious of those who are never that they consciousness of one's own would merely turn it into into a a Christian life is never of its own nullity, but simply pure nullity, which is to be by Luther, “is not a does it but it and the nullity of and the of that lie in Heideggerian consciousness is at the opposite pole from a simple-presence of the to the rejection of the one of the basic on which Being and Time is For Heidegger, there can be no question of on the consciousness it simply to the ownmost possibility of Dasein, namely death. This of that Heidegger to consciousness is not without its with Luther's in both the is to a condition common to it be the premise of in Luther or the to Dasein in It is, in no a question of a relation with in Luther the may be called upon to in no way on an individual in Heidegger, the is – is it taken up by is, in the essential of existence that Heideggerian Being-towards-death has its Lutheran is totally of any to a or a Dasein is by the fact of Luther's is not but it consists not in and on the basis of and but in to that which we have no to hence it with The of all on radical or, as Heidegger it, on “being at the of a if Heidegger is at to Dasein's Being-guilty from the theological concept of the Lutheran conception of is so of any or that it constitutes at the the premise of thinking on this a of being to Heideggerian Being-towards-death is in in its of original and human is much to through the experience of or of or through the to and the These are themes that can be traced back to an inspiration common to both is radically opposed to the humanist conception that death as a pure of life, a conception taken over from the For death is the that most the is never too to oneself to this, we to do nothing for the of our lives ... It is to put this idea for The of death is closely linked to that of no time too to him for for death, for it is death that into question the conception of This for death is not alien to a certain form of to the Lutheran in is for a Christian to death and in to life and his and in it, for of ... the idea of death is ... ... He who he to God's as a and he must in as a of ... will have no with this – death is Heidegger much the when he that anticipatory resoluteness is in no way a for death, but the understanding that from the of a that death the possibility of itself of Dasein's existence and any possibility of Artes moriendi of the half of the century are by humanist thereby the of the it is that wishes to die well learn to live For in that there is no to death and that the man not concern with it from the – and at – and In his that the man be in the face of death, to the question of the humanist of the and the of though one opposed to any humanist consideration of life and death, would be up by but not until the work arte bene moriendi provides a of this new which turns to be to the humanist diversion from death or to Lutheran The of the art of dying well is with the humanist that wishes to die well will to live well, death is merely the end of life, it is certain that lives well to the end will die and he who has never lived will not be to die as has lived will also die so has never lived well will die this, the conception of well turns out to be radically different from the for the good life with the of death as for one can live well only if one is dead or, in other words, if one has in that death, that simulation of death that is a taken from the of The which is the of any who was of the of between and was in the of that one place oneself in a state of death at a by way of for, and life, and that we are never so as when we can with die This simulation of death will a of on the question the and The is here an in his of that we our die to in and live as though we this way, the an experience of death that was more in existence the For them, it was a question of to of death of the idea of must be by contrast, was to it an – for all into anxiety – so in the as to it into a for in the world, and not of the and “the life of the without as by do in any a of but are for a For is not the of this world, or that are to but only a certain way of them, as though they to those who wishes to live well be to or, in other words, be open to any of life the may But this simulation of death is a form of it a new of that from any idea of According to the the “that they also who have be as if they had and they that as though they and they that as if they and they that as though they and they that this world, as if they it death was not always and experienced in such an original way within the at conceptions of death and the art of dying that not from the Lutheran as in In the of or it is that being here as in or the of an conceived as absolute with the will of is the of the all these is is the the of the of is essentially towards in the and by In these the essential is that the simulation of death is not a point of but a point of a starting This is radically different from the that their worthy of which both of Luther's and have the of a – in other words, it is different from an activity that to the in acts at the affective because it us, the state or condition of life that out of the or because it as being merely a precisely, is not of an but of an if this is the of that is not because this can be to be so from the of but because it remains to within it in such a way as to any of existence a and This is why is not based on which implies an of the thereby remains linked to but on the one will always and – both on the of death and in one's death work precisely to that he who is dead, he who has the “little death” of can bear any with and death throes are life and a piece of theatre one must to But this can be only by who is who have the of death at if not more ... we die This to from the tradition which has it from – and for years – of those who lived in the be to have it being the that they dead within its The of this tradition a such thinking totally the judgment of and man in a state of of the law and of an much more radical the of a Luther or a has experienced the “little death” of for salvation and this being the come that who was by the Jesuits, into his and an baroque with as speaks as dying is merely the of death; is simply dying as for the they are death of which the cannot In this death is as it is in Luther or Heidegger, one as the most certain but the of existence from the on which the great theatre of the is It is no longer linked to Heideggerian but to the for production is – as an well – most society and those who are dead or indifferent can in for is simply and which any or of the the transition to occur from simulation to the baroque simulacrum of death. in and in Heidegger, Being-towards-death is linked to the as in the Jesuitic-baroque tradition it is the of death that has the Death is not but it is not of the of the but of the of simulacrum. work in the to and of have the of humanist with the by baroque In reality, in the half of the century, of one or more or to more common as time This was in the century, on to the of the often in the of the and it The of or those of a in an image that at death's over the and of But this interpretation is in baroque society, death and the are not for the great theatre of the is precisely, to the end of all metaphysical the of the social is upon exchange between life and death is symbolically on the of the at in at the it the of the is a of as accompanied by the dead to the image and the simulacrum This means that his life was not a life, but a pure simulation of death; upon his death this him to his part in the of the great theatre of the so understood his on a in society and in no way the of that have as their both the of great and the of human more this, and are only to be precisely because they are experienced as – are to be – This is why it is not that are of death, but also and society as a of the baroque lies precisely in this between death and between and from an end to death is simply at the of is not does it it is a of and a of The fact that these are not but and and do not to any of precisely out of the fact that they bear no relation to life as simple-presence, to the life of the to life conceived with to death, there is back simulacrum of death is man The which death in is not death, but remains of the are simply the upon which the of man is do not death and are nothing but own death has the of each of and are all of – as are – own The is death and the face is death.” is, an a a of death; but that there is no more essential of death. Death is a a a is why it presents as aspects as there are of existence; it takes upon it all all of all Its availability is that we within the of or, in other words, of by contrast, man the of to in of and metaphysical or theological there is no way to and that consists in in any state or any condition – a without from Loyola to – the for the that will out in and the to them by The Jesuitic-baroque up the perspective not of but of the simulacrum. Hence, this with our which is according to Baudrillard, by both the end of political economy and its as simulation all are for one another for real and this exchange runs – runs – only on condition that they are not for by is a of de Heidegger in de Baudrillard

Aesthetics · Art · Palliative care · Place of death · Simulacrum · Cultural Studies and Postmodernism · Medicine · Philosophy · Spatial and Cultural Studies · Walter Benjamin Studies Compilation

• Symbolic Exchange and Death

  Jean Baudrillard•Symbolic Exchange and Death•1976

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