Our current civilization exists in the realm of the hyperreal: a simulation of reality filled with simulacra of its objects. Universities are falsified copies of universities. Education is a falsified copy of education. The news is “fake news,” a falsified copy of the news. The church presents a falsified copy of the Gospel and uses it to urge you to keep falsified commandments.
Simulacra are images of real things, copies that present themselves not just as mirror images of what is real but as the real things themselves. They’re knock-offs but with an agenda. Over time, these knock-offs get replaced with knock-offs of the knock-offs, or simulacra of the simulacra, and before long, the simulacra themselves present themselves as real while being nothing but a complete fabrication. What a simulacrum copies no longer has any resemblance to the original except in distorted image presented as real. A simulacrum signifies something it is not, it therefore leaves the original unable to be located. These images lock together to create a Matrix-like simulation of existence that has left reality completely behind.
In the West, the ever-evolving term “conservative” has been gradually transitioned into a word that has lost all previous meaning. The conservatives of 50 years ago would not recognize those that pride themselves as conservatives in 2022. As a result, the conservative movement is devoid of authenticity and any semblance of relation to what was actual conservativism. Today, what is referred to as conservative is normally associated with strong-armed technocratic leaders who eschew classic liberalism. Conservatism today is a mere simulacrum of conservatism.
This is also the case with Christianity: the third leg of the stool, along with governance and corporatism in the necessary formula needed for complete societal change. Today’s Evangelical Christianity has all of the aesthetics necessary to visually replicate the Christianity of the recent, orthodox past but has become a useful tool for introducing critical consciousness into the minds of the faithful. That is, it is a mere simulacrum of Christianity.
Join Charlie Kirk, James Lindsay, Michael O’Fallon, Patrick Wood, Jon Benzinger, William Roach, Michael Young, & Andrew Woodard as they explore Mere Simulacrity. Our world has changed in many ways, but we can deal with those changes most effectively by getting our feet back on the ground.
